Strained

Chapter Nineteen

I stepped forward, my feet padded against the cold cement. My arms were covered in goosebumps but it wasn't due to the low temperature, it was the fear mixed with anxiety as I crept forward. The room smelled like cleaning products and chemicals too harsh for human noses. Still, I kept moving forward the determination pushing each foot in front of the other.
I saw my breath as I exhaled. The metal cases in front of me loomed ahead.

Another breath and I extended my hand forward. My hand shook as my fingers closed around the handle. I needed to open it to be sure — to know. I couldn't live in this not knowing anymore. If Kate's mom was dead I needed to know. This limbo of questions was over. Kate needed to know and I was the only one able to find out. I was at the morgue in the dead of night to find out the truth.

Slowly, I pulled the handle of the body drawer and it slid out of the wall. It was louder than I expected. It reminded me of the metal on metal sound from the accident. The accident that killed Isobel O'sburn. There was a thin white sheet over the body. My breath came out shaky, but I ignored it. It was my heart that I was worried about. It beat steadily in my chest, the sound hot in my eardrums.

I bit my lip as I reached to pull the sheet back. When I did I couldn't help but gasp. The body in front of me wasn't Isobel. This body had scarlet red hair, milky skin that was littered with petite freckles and legs that went on for days. If the eyes opened I knew they would be the mixture of green and yellow. The body in front of me was me!

That couldn't be.

I was alive. I wasn't dead.

My mind raced to find a logical explanation for this. I blinked, trying to snap myself out of whatever dream I was in. It didn't work. I was still in the morgue staring at my own body. This was too much. I need to leave. I started to put the sheet back and close the case, but the body moved with intense speed. One hand clasped around my wrist with precision and accuracy that startled me cold.

"You're looking in the wrong place," my eyes stared at myself. They were bloodshot and murky. How you would expect after being soaked in water for a few days. I wanted to recoil but the sound of my own voice warning me froze me to the core.

I moved my mouth to ask what that meant, but then everything was gone.

I woke up covered in sweat with my heart racing. To my right, my clock showed me the time: 3:41 am. Great, it's the middle of the night. Pushing myself off the bed, I went to the bathroom. There was no way I was falling back asleep. It's been three days since Kate's mom's car accident and each night I had a nightmare. It was always the same dream, me lying in the morgue. Each and every night I saw my own dead eyes, but tonight was different. Tonight was the first time my dead body talked to me.

"You're looking in the wrong place," how ominous of my dead self. 

What did that mean? My subconscious had to be telling me something. I hadn't realized I was even looking for something, little lone looking in the wrong place. Lately, I had been trying to act as normal as possible. My vision of Isobel's accident continued to haunt me. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her crippled and mangled body. It was on repeat, looping through the most traumatic times. I couldn't stop it no matter what I tried. 

It didn't help that Addie had been gone for almost a month. I wanted to talk to her, but I knew better than to mention anything Supernatural around her. We talked yesterday on the phone for about five minutes and the whole time I was holding my breath. It was too easy to tell her about magic, the Coven, Maverick, Erik's broken arm, Kate's mom's accident, or about my mom and Benjamin. The things I wanted to tell her piled up, but I kept them all to myself. I didn't want to burden her.