Chapter Forty Willa

Chapter Forty

Willa

Now: Sunday, 12:30 p.m.

I'm going to vomit. Bile rises up my throat; I push it down with a thick swallow. My head pounds, my stomach twists in knots, and my chest is tight, like my lungs are at half capacity. This altitude sickness just won't quit. My breath comes in short, shallow gulps as I come awake.

There's a noise outside the door. A thump, but it seems far away or underwater. I must be lucid dreaming, in that state partway between slumber and waking.

Minutes—or hours?—later, I pry open my eyes, but the room is a monotone, low-lit gray, and fuzzy around the edges. My head feels full of cotton balls, and an uncanny feeling creeps up the back of my neck. Something moves in my periphery.

"Piper?" I murmur, but she doesn't answer. Then, more hopefully: "Liam?"

The figure doesn't answer. I try to swivel my head, get a good look at them, but I can't. My body is so heavy, like an anvil. I'm falling through the duvet, the mattress, down to the floor.

I'm weak. Why can't I move my head?

"What's…wrong…with…" I grind out each word with painstaking effort, gulping a breath before I can continue. "Me?"

They don't answer, but I know they're there. The killer. They're in here with me. Looming. Watching. Waiting.

I think about Declan, Eden, Silva, Wyatt…is this what it was like for them? The mind fog, the weakness, the unreality of the end?

Wetness spreads across my cheeks, tears of sheer terror running salty over my quivering lips.

I have to know who it is. Need to see their face.

And then I have to run.

It takes all my strength to wrench my legs to the side. Over the edge of the bed. But I can't sit up. My body is lead. Heavy. But heavy things can fall. With a grunt, I slide from the bed, land with a thunk on the floor.

I feel them hovering over me. The shadowy figure. My dark twin.

"No," I grit out, and begin to crawl toward the door. Each inch is excruciating. Like I'm swimming through concrete. I try to breathe, but the dank, gray swill slips past my lips, slicks down my throat. My heart pounds ten, twelve, fourteen beats for every half foot I manage to crawl. I gasp desperate, short breaths—four, five for every meager move forward.

Finally I reach the door, clasp desperately for the handle.

The third-floor landing stretches before me, elongating like a bungee cord. There's a demon at the end of it with eyes glowing red hot like twin pokers. My vision swims, and my head pounds, and something inside me screams.

You're dying.

And like that, I know I am. It's the air. There's not enough of it. I'm suffocating.

Somehow I stumble into a crouch, make it to the top of the stairs in one gasping breath. Go, go, go, my head screams at me.

Down, down, down.

Out, out, out.

The killer is behind me the whole time.

I feel drugged.

Like that night at the party.

When it felt like euphoria until it didn't.

But I feel that euphoria now.

Warm and fizzy and floaty and fine. Alliteration. I giggle. Maybe just in my mind.

My body rebels against me. I think I'm at the bottom of the stairs? I don't know. I land on my back. The ceiling glitters like stars, and my chest hurts. As though someone has pumped me full of helium, but I'm a thin, shiny balloon, and stop, ow, I'm going to pop.

My friend reappears. Hovering over me. But it's no shadow that's been stalking me. It's an angel. An angel beside me the whole time. A friend.

Death isn't so bad after all. It's bright and sparkly and warm. I smile.

And everything goes black.