Water's Eye

By Cassandra Morphy

Maya San Lucas had been lost in her dreamworld for the better part of five years. But Desparia was no longer a fantasy world for her. It was a nightmare, full of powers and creatures beyond her control. Going to that world took everything from her, destroying her sanity, and bringing her and her friends to certain doom. The life of a thief, and a mage, was so much more exciting than high school, but in all the wrong ways.
After returning from that world of horrors, Maya is left with nightmares plaguing both her sleeping and waking life. Demons stalk her from the corner of her eye, or even out in broad daylight. Therapy was doing little to help, though she knew that her therapist was likely to have her committed for telling the truth. The only thing that lent her any solace was the new girl Meg. For some reason, the demons never came when she was with her.
But as Maya's powers grew, summoning magic to a world that had none, she got a disheartening look at the world that she had left behind. A new evil has come to the empire, taking the place of the fallen emperor as if nothing had changed. When her friends became more determined than ever to return and carry on the fight, Maya ran from them, seeking the safety of the new girl. But Meg has secrets of her own, mysteries that Maya wasn't quite ready for. And as the two of them grew closer, there were other powers coming into the picture that Maya wasn't expecting.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cassandra Morphy
• Release date: Jul 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005266974

Cassandra Morphy

Cassandra Morphy is a Business Data Analyst, working with numbers by day, but words by night. She grew up escaping the world, into the other realities of books, TV shows, and movies, and now she writes about those same worlds. Her only hope in life is to reach one person with her work, the way so many others had reached her. As a TV addict and avid movie goer, her entire life is just one big research project, focused on generating innovative ideas for worlds that don’t exist anywhere other than in her sick, twisted mind.

Book preview

Chapter One

Rain

Thunder crackled in the distance as the rain storm finally reached us. I huddled closer to the man on my right, though the umbrella over our heads was insufficient to keep all three of us dry. Within moments, my left arm was drenched, soaked through the sleeve of my flannel. The water ran down my skin in rivulets, playing with the quickly developing goosebumps. My mother's words echoed in my ears, her calls for me to bring a jacket, despite the warm weather that we had started the day with.

I stared down at the stone in front of us. It was a familiar sight, something that we had seen often enough these past five years. Once a week at first, though Mom had gone more often than that. Then once a month, sometimes less. Ever since my father died. Ever since his funeral. There was an open spot next to his grave, set aside for Mom to join him one day. But even before the events of the past couple of months, it was looking less and less likely that she would have chosen such a fate.

The stone got darker around the name that was carved into its side as the rainwater covered its surface. As the clouds grew darker overhead and the day seemed to turn into night with the heavy storm. My father's name screamed up at me. Jared San Lucas. The day of his death, almost five years prior, just below it. He had been thirty-five when he died; far too young for someone so healthy.

I glanced over to the left, towards a similar spot on another hill. Mrs. Azalea's gravestone was just visible in the distance. The two funerals had been within weeks of each other, though their deaths had been completely different. And yet, I had seen both of them recently.

As I stared at that distant hill, I saw a shadow play across the stones over there. I tried to ignore it, to look back at Dad's grave in front of us. The shadow was nothing new, just my imagination playing with me. Getting revenge on me after I had abused it for so many years. My demons coming to haunt me once more. I shuddered at that thought, that reminder. But with Dad close at my side, I hid the movement, trying to feign that it was from the weather.

Rain didn't used to bother me. But as my demons came out to play, I couldn't help but blame it for everything. Just like all the water in my life.

Well, it's a nice place at least, Dad said. If I were to choose where I'd be laid to rest, this would be it.

I looked up at the man next to me, automatically turning towards him as I tried to get further under the umbrella that he was holding. The man looked little like the father that I remembered. Easily over seventy, if not eighty. His long beard was gray, much like the wizards of old in all the books that he had once given me. Back before he died. Back when he was my father. It was only his eyes, the same as mine, that spoke of the man that I had once known. The man that he once was, before he died. Before he went to Desparia.

Not me, Heather said.

I glanced over at the blond on the other side of my father. Unlike me, she was standing out in the middle of the rain, letting the water wash over her. Her hair was turning dark, almost as dark as the first time that I had seen her, when she had wept for my father's death. When she knelt before a crumbled tower, destroyed under her own power. To me, it had been the day of my father's funeral. To her, it had been four years ago.

To Dad, it had been a month ago.

I like your world's practice of cremation, Heather said. Spreading the person's ashes somewhere. I'd want my ashes spread over Mondark's tower, back on Desparia. If we ever manage to get back there.

I'm not surprised, I mumbled. Heather always was a firebug. Cremation seemed appropriate for her.

Neither of you girls are dying anytime soon, Dad said. He tucked the umbrella awkwardly under his chin, freeing up his hands to reach out to either side. As he hugged both of us close, pulling us into him, the umbrella threatened to tip over. Even in those few seconds before he reached up to recover it, I managed to get the rest of me completely soaked through with the rain.

I shivered as the cold rain got to me. It wasn't often that I felt that kind of cold. The wet kind that soaked me to the bone. Water used to invigorate me. It was a balm, a salve, protection from the world around me. Even the frequent rain of Oregon did little to affect me. And yet, as I stared down at my father's grave, standing beside my elderly father and his second daughter, I couldn't help but feel the cold. It was like all the cold of the past five years was all settling into my skin, all at once.

As the rain settled over me, the demons in the distance started to take form. They were all imps, the small, almost rodent like demons that had been underfoot back in Hell. Seeing them over there, I could almost picture myself back there, surrounded by them and so much more. But before I could find myself slipping into that, I shook my head, trying to get myself solidly in the here and now. In the process, I ended up shaking out my brown, wavy hair, the water seeming to flow off of it and onto both Dad and Heather.

Dad shook out his long billowing robes. Mage robes. The same robes that he had worn for the decades that he had been on Desparia. Even since returning to Earth, he had insisted on wearing them, much as Heather had stuck with her white dress. I knew that both of them had been enspelled, the enchantments worked into the fabric itself. Though there on Earth, where magic didn't exist, they did little more than protect them from the cold. And no more than any wool attire would.

I think it's pretty safe to say that I'll be the next to die among the three of us, Dad said. I've certainly had enough practice at it. He laughed a little at his own joke, even pointing down at his gravestone as he did so.

Yes, please don't, Heather said, emphasizing the first word. The full form of the word that was much more common on Desparia. Where she and the rest of my friends were from. I've lost enough parents in my lifetime without losing another one.

I bristled at the comment, at her calling my father her parent. While Dad had been acting like her father that past month, ever since arriving on our doorstep, I was pretty sure that he wasn't. That the woman on his other side, who was at least a year older than me, was not related to me by blood.

Once the... excitement, for lack of a better word, of the confrontation with the emperor had ended, the two of them had explained how they had met. But that was just their story. I wasn't too sure how much of it I believed. The math of the whole mess kept nagging at me that past month. The fact that Dad had been gone for almost fifty years, in the five since he had died. It was one of the many issues that I was working through, though most of the issues had to do with the imps playing in the graveyard.

I shuddered as another flash ran through me. It was short, fleeting. I pulled my arms around my chest, trying to protect myself from the cold. Trying to shake off the fears, demons, and memories that still plagued me. Dad didn't seem to notice anything but the cold.

Maybe we should head back to the car, he said. We don't really need to be here for this part. And the rain really is coming down.

I want to see it, Heather said. Your world really does fascinate me so. To think that such a creature could exist. Could dig a grave open so quickly and easily. And without so much as an ounce of magic to it.

She pointed across to the other side of the grave from us. To the large machine that stood dormant, waiting for the driver to return. While the machine was familiar to me, easily recognizable, I didn't know the name of it any more than Heather did.

I could see the driver in the distance, rushing back towards us along the path. He was holding something white over his head, which looked like a stack of papers, long since destroyed by the rain. If I had to guess, it was the form that he had wanted a signature on. The thing that had held up the work that we were there to see done.

Well, we should probably move away, at least, Dad said. This is where he'll be digging. This is where... I am buried.

You're not buried, Heather said. You're standing right next to us.

And yet... I started.

I couldn't help but look down at our feet. At the ground already soaked through. The soft mud would easily yield to the strong machine, allowing it to tear through to the coffin below us. Another scene flashed through my mind, but this one wasn't from Hell. This one wasn't from my time on Desparia. No, this was from Earth. From the time where living there first became unbearable. From when I had first gone to Desparia to escape the nightmare that my life had become.

And yet, I saw them bury him, I managed to get out, past the three tears that came down at the memory.

But did you actually see him, Maya? Heather asked. Or did you just see the coffin?

I tried to think back. Tried to remember that time. That most difficult of times. It was not a period that I liked thinking about. Even then, even with Dad standing next to me, I couldn't bear to think of losing him. Of him dying on Mom and me. I just shook my head, not in answer to Heather. Just in a refusal to think about it.

The machine across from us started up again, the motor only just audible over the rain. Another thunderclap hit, the storm's own answer to the sound, as Dad pulled us away from the grave, giving the machine a free path to do its job. My eyes stayed locked on the machine, on the grave in front of us, as we retreated back towards the protection of the car. As another flash of lightning lit up the sky, the light blinded me for a moment, breaking my staring match with that gravestone. With that lie. With that secret that had been nagging at me that past month. Only then, only once I could break that hold it had over me, could I turn back towards the car behind us.

Heather stayed outside, leaning against the hood of the car with Dad's umbrella, as Dad and I retreated to the drier interior of the car. I climbed into the back, rather than going around to the other side, while Dad climbed into the driver's seat. Seeing the wizen old wizard sitting behind the wheel seemed odd in so many ways. But as he turned on the engine, quickly cranking the heat for both of our sakes, I was reminded that he had been back on Earth for a month. That he had plenty of practice behind the wheel. That he never once showed any sign that he wasn't completely proficient with the car.

Of course, he had died behind the wheel of a car just like it.

You alright back there? Dad asked, looking at me in the rearview mirror next to him.

That was a complicated question, one I wasn't entirely sure the answer to. One that I had been trying to figure out for weeks. I knew the quick and easy answer. The one that most people expected from me. The one that I used to give without thought. A shrug and a grunt of ascent. But I knew my father. Or, at least, I knew the man that was once my father. Or the man that my father once was. He wasn't looking for the easy answer.

It's... a bit much, I said. It was the best answer I could come up with.

Yeah, I'll say, Dad said, as he looked out at Heather.

Heather seemed no less deterred by the rain coming down around her. As the machine quickly did its work on the grave next to us, her eyes never left it. Her stare never broke from the task that seemed so commonplace for Dad and me. And yet, for her, coming from a world of magic and wonders, such a simple thing as having a machine dig open a grave was what drew her attention. If the machine had been on fire, she would be in paradise.

It's not every day you're sitting around waiting for your grave to be opened up, Dad said.

It was then that I realized that he wasn't looking out at Heather. His attention was just as locked as hers was, but for a very different reason. He was just as eager as I was to see what was in that grave. To see what we had buried in his stead. As more of that day, more of that time, came back to me, I realized that I hadn't seen anything of what his body had looked like back then. All I knew was that it wasn't pretty. That the pileup of cars on the highway had left little of him to be identified. But they had checked back then. They knew it was him. Didn't they?

Did they?

What are you expecting to find in there? I asked. I may not have seen inside, but I know the coffin wasn't empty.

I'm... I'm not sure, Dad said. I'm not even sure I could begin to guess. Paige assured me that they buried me. But... Well, I never died. Not that I know of. You know better than I do that Desparia isn't the afterlife.

Right, I said, nodding my head, as another flash of the afterlife came to me.

I lost track of time as my demons haunted me. Both literal and figurative. My hands clenched at my side, my fingernails digging into the flesh there. The car never faded around me, never disappeared. But that wasn't enough to keep me safe. That wasn't enough to keep me from them.

Hey, I think they're done, Dad said.

His voice came to me down a long, dark tunnel, calling me back from Hell. I stayed where I was in the back seat, looking out through the rain-covered window as Dad rushed out of the car. Heather followed at his side, the two of them running up the hill. Dad slipped twice in the mud, but Heather's hand kept him steady. Kept him moving forward. Only after the two of them made it to the grave did I manage to escape the vision. But by then, I no longer cared about what was inside.

I just sat there, staring out at them. At the father and daughter. The father that was no longer mine. The daughter that wasn't me. Wasn't my sister. I tried to remember that Heather was my friend. That she wasn't trying to steal my father from me. That she hadn't even known me when she filled my place in my father's heart.

When I saw the coffin being raised above their heads, my hand automatically went to the door handle, against my better wishes. The rain hit me once again like a sledgehammer, a slap across the face, as I rushed up the hill towards Dad and Heather. And yet, my feet were steady, never slipping on the slick surface. Even as a dam broke and a puddle near the grave turned into a waterfall around me, my feet stayed steady. They stayed planted as the worn tread of my old sneakers brought me closer to the knowledge that was kept from me all those years. The one thing that I had been avoiding. The truth that had been nagging at all of us since Dad returned.

Dad automatically reached his hand out to take mine as I came up next to him. He didn't look back, didn't break his death stare with his own coffin before us. The engine on the machine across from us quickly died as the coffin settled down into the mud, sinking a good inch or two into it. As the driver climbed down from the cab, I looked to my left, towards the absent space next to me where Mom should have been.

It should have been all three of us there. All six, if we included Heather and the Azaleas. No, it should have just been us three. The real family. The original family. The San Lucas's. The family that we were before everything happened. The family we should have been all along.

The driver rushed over to the coffin, that same sheet of paper once again held over his head. It did little to protect him from the torrential downpour covering all four of us. When he got to the side of the coffin, he pulled it down in front of him, staring at it several times as he looked between it and the coffin at his side. After what felt like minutes of us just standing there in the rain, he nodded to himself before reaching down to the lid of the coffin.

Are you sure you want your daughters seeing this? the man asked, as he looked over to Dad. Clearly, the closeness between Heather and Dad was as clear to this stranger as anyone else. And yet, with the age difference, Dad was just as often confused as our grandfather. Perhaps there was something on the paper he was holding to indicate the relationship.

Yes, Dad said, nodding, as he continued to stare down at the lid.

The man nodded once more before pulling the lid open. The hinges let out an odd squeak, something long and ominous that belonged in a horror movie. Not something one often hears in reality. But the lid lifted easily, unperturbed by its time underground. Once it got past its zenith, the driver let it go, letting gravity take it the rest of the way. Letting the three of us look down at what was left of the man that we had buried.

I don't understand, Dad said, as we all stared into the box at our feet. That's... me.

Chapter Two

Therapy

Dr. Reed tapped her pen to the sound of her clock as she looked over at me. Usually, those two sounds were partnered with a third one from those weird metal balls ticking back and forth. Their discordant frequencies always annoyed me. Thankfully, the balls weren't running. It was just the ticking of the clock and the ticking of the pen that filled the otherwise silence of the room.

I was looking down at my hands, trying to avoid looking at the shrink in front of me. She had never been an important part of therapy. At least, not for me. Just being there, just sitting in the quiet, not thinking about it, about everything that had happened to me, was enough to help. I just needed to get over it. Get past it. Get past the demons that still haunted me, chasing me down the long, dark corridors of my own personal hell.

As the memory flashed through my head again, I closed my eyes tightly. I shook my head, desperately trying to shake the dreams loose. Trying to erase that flashback before it could settle in. I was only sixteen years old. I shouldn't have memories that haunted my every waking moment. But when you've been through what I had been through, it was bound to happen.

Of course, I hadn't been through it alone. I had had my friends with me at the time. They had gone through similar situations as well. Some died. Some were seriously injured.

But none of them went through everything that I had. None of them had seen the look of lust in that man's eyes as he...

I shook my head again, trying not to think of it. Trying to dispel the smell of the leather jacket as it filled my nostrils from the memory. He wasn't there. He wasn't anywhere near me, near Earth. He was long gone, long dead, and couldn't hurt me anymore.

As the vision slowly faded, I glanced over at Dr. Reed. She had stopped tapping her pen, but she continued looking at me. Continued watching me. In these hour-long sessions, I'd often try to guess at what she would say. How she would react to all the things that I was trying to work through. I knew how therapy worked. I knew talking through these issues helped. But talking through these, through these particular issues, was dangerous. Especially when talking about them to someone that could lock me up for the rest of my life.

Are you alright? she asked.

It was the first thing that either of us had said since I came into the room. Even the usual pleasantries of greetings had long since dropped from our usual habits. The doctor knew better, knew that I wouldn't respond. At least, no more than a grunt and a nod.

Fine, I mumbled.

There wasn't much force behind the word, barely any volume. It seemed to reveal the lie of it. To betray my true feelings to this woman. But really, it was just from lack of use. I didn't talk much. Not in the real world. And as Desparia was blocked to me, not in my imaginary world either.

You know, you can talk to me, she said. I might not know what it's like to have experienced what you have, but you can trust me.

Ha, I laughed. It was reflexive. Automatic. I felt no real humor. But to think that someone, anyone, could be trusted with what I had been through was quite laughable.

Especially given where I was.

I glanced over to the door leading out to the hallway. Blocked from my view, down the hall and around the corner, was the inpatient section of the floor. When Mom first suggested that I see someone at the hospital, mentioned the psych floor, I almost thought she meant to have me committed herself. But with Dr. Reed, it seemed like she wouldn't have to.

Ah, she said, seeming to see something in the subtle glance. Despite what you might think, I don't have that kind of authority. Not without your parents' approval. Not as long as you don't say anything that would indicate that you're a danger to yourself or to others. And from what your mom has told me, I don't think that's the problem we have.

What did Mom tell you? I asked.

My eyes flicked over to her, trying to read something in her that would tell me just how much trouble I was in. Mom had always been the wild card in all of this. The one most likely to have me committed. Even back when I thought that Desparia was all in my head, I worried about telling her anything, lest she have me committed. And it seemed like Dr. Reed was telling me that was still her plan.

Well, your mother and I don't interact that often, she said. Despite her reassuring tone, that didn't reassure me much. She said that you've been struggling with some things. Some things that might sound a little strange.

Yeah, I'll say, I muttered.

Things that other people might think... almost crazy. Now, I don't particularly like that word, even in this context. I think it's a rather dangerous word. One that limits growth. Limits healing. And I doubt that there would be anything that you could say that would sound the least bit crazy to me.

Ha, I laughed again, knowing how false that statement was. How naive.

That thought was funny. The fact that this woman, this shrink, could be naive. That naive. While she didn't look old in any way, certainly not as old as my father did, clearly she was older than my mom. There were slight wrinkles around her eyes that stretched and flexed as she looked over at me. Her hair fell evenly around her face, hiding her ears and the earrings that were there. The solid black color of it seemed darker than natural, suggesting that she dyed it. It was darker than the emperor's was.

The look of his dead eyes, staring up at me from the street, flashed through my mind. The accusation that was forever locked there, glaring over at me. Insisting that I was responsible for his death. That I had killed him, when it was the bus heading down Main Street when he rushed out in front of it. And yet, I couldn't help but think that I had some hand in his death. That among everything else I had to deal with, there was also that guilt to consider.

After all, my friends and I had set out to kill him.

And that thought, that reminder, had me shutting up even more. The reminder that I really was a danger to other people. That my power, my magic, locked as it was on that world, was dangerous. I had no control over it at times, and even when I did, it seemed to cause nothing but destruction. If I told her that, if I let that slip, I'd be committed for sure.

Well, she didn't tell me much, Dr. Reed said. But it's clear that you are struggling with some things. You have several triggers; I've seen them play out during the hours that we've been sitting here. I'm not entirely sure what those are yet. What in my otherwise quiet and peaceful office makes you relive the trauma. Or where the triggers, or the trauma, came from. I can help you work through them if you would only open up to me. You don't have to suffer in silence. If you'll let me in... You might be surprised to find that you're not alone in your experiences.

Not alone? I asked.

That was it. That was the last straw. The last time that I'd suffer through silence with this woman. I just saw red as I glared over at her. The wrath instilled in me flared up, coming to the surface as I leapt to my feet. My hands clenched at my sides, turning to fists, begging to be thrown. This was the dangerous side of my condition, as Mom put it. The part that scared her the most. That scared me the most. But when I was in it, when I was surrounded by it, I just couldn't stop myself.

Not alone? Not alone in my experiences? You have no idea what I've been through.

No, but-- she started to say. Her hands reached up, in the space between us. Reached towards me. I batted them aside before they came close enough to do so.

I've been to Hell, I screamed at her. Literal Hell.

Now, I know that many people--

No, I mean literal, literal Hell, lady. Hell with a capital H. Hell, as in the afterlife. Where the bad people go. I've been there. It's real. I've experienced it. And that's not even the half of it.

Dr. Reed looked down at the pad in her lap, flipping through the pages that couldn't possibly have anything in them. Not after the long hours of silence that had been our sessions. And yet, it seemed like she was searching for something. Some hint in there that what I was saying was the truth.

I've seen the burning pits of lava. The scales that weigh a person's soul. The training fields where they work and torture the damned. The torture r--

My voice cracked as my mind turned towards the torture rooms. The dark void that fed through that otherworldly space between the training fields and them. The will-o-wisps, tempting me forward towards that void. The demonic dentist. The sound of the drill.

When the office formed around me once more, I was sitting back on the couch behind me. My head was in my hands as they kneaded away at my forehead, trying to push the images out of me. Trying to bring me back to the reality around me. Trying to protect what was left of my mind as I fought away the memories. And as I realized that I was in that office, for a good, long second, I thought it was the other office. That the dentist was about to come in from the other room.

It took me a moment to dislodge the flashback. I had to focus on the differences between the two offices. The demonic dentist's office and that of the shrink. The shrink's office was larger, with the desk behind Dr. Reed. It didn't smell of death and blood. The clock on the far wall still ticked, helping me focus. And when I realized that Dr. Reed wasn't the hygienist, that she didn't wear a mask hiding her demonic-ness, I managed to shake the last few traces of the nightmare.

So, Hell, Dr. Reed said, once I settled back into the couch. That's... a lot.

That's not... That's... Okay, that's about half of what I've had to deal with.

It's a start, I guess, she said, smiling over at me. Perhaps you could talk through that?

Talk... through... my time in Hell?

It... It didn't make sense. She wasn't running from the room. She wasn't telling me that I'm crazy. She wasn't having me committed. She... She believed me.

No. She didn't believe me. No one could believe me that wasn't there. That hadn't experienced that nightmare themselves. No, she was placating me. She was allowing the point, rather than arguing with me. It was another trick. Another way that she could get through to me. Another way to have me open up.

But I had to admit, at least to myself, it was a good one.

It's... a lot... I said, hesitantly. There's a lot to it. To how I got there.

So... you didn't die? she asked. That's usually how most people get to Hell.

She started to write on the pad in front of her, using her crossed legs as a table. I looked down at the flowing pen, trying to see what it was that she was writing. Trying to decipher the letters that she was putting to page. The notes that were certain to condemn me to a room down the hall. When she finished writing them, she looked up at me. Looked towards me to prompt me to continue. To condemn myself further.

No, I, uh...

I thought about all the events that had led up to that moment. To the time when I fell down the whirlpool and entered the Inferno. It had all seemed almost silly at the time. If it hadn't been so scary, so dangerous, it might have almost been fun. What was worse was what came after. What happened once I left Hell, bringing it with me. I still hadn't put it down, put it behind me. That should have been what I was trying to do there, in therapy. It was what I was trying to do. But for once, for the first time in weeks, months, years, I realized that I couldn't do it alone.

And I opened up, just a little bit.

Chapter Three

Dinner

I didn't feel any better as I left Dr. Reed's office. No great revelation about my mental health. No great healing that came from nowhere. The only good thing about the session was that I was still free. That she still hasn't tried to commit me. At least, not that I know of. Not yet, anyway.

The corridor outside of her office were familiar. Not just because I had been there three days a week for the past several weeks. They were an echo of all the other corridors that fed through that hospital. The ones that I had seen often enough as a child, walking around them as I was growing up. To those less familiar with that hospital, the corridors might seem like a maze. But it had been years since I got lost in that place. And as I left Dr. Reed's office, thrilled that I could leave the floor without needing to be let out, I rushed along, heading for the elevator.

It seemed to take forever for the elevator to get to me. A small eternity while stuck on that floor. I tried not to look to the door on my left, to the locked ward that I felt destined to be stuck in. The door seemed to call to me, trying to draw me in to the trap that was beyond there. As I stared at the elevator in front of me, I thought I could see a face lingering in the window over there. A phantom of my future, or perhaps my past. It was too hard to tell without getting a good look. And that was the one thing that I would never get. Not while keeping free of the trap there. Not while maintaining my sanity. Or what was left of it.

The elevator let out its ding, and I moved forward before the doors could open. As I came inside the elevator, I had to push my way past the three people trying to get off. I didn't care about being rude. All I wanted was to be off that floor. But as the people pushed past me, I was suddenly in the pile of bodies in the training field. I could barely breathe, and what little air I managed to get was full of the smell of death and decay. I closed my eyes, wrapped my arms around my chest, and just leaned against the far wall of the elevator, desperately wanting to get out of there. Away from the psych ward before someone came for me. It was the worst place in the world to have another episode. Another breakdown.

The elevator dinged again, and I turned around to the sound. I expected to still be on the fifth floor. To stare out of those doors to the three people that had just left it. Instead, it was my mother's face greeting me there. Smiling at me like she always did. Before I could think, before I could do anything, I was rushing forward, wrapping my arms around her and holding her tightly.

Oh, what's this? Mom asked, as she returned the hug. I like this. Don't get this much these days. You alright? Therapy was good?

Therapy was therapy, I said, my usual response. There wasn't much else to say about it beyond that. What was there to say about staring at a stranger that expected you to talk to them about how crazy you were?

It took me a moment to realize that I was still holding Mom. Still hugging her tightly. The flashback was over, the normal hospital falling back into place around me. As I gradually got ahold of myself again, I slipped back from the hug. But Mom wasn't done with it, wasn't done with me. She held me there for another few minutes, my arms slack by my sides.

But then someone cleared their throat.

Sorry to interrupt, Mr. Azalea said. We do have a reservation.

Oh, right, Mom said, as she pulled away from me. Her hand lingered on my shoulder as we both looked over at the boys heading our way.

Mr. Azalea and David were over by the help desk. Mr. Azalea had a small bouquet of flowers in his hand, smiling over at Mom. David, however, was leaning against the desk, his arms crossed over his muscled chest. He rolled his eyes at his father standing next to him. When he noticed me looking his way, he gave me his usual half-smile. The smile he always gave to me whenever we both had noticed something stupid. Like our parents being all love sick for each other.

Of course, he had several other smiles for Heather.

I tried not to think of the fact that my high school crush was dating my newfound sister, as Mom and I came over to the boys. Or about how weird it would have been if we had been dating, considering how close Mom and Mr. Azalea were getting. I wasn't sure how the rules worked about dating your step-brother.

So, where to? Mom asked, as the four of us turned towards the door.

Mom nodded over at the security guard as we passed the desk. The guard was too busy glaring over at me to notice the movement. I wasn't quite sure where that was coming from, the continued animosity towards me from the man. It must have had something to do with everything that had gone down the month before. None of that ever fell on me. And yet, somehow, that one guard thought it should have.

It's a surprise, Mr. Azalea said, with a sly smile not too off the one his son had just given me.

As we approached the doors to the lobby, I realized that Mom wasn't wearing her scrubs. She had changed into one of those dresses that she was always trying to get me to wear. The ones that would show off a lot more assets than I usually liked to show. The assets that I didn't think I inherited from Mom. The same kinds of dresses that were cluttering up my closet back home, even though the twins had taken half of them with them when they left.

I pulled my usual flannel tighter against my body as the outer door opened up, exposing me once again to the outside weather. The torrential rain from earlier had moved out of the area, but the dampness lingered in the air. Summer was slow to arrive that year, and it was feeling more like late April than the mid-June that it was. Fortunately, I could already see Mr. Azalea's car in the distance, halfway through the first block of the parking lot.

Oh, please, David scoffed. We're just heading to Rita's again.

Surprise, Mr. Azalea said. It was the same joke he made every time the four of us went out for dinner. If you could call it a joke.

I followed along behind the others as they headed towards the car. Under other, more innocent circumstances, I would have taken that time to daydream away from the group, heading off to Desparia in my head as my body automatically followed along behind the others. I would have woken up some time after dinner, having already eaten without thinking about it. But for so many reasons, that wasn't an option, none the least of which was that my imagination didn't work anymore. Or whatever it was that gave me the power to travel to that other world.

Instead, I was solidly awake and aware as I climbed into the back of Mr. Azalea's car. I was just thankful that he hadn't brought his police cruiser again, like he had three weeks ago. Admittedly, that was his first day back on the job, since the troupers shot him with arrows during the incident. He was happy to be back in uniform and had wanted to share that with Mom and me. But it just reminded me about everything that had happened, and I had a panic attack halfway to the restaurant. It was after that incident that Mom had put her foot down, insisting that I go to therapy.

Mr. Azalea and Mom started talking in the front of the car as we drove over to the restaurant. It was one of those topics that I desperately didn't want to listen to. So, instead, I stared out the window next to me, watching Main Street buzzing past us. The schools, the park, all the places that were now tainted by those memories. Those nightmares that plagued my every waking and sleeping moment. But it was the only real street in town, the only way to get from the hospital to anywhere else worth going.

Hey, you alright? David asked in a low voice. His hand touched my arm, drawing my attention back to him. Back to the boy that, just a month earlier, I would have wanted the attention of. At that moment, all I wanted was to escape them all.

Sure, I said, shrugging.

No, really, David said, clearly knowing that my response was automatic. The same thing I said to anyone that asked me. You don't have to pretend with me. You know that, right? I know what you've been through.

Then again, no he didn't. No one did. Not really. Even Jason only knew so much, and he had been there for the worst of it.

I... I said, hesitantly.

I wanted to answer the question honestly. To give it the consideration that it deserved. But how did I put all of what I was going through into words? How did I tell him just how bad I was without Mom hearing? Without her telling Mr. Azalea to turn the car around and head back to psych?

Yeah, David said, nodding. He seemed to know the answer, even when I didn't. It... I want to say that it'll get better, but...

I know, I said, nodding. I wanted to say that it would get better, too. No, I wanted it to already be better. For the low hum of the car not to make me think of the drill. The smell of the leather seat beneath me not to remind me of that leather jacket. For even Mom's hug not to remind me of everything that I had seen there.

For the demons to leave me alone.

What was worse was that I didn't know that it wasn't going to get worse. That the heat of summer wouldn't make me think of the lava fields. Of the entry area to Hell. Or that when I went to get my driver's license next week, the waiting room in the DMV wouldn't make me think of the waiting room in Hell, where I was worried something would happen when they realized I didn't have a sin. And all the other triggers that were bound to come up in those next few years. Or anytime in the rest of my life.

And as we pulled into Rita's, the italian restaurant a block away from our usual chinese restaurant, I knew there were plenty of triggers just waiting for me in there.

Is the therapy really not helping any? Mom asked.

I hadn't realized it when the parents had stopped talking. When Mom started looking at me in the rearview mirror next to her. Her eyes were locked on mine, filled with the concern that I always saw in them, ever since I returned from Desparia that last time. Ever since the event was over, and all I was left with was the memories.

You know, Paige, not all of us heal from talking about it, Mr. Azalea said.

Ha, David laughed. It's a good thing Mom isn't around to hear you say that.

David flinched away from his own words. At the reminder of his mother. His eyes fogged over for a moment, as he thought about the last time that he saw her. I couldn't tell if he was thinking about the ghost of his mother that he had seen weeks ago, or the woman dying of cancer back when we were eleven. He didn't stay there, and neither of the parents seemed to notice it. While he wore his own scars of our time on Desparia, they were nothing compared to mine.

Chapter Four

Home

I stared at the front of my house as Mr. Azalea pulled up in front of it. The