Kelly Meding: As Lie the Dead

I shuddered. Sharp pain stabbed behind my eyes. Everything seemed to dissolve as I flew apart. The carpet beneath me changed consistency. Nearby, someone shouted.

The sense of movement ceased. I opened my eyes and stared at a white-painted dresser drawer. Above it, a jewelry box and mirror. Chalice’s room. I’d accidentally teleported fifteen feet into her bedroom. Shit .

“Evy?”

Still on my knees, I twisted my upper body toward the door. Wyatt and Phin watched me from the doorway, each man wearing an identical expression of concern. Phin’s was colored with shock, since I’d just winked out of existence for a split second.

“Wow,” Phin said. “That’s a neat trick.”

“It was kind of an accident,” I said. “I got overwhelmed.”

Wyatt moved forward and crouched in front of me. Warm hands cupped my cheeks, held my eyes level with his. “Are you sure you’re okay?”

“I think so. It was just a sudden rush of sensations.” I forced a playful smile. “Let’s hope I don’t do that every time I go someplace she frequented, or I may end up teleporting my ass into a solid wall.”

“Not funny.”

“Actually,” Phin said, “it is when you conjure up the correct mental image.”

Wyatt’s mouth fell open. His expression made me laugh out loud. I grabbed his wrists and squeezed. “I’m fine,” I said. “Swear.”

He recovered. Quirked an eyebrow at me. “You swear enough for both of us.”

“Smartass.”

“I thought I was a jackass.”

“Any sort of ass is fair game.”

“Whose apartment is this?” Phin asked loudly. An effective off-switch on the banter.

“Mine, I guess,” I said. Wyatt offered his hand; I let him pull me to my feet.

“You guess? Are we trespassing or not?”

“Not. Did you hear the rumor that I died and rose again, hence not looking like my old self?” He nodded. “Well, this apartment belongs to the woman you’re staring at, and to her dead roommate, so by default, it’s mine.”

Phin looked around, his head turning in jerky moves—just like a bird. “How’d the roommate die?”

My heart skipped a beat. “I killed him.”

“Evy—” Wyatt started.

“What?” I snapped. “I pulled the trigger, didn’t I?”

“Alex was dead long before you shot him. He was helping you because he wanted to. You didn’t force him.”

I retreated to the other side of the bedroom. As alien as the white and pink décor had seemed the first time, I found an odd comfort in it now. Peace and a connection to childhood. Girlishness I’d never known during my own violent youth.

“Am I missing some important backstory here?” Phin asked.

“Yes,” Wyatt said, at the same time I said, “No.”

Phin rolled his eyes. “I’m glad we cleared that up.”

“Look, Phin,” I said, “you sought us out for a reason. What do you want?”

“It can wait.”

“For what, exactly?”

“A shower. No offense, but you both stink.”

We did. After smelling it for the last few hours, it was an odor I had largely ignored. Goblin blood smelled like seawater with a hint of rotting-meat sweetness, and now that we were indoors, the effect was worse.

“We’ve got time,” Phin said. “Clean up, and then we’ll talk.”

I eyed the closed bathroom door; my stomach roiled. “Easier said than done.”

“Why’s that?”

“Because the bathroom is where my host killed herself.”

Much like two days ago, in front of the closet door where I’d been tortured and killed, I hesitated in front of another door. Apprehension tightened my stomach. Perspiration broke out across my forehead and between my breasts. I clenched both hands around the clean clothes I’d liberated from Chalice’s closet, afraid if I loosened them, they’d begin shaking.

Such an innocuous door. It was painted ivory and made of that hollow, fake wood that slams hard in a gust of wind. Not a hint of red or pink on its smooth, unmarked, and chip-free surface. No sign of the horror once contained behind it. Everything of me said to go inside and stop being a wuss. The lingering knowledge that, only four days ago, Chalice had gone inside and drawn a hot bath and slit her arm open kept me rooted outside.

You’re being ridiculous, girl. Get your stupid ass in there and clean up .

I grabbed the brass knob with a steady hand and turned my wrist. The gear squealed softly. I pushed. Warm, musty air drifted out, tinged with the lemon scent of cleaning solution. My hand went to the switch plate left of the door and flipped the first two switches. Like an old habit.

Light flooded the small bathroom, which was as sparkling clean as it had been before. The only real difference was a blue bath towel, half falling off its hanger. Alex must have left it there. The day I dragged him out of his safe little world—

Nope. Couldn’t think about that.

I put my clothes on the closed toilet seat, grabbed a towel from the small hutch behind the door, and stripped. Added the knife and ankle sheath to my collection of clean things. The ruined clothes—not even mine but borrowed from a were-cat’s girlfriend—went straight into the trash. At the last minute, I fished out the cell phone Kismet had given me and put it in a basket on the back of the toilet, secure among a couple of clean hand towels and extra rolls of toilet paper.

I reached for the water knob, my fingers closing over the angled plastic. Something sad and determined crept through my mind, made suddenly more powerful by the spray of hot water through the showerhead. The dried blood on my skin and clothes smelled stronger in the moist heat. Grief tightened my throat. A phantom pain raced down my left arm from elbow to wrist.

Water pooled around the drain, and I realized I’d pulled the stopper. I slapped it back down and released the water, sick to my stomach.

Disgust overwhelmed the nagging sense of grief and coiled tight around my other emotions. You are not her. This is all in your mind, Evy! Take a fucking shower!

I embraced the disgust— she gave up, dammit! —adjusted the water temperature to something more bearable, and stepped in. I showered quickly, slogging blood and grit off my skin and out of my hair. There was no chance of enjoying it now.

As I washed, I checked my wounds. The gashes on my stomach were thick red scars that would fade to white, then into nothingness by tomorrow. The bite on my shoulder was a cross of white tooth marks I no longer felt. Other scrapes and bruises from my fights with Kelsa and Tovin were gone. I scrubbed hard on my left forearm, as though it would cleanse the memory of Chalice’s suicide. All it did was leave my skin pink and sore.

The water finally ran clear. I toweled off and dressed quickly in clean jeans and a black baby-doll T—one of the few dark items in Chalice’s wardrobe. I rummaged around in the sink drawers for a hair tie, and my fingers closed around a pair of scissors. I held them up, letting light from the overhead fixture gleam across their surface.

I liked short hair and had always kept mine above my shoulders. No fuss, no muss, and less for an attacker to grab. In the foggy mirror, long brown hair hung nearly to my waist, heavy and wet and thick. Cutting it off would feel so good. Lighten the load. Make me feel more like me again.

Only it wasn’t me anymore. The thin, blond Evy liked her hair short and clothes black. This new conglomerate me, shaped by two strong personalities and a teleporting Gift, protested. She had long brown hair and rounder hips and colorful clothes. Except for the suicide backwash, I kind of liked her.

The scissors went back into the drawer. I found a pair of hair chopsticks and used them to mound my damp hair up and away from my neck. Strapped the knife sheath back on my right ankle—a familiar, comforting presence. Presentable again, I stuffed the cell phone into my rear jeans pocket and exited the bathroom in a cloud of steam.