Chapter Eighteen

Everything smelled like maple syrup when I opened my eyes. A hazy light filled my vision, momentarily blinding me as I felt behind myself and pushed up into a sitting position. The cushion beneath me was lumpy in all the wrong places, and there was a crick in my neck—most likely the consequence of spending half the night asleep on the kitchen floor. I could hear the faint sounds of conversation drifting casually into my ears: all murmured sounds with no finished words.

As I blinked myself fully awake, I realized that I was no longer in the kitchen, but on the living room couch, a thick quilt draped over my legs. Logan was no longer beside me, most likely having moved me to this more comfortable position at some point during the night. I could hear the low hum of his voice, though, from the other room.

Sighing, I swung my legs over the side of the couch and sat up, staring out the window at the street. It was a sunny day, though snow still caked the sidewalk. A snow plow sputtered past my house, raking up the muddy slush that was beginning to melt into the gutters. I waited until it had disappeared down the street before I coaxed myself to peel off the quilt and stand up, curling my toes into the pale carpet. My socks, it seemed, had fallen off during the night.

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Aubrey said as I shuffled into the kitchen, yawning. She offered a wan smirk over her cup of coffee—Logan's coffee, the familiar smell of which was potent in the air. Logan himself was standing at the counter, brewing a fresh pot, and my mom sat next to Aubrey at the table. She, too, was sipping from a steaming mug, and that in itself was enough to stop me in my tracks for several seconds. My mother's aversion to caffeine was practically religious, yet here she was, gulping down the stuff like her life depended on it. And maybe—judging by her pallid complexion and the bags beneath her eyes—it did.

“Uh, hey,” I mumbled belatedly, tucking a loose strand of hair behind my ear. My mom looked up and smiled, actually smiled, her lips curling into a tired crescent and her eyes crinkling at the corners. And maybe it was a little stiff, like a pair of new shoes she'd just tried on for size, but it was real and it was something.

“Good morning, Parker,” she said softly, nodding at me. “How did you sleep?”

“Fine, thanks.” As I said the words, I realized how true they were: the previous night, once I'd settled down for a second time, there were no nightmares, no shadow creatures—nothing to go bump in the night. For one sleep, they'd left my dreams alone.

“Do you want some?” Logan asked, turning to me from the counter and holding up the pot of coffee in his hand.

“Yeah, I'll come and get it.” I padded across the room, wincing at the icy shock of cold tile against my bare feet, and pulled a white mug from the cabinet. I set it down beside Logan, leaning lightly into his shoulder as he filled the mug with coffee.

“Why didn't you tell me your mom came back?” he asked quietly, adding in my customary cream and sugar. “She said she's been back since last night.”

I turned away, pretending to cough so he couldn't see my eyes. “I guess it just slipped my mind. And thanks.” Nudging his elbow with mine, I took the mug from his outstretched hand and brought it up to my lips. Our eyes met briefly over the rim, his slightly narrowed with confusion. He would undoubtedly have some questions for me later, but that was a conversation meant for solitude, especially given the fact that we'd kissed yet again the night before. That, certainly, was something that needed to be addressed, but not until after everything. There were more important matters at hand.

So I just slid into a seat at the table beside my mother, my hands wrapped around the steaming mug. Logan sat down a moment later, his gaze quickly ricocheting off my face. I tilted my head, trying to convey that I would explain it to him later. That is, if Laury kept her word. If she didn't help me, and soon, I wasn't quite certain that there would be a later.

◙════════════◙

Contrary to popular belief, and the assumption that the voices in their heads would make for frazzled thoughts, psychics are surprisingly punctual. That is, assuming that all psychic mediums are of the same breed at Laury Lincoln, which, considering her individual eccentricity, is rather improbable.

She arrived at nine AM on the dot, about thirty minutes after I woke up. We were all still seated at the table up until then, fresh cups of coffee and Aubrey's pancakes in front of us. We ate in silence, apart from a few casual comments, but even those were only an attempt to pierce the quiet before it swallowed us whole.

“Weather outside is nice today,” said Aubrey.

“Sure is,” I agreed.

“Great coffee, Logan,” said my mother.

“Thanks, Ms. Elway,” Logan replied.

Those were the only words that passed between us, and before long, the thick quiet was verging on painful. As we ventured into our second stack of pancakes and the stares between us grew increasingly shifty, a blessing came in the form of a ringing doorbell—and with it, Laury Lincoln: psychic medium extraordinaire.

She pressed the bell several times when she arrived, sending a resounding, staccato echo throughout the house. From upstairs, where she lay recovering, Zipper's soft yips of announcement slid downstairs. No one moved for a moment, each of us caught in a lethargic state of delayed reaction. It was my mother who first blinked herself back into reality, setting her fork down next to her plate and looking at me expectantly.

I cleared my throat. “That must be Laury.” Then, before anyone could react, I quickly added, “I'll get it,” and stood up, swiftly exiting the room. I tightened my shoulders to ignore the confusion that was left in my wake.

As I hurried into the living room, I saw Laury through the window, standing in the melting snow on my front stoop and looking surprisingly normal. The only thing that was slightly disconcerting was the way her pale lips fluttered, mouthing a silent conversation entirely inside her head. Everything with her, it seemed, was likewise introspective.

I opened the door. “Hey, Laury.”

“Oh, Parker!” she said in her lilting accent. She stopped just short of an I didn't see you there, as if she hadn't been the one to approach in the first place. Her eyes widened in brief surprise, but then gears seemed to shift in her head, and her lips formed a knowing smile.

“The skeptic wasn't expecting me, I see.”

I stiffened, lowering my voice. “What do you mean? Did you, uh, read his mind?”

“Oh, no, darling,” Laury murmured, chuckling. Her gaze slipped over my shoulder. “I can see it on his face.”

Startled, I whirled around, my heartbeat stuttering for a moment until I registered the figure behind me as Logan. He stood just inside the door, eyes narrowed and mouth half open, staring past me at a very placid Laury Lincoln.

“What is she doing here?” he demanded.

Laury smirked, raising as eyebrow and stepping through the door without invitation. “I'm helping,” she said simply, zipping out of her boots and parka seemingly without moving. Within moments, both articles lay on the hardwood of the foyer, and she stood in socks on the living room carpet.

“Your mother is wondering if she should offer me coffee,” she stated, her unblinking eyes flicking toward the kitchen, “and Aubrey is hoping that her skeptical little brother doesn't blow up before I can work my magic.” Laury smiled warmly at us, moving her doll-like body toward the kitchen. “If you don't mind, I should meet your mother.”

“Of course,” I murmured. Bemused, I watched Laury make her way into the kitchen, stepping daintily around Logan, who leaned away from her as if she carried the plague. As soon as she had disappeared through the doorway, he practically dived toward me, grabbing my hand and squeezing it.

“What is she doing here?” he repeated shrilly.

I swallowed, carefully pulling my fingers from his grip and taking a few steps back. “I called her last night. I talked about it with my mom, and we decided to call her. We thought it would be—”

“What, and you decided not to tell me?” he interrupted. “You just happened to forget to mention that some demon-worshiping, incubus-obsessed freak was coming over today? Who are you going to invite over next, Parker? The devil himself?”

An oddly loud giggle pierced the air from the kitchen, and Laury's voice sounded, seemingly in our heads. “Logan, you silly skeptic of a boy. Why invite the devil when he's already here?”

Everything seemed to freeze at that, and Logan and I locked gazes. Our bodies were tense, on edge, ready to spring; I could feel my lengthy nails digging into my palms. I didn't want to fight with Logan, not now, and I knew that he wanted peace as much as me. But when the only other option is fear, all we can do is hold tight to our anger and hope for the best.

Even if the best is, ultimately, the worst.

“She's insane,” Logan hissed, finding his voice again. “That woman is completely out of her mind, and you've let her into your house. Do you understand what you've done?”

“Of course I do!” I snarled. “And last time I checked, I don't need your permission to have guests in my own home.”

He struck at the air with a frustrated fist. “But I'm your best friend!”

“And I'm my own person!”

I tried to step back again, away from Logan, but my food caught on something and I stumbled on the rug. The object was Logan's overnight bag, and it tipped over, spilling a few of its contents on the floor—namely, his sketchbook, which flipped eerily to the drawing he had been working out the night before.

Whereas last night it had been a mere sketch, now the drawing was detailed and shaded, outlined heavily. I could practically see Logan there in my head, straining his eyes in the dim kitchen light at four in the morning and scribbling so hard that his pencil spat dust from its tip. Scoffing, I snatched up the sketchbook in one quick swoop and took a closer look at the page. The girl was finished now, and though she was still me, the solid resoluteness of her features had disappeared. It was the eyes, I realized: Logan had finished her eyes, and they were nothing more than an abyss of mortal terror. Behind her, dark and menacing, dozens of shadow creatures lurked. At first, I thought they had been created of dark scribbles, but as I brought the pad closer to my face, I realized that their figures were composed of a single word written over and over in a harsh, desperate scrawl.

Soon.

The word spun in an endless spiral, twisting over itself, letters braiding together and stepping on each other to sew themselves into one big, horrifying mass. As I watched, the shadows seemed to move, their lettered eyes shifting and their gaping maws leering. Biting back a shriek, I tossed the sketchbook into the air, stumbling back until I hit a wall. The wall, that was solid: that was real and firm and cold beneath my fingertips. It didn't move, just like that paper didn't move, couldn't have moved, because it wasn't alive.

That was impossible.

Logan fumbled to catch his sketchpad, pulling it quickly to his chest. He looked at the page as I caught my breath, and after his jaw had dropped adequately, I felt steady enough to clear my throat and speak.

“Guess I'm not the only one keeping secrets from their best friend,” I snapped, albeit shakily. Logan, meanwhile, was shaking his head, first slowly and then with a sudden fervor, almost mechanically, so that his curls flew.

“No,” he breathed. “I don't get it.” His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Parker”—he looked up at me, his eyes wide—“I didn't draw this. This wasn't me.”

I laughed shrilly, hysterically. “Oh, is that so? Well, then, who did, d'you suppose?”

He shook his head, flipping through the other pages but finding nothing more. It was only that one drawing, that one, dark drawing. “I don't know, but—”

“The demons, maybe? The demons that you insist don't exist?” My tone was getting steadily higher-pitched, and I fought the urge to laugh again, to scream, to break down in furious hysterics.

Grunting, Logan lowered his sketchbook to his side. “They don't exist,” he said flatly, coolly.

“You still believe that.” I scoffed in disbelief. “I thought I'd finally gotten through to you last night, but you're as stubborn as ever.”

“They don't exist,” he repeated, not taking his eyes off me as he closed the pad and placed it on the ground. His toes curled anxiously into the carpet, an old habit of his. “They're not real, and you'd have to be a fool to believe in them.”

I opened my hands at my sides, palms pressing into my fleece pajama pants, and felt my cheeks grow warm with anger as a sudden and unexpected whiff of rosemary hit my nose. She was here. She was real. And if my sister was real, so were they. Logan was wrong.

“I'm no fool,” I said, my voice thick with barely-contained rage. “Neither is Laury, neither is Aubrey, and neither is my mother. If anyone is a fool here, it's you, Logan, because you're to damn blind to see what's right in front of your face.”

He retorted immediately. “Maybe that's because it's not there to begin with.”

“Except it is,” I growled, frustration pulsing through me. “And you need to stop telling me that it isn't, because I'm not a helpless child. I can think for myself.”

“Can you really?” Logan demanded, his tone bitingly sarcastic. “I guess that's why last night, all you could do was cower pathetically in the corner? Face it, Parker: you act tough, but all you are is scared. You're nothing but the helpless little kid you claim not to be. You're floundering.”

Time, for a moment, seemed to come to a standstill. I felt the air around me being sucked into the ground, seeming to pull me with it. The words hurt, probably more than they should have, and the blow was like a wrecking ball to the face. I was frozen there, mouth open, caught in a limbo of gazes and pain as Logan realized just what he'd said.

“God,” he murmured. “God, no, I didn't mean that. Parker, you're my best friend, you know I'd never say something like that and mean it, I—”

“But you did say it,” I interjected quietly. “You can't take it back.” He opened his mouth, but I lifted my hand to stop him and caught his eye. “It's okay, though, because you're right. I've been acting like a little kid, and I can't be that weak right now. I need to grow up, which means I need to stop being so scared and just face this situation head on. But it also means that I need to let go of the things that are dragging me down and figure out who my real friends are: the ones who'll accept me, flaws and all, no matter what.”

“Parker—” Logan tried, but the words died in his throat. I felt the rattle of pain as our gazes collided once again, but I ignored it. Gulping down the emotions strewn across my features, I squared my shoulders and marched calmly past Logan, into the kitchen. It was dead silent in there: they had heard everything. Aubrey had her head in her hands, my mother looked shocked, and Laury just stared at me owlishly, a mug of coffee in her hands.

“If you're ready,” I said, “I'd like to see what you have in my for taking care of my, ah, problem. I want them gone.”

Laury nodded, slowly lowering her drink to the table and getting to her feet. Behind me, I heard the thud of footsteps, the jingle of keys, the slam of the door. I refused to let myself look back.

“Well, come on, then,” Laury beckoned, passing me. She gave no destination, but somehow, I knew that we were going upstairs, to my room, where this all began. And somehow, I wasn't afraid. I wasn't anything, really. I was just numb.

We passed through the living room on our way to the stairs, and the echoing door had not lied: Logan was gone, sketchbook and all. But I didn't mind, because soon, I would be fixed. The monsters would be gone. The nightmares would cease to be. Soon, everything would be okay.

Soon.

-----------

Dedicated to Theamazingjade for her cute comment on the last chapter :)

A/N: So sorry this took so long, guys. I have had, like, no time lately. (Plus procrastination, um...) But I stayed up to finish this, and now it's two am and very dark, but I'm not tired so I think I'll embrace my inner idiot and go watch the scariest movie I can find on Netflix.

p.s. sorry for any Larker feels destroyed in this chapter