Darkest Death

Chapter Thirteen - Penelope

I fell down, but I never touched the ground.

Instead, I opened my eyes to an endless sea of darkness. I couldn't see anyone. Kali, Liam, Julia, even my great-grandfather and Annabel were gone. Suddenly, something breached the darkness.

A hand reached down towards me and I grabbed it. A pang thrusted through me, as I felt the familiar hand. I looked up, and in front of me, as if she'd always been there and okay, was my dead best friend Nicola.

Her blonde hair fell down her back, looking healthier than ever. She was wearing the red dress, she had died in. It was ripped, like it had been on the graveyard back when I'd only just discovered my powers. There was a hole where the knife had struck, but the skin beneath was pale and clean, as if it'd been carved in stone.

"Nicci?" My voice was faint as I stood up. She frowned at me, making my stomach turn.

"So, you're here now, huh?" Her voice was sharp and very far from the kind, most of the time sarcastic, voice, I was used to from her. I stepped back slightly.

"What's wrong?" I asked. Nicola rolled my eyes, before starting to walk away, her footsteps the only sound echoing in the darkness. I followed her.

"As if you don't know," she said. Sending me a sharp glance. "You didn't save me, Penelope. You didn't save me when you could've."

I stopped dead in my tracks, my stomach twisting as a ragged breath escaped me. My vision blurred.

"I... I..." No words came, though I tried to think of them. Nicola gave a knowing snort, not bothering that I had stopped.

She was right. I could have saved her back then. Before Julia's birthday, when she'd told me, I was a banshee. I didn't believe. I didn't want to believe it. What if I had told her I did, and she had never died?

Or what if I had looked into my visions before then? When I'd caught her on that necromancy website? I should have told her about the visions! She'd have figured it out, and then she would have kept away from the murders.

No.

No, she wouldn't have kept away from the murders no matter what had happened, for one simple reason. She was a detective and she believed in doing what was right and fair. She loved puzzles, and this had been the biggest one yet. I ran up to Nicola – or the mean ghost version of her, and took her arm, turning her around to face me.

"I could have saved you, yes." My vision blurred as the first tear made its way down my cheek. "But so could Ad. Or Maia, or Noah, or Sam or literally anyone else at that party, in that town! You chose to go to the party, when I warned you about my vision. I should have forced you to stay home, but of course, I couldn't."

I sobbed loudly, as Nicola's eyes widened. Her mouth parted slightly.

"Because the right the to do was find the killer and help, and that's what you do. You help! You help and you forgive, you always have done, and every day you're not alive, the world grows darker, because you're not there to do just that. But even I can't revive the dead without his permission."

Nicola stopped. She took my hand. I looked at her, as I saw a tear falling from her eye and down over her cheek.

"Penny." Her voice was soft as she pulled me into a hug. I missed a breath, as I sobbed loudly into her hair. Feeling my best friend in my arms after she'd been dead for almost a year was unbearable. I wanted to hold her close and hang on forever.

But I couldn't.

Somewhere, some place far away from here, a battle was going on, and her death had only been the beginning of it.