Chapter 29: Chapter 29

Time has no meaning. I’m floating on a sea of terrors. At first, it’s just nightmare fuel—giant spiders, stinging jellyfish, ravens who scream and caw and try and peck my eyes out.

But then the nightmare evolves.

It gets worse.

I see friends staggering into the room, blood pouring from their faces. Gabriel screams for help, trying to hold the gash on his face closed as his other hand tries to keep his brains from spilling out of the massive hole in the side of his head.

Fumi rushes to him. But suddenly a giant sword stabs through her heart from behind. I sob and cry out, shaking and hugging myself and screaming as her body falls to the ground, revealing Kenzo standing behind her.

You’re on drugs. This is just a bad acid trip.

You’re safe.

You’re okay.

Except the mantras don’t work. I’m not okay. I am not fucking safe.

…Neither is Drazen.

Another sob wrenches my body as Alistair staggers past me, holding his severed arm in his good hand. The floor opens up beneath him, and I start to cry uncontrollably as the massive jaws of some monstrous beast bite him in two and drag his bottom half into the pit.

I whirl, and my throat releases wrenching sobs as Drazen materializes in front of me.

His face and his body are riddled with a hundred slowly bleeding bullet holes as his eyes lock with mine.

“What have you done,” he roars, charging toward me. Right before he gets to me, I scream when he shatters into a thousand shards of bloody glass. I flinch and hug the floor, shaking and crying as the terrors rip through me.

A hand lands on my shoulder. A soft touch slips under my arm to pull me gently from the floor.

“You have to get up. Get up, Taylor.”

“I can’t,” I choke to the nightmare.

“You have to,” the voice hisses, more urgently. “GET. UP.”

I look up, and my face goes numb. This time, it’s not any of my friends looking at me with blood all over them.

It’s me.

I stare at the dream reflection, my red hair matted with blood that trickles down the side of my face. There’s more on my arms and hands, and still more splattered over my shirt.

“Get up, Taylor,” I say to me. “I can save you.”

“I—I can’t leave this room⁠—”

“Do you want to save him?” I hiss, peering into my own face.

I start to cry helplessly again, nodding my head.

“Of course.”

“Then come with me, Taylor. Trust me.”

I do. I’ve always trusted myself.

It’s a blur as the drug-induced dream version of myself leads me out of the room. I know it’s just my subconscious acting as a guide to get my waking brain to lurch into action, but it’s working.

I follow myself out of the room. Horror stabs into me as I stumble over bleeding and bloodied bodies of men who look like Vadik’s soldiers. I stagger after my reflection, down a hallway and into a huge wine room.

“This way.”

I balk when I try to lead myself into the gaping black maw in the wall.

It looks like the gates of Hell. But just as I think that, just as the nightmarish fear threatens to break me, I shake it away with a snarl.

No.

He’s in there. And even if it’s Hell itself, I’m not leaving without him.

I push past my reflection, staggering into the blackness and almost losing my footing as the floor disappears.

“There are stairs,” I tell myself. “Don’t fall.”

I clutch the banister for dear life, shuffling and stumbling down the staircase into the darkness. I get to the bottom, turning and feeling the wall for a light switch. I find it, focusing all my brain power on one finger to flick it on.

And I scream.

He looks dead.

Drazen is strung up by the arms, hanging from chains embedded in the ceiling. His legs are limp, his feet barely touching the floor. He’s shirtless, head bowed and eyes swollen shut. Blood drips from his mouth and from a dozen weeping cuts on his body.

But he’s breathing.

“I need your help,” I hiss to myself. “I can’t do this alone.”

“Of course,” I choke back.

“The wall. There’s a winch.”

I stumble to it, trying to ignore the spiders crawling over my skin and the mountain of bodies bleeding in the corner as I grapple with the mechanical switch on the wall. A motor whines to life. The chains clink and rattle behind me. I spin and rush back over, helping me to catch him as he sinks to the floor.

I yank the chains off him, cradling his head in my lap. Drazen’s eyes flutter open and shut, his lips moving without making sound.

He’s not just beaten to hell. He’s drugged, like me.

“Help me get him up the stairs,” I urge myself.

I don’t know how, but I manage to get him up the steps.

Drazen is half walking, half being carried by me with his arm over my shoulder as we shuffle down the hallways of Vadik’s mansion. More terrors fly out of every corner, snarling in my face. The walls drip and the floor melts. I ignore it all as we keep going.

We step over more bodies in the foyer. A cloud of blue butterflies ripples through my hair as I kick open the front door drag Drazen outside. I lean him against the wall and go through his pockets, pulling out his phone.

Mercifully, his last four phone calls were from Milos, so it’s hard to miss as my thumb stabs the contact.

“Boss?”

“Help…” I croak. “Milos…help.”

“Annika?” he hisses.

“Vadik…drugged us. We’re free. We…we need help,” I wheeze.

“Where the fuck are you,” he hisses quietly as my vision melts to swirls of color.

“Vadik’s…” my breathing slows. “House.”

“Drazen is with you?”

“Please…”

“IS DRAZEN WITH YOU?!” he roars, his voice spewing from the phone in ribbons of blood red and black.

“Yes…”

“Stay where you are. Leave this phone on. I’m on my way.”

“Come,” I tell myself, helping myself back to my feet. “We can’t stay here.”

I nod, not even able to talk as the full force of the LSD starts to hit me. But I stagger onward, dragging Drazen across the field next to Vadik’s house. The woods loom dark and terrifying, and it would be so tempting to stop. My dream self won’t let me.

“There’s a place you can hide, Taylor. Wait for your help to come. You’ll be safe.”

I drag Drazan past the tree line and under a fallen log, where there’s a little hollow.

“Stay here,” I tell myself.

Our eyes lock—me and my subconsciousness. Me and the me I used to be, maybe. Who knows. I’ve lost track.

“Who am I?” I whisper to myself as I slip under the log and into the little hollow alongside Drazen’s still form.

“You’re you,” I say back. “And I am me.”

“And who are you?”

I smile at myself as I touch my cheek.

“I’m your invisible friend.”

Dream me melts away as the riot of light and color and sound engulf me. My hand finds Drazen’s, and I hold on tightly.

“Stay with me,” I whisper. “Because I’m staying with you.”