Reminisce With Me

Chapter 21: Ghosts of the Past

The man next to me wore a black mask, his arms were rods of iron, pinning me against the car seats. The second the name "Shore" slipped past his lips, the urge to fight back disappeared. I did not fit the traditional victim: I did not scream, I did not cry, and I willingly offered my hands for them to tie. 

I stared out the tinted windows, the street lights passing by in quick blurs. The person sitting in the passenger seat faced the driver and I caught her red hair at once. 

"Reyna," I whispered and she faced the front of the car again, overlooking my words. "Do you know who I am?"

I didn't understand where the confidence came from, but oddly enough, I wasn't afraid of her. I could hear Reyna heavily breathing, which either meant: 'yes I know you', or 'where can we bury her corpse after we kill her'.

Both answers scared me.

The driver turned onto a gravel path, the tires tumbling over the little pebbles below. It was too dark to see where we were. The car finally came to a stop and Reyna spun around, pulling her mask off. "How do you know me?" she asked, straight to the point. 

"I asked you first," I said and the man next to me pushed me harder against the seat. I wondered whether it was Flynn or Stan.

Reyna had beads of sweat on her forehead. It trickled down to her jaw, falling carelessly onto her jacket. 

You make her nervous, my mind told me. I couldn't comprehend how a professional criminal was afraid of someone like me. 

"I've seen you before," her voice was barely a whisper as she analyzed each feature of mine, attempting to find the answers she longed for. "You came into one of my dreams. You, you hurt me."

"I hit you," I said, remembering the day in the city. "And your nose bled."

Reyna gasped, her eyes pooling with tears. "How did you know that?"

The heat rose up my neck and I let out a shaky breath, the warm air enclosing around me. Everything Amelia had said about the effects of the machine did not match what I was seeing before my eyes. Reyna, a person I had met briefly in the past, remembered me from a dream. I was not supposed to change the present. I was not supposed to impact anyone's life but my own.  

I was speechless, which made the person next to me curse out loud. He stripped his mask off and it took me a moment before recognizing him. It was Stan. 

"Answer her," he said, pressing his arms against me again.

I whimpered in pain and the person in the drivers' seat finally turned around, locking his eyes on me. "Stan, that's enough," the boy said and I continued to stare into his familiar blue eyes. 

He had aged. I felt light headed at once.

Do you believe in ghosts, Aubrey? My mind asked me with a hint of mockery.

I no longer knew what I believed in.  

"Aubrey Shore?" Noel said, sucking in a handful of air. "The girl who walked into my dreams and then one day vanished."

My body went numb and I could feel the darkness take over.

***

My nose tickled and I turned away, letting my back fall onto something hard. I slowly opened my eyes, greeted by the night sky. My fingers clutched onto grass and I sat up, looking around frantically, confused as to where I was. A lake stretched out next to me, the wind creating gentle ripples on the water. 

"Are you okay?" someone asked and I jumped, realizing Noel, Reyna and Stan were sitting on the lake bench. 

"Pearson, who is this girl?" Stan asked and Noel shrugged, still watching me while smoking a cigarette.