The Monster Within

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

MY heart raced as my vision ended. I blinked back tears, thankful for the darkness. I couldn’t look at Ethan’s face anymore. If I was having visions of him, of his future, it meant I was somehow draining the life from him, too. But how? In my sleep? When I touched him? Oh God, I couldn’t stay away from Ethan. I couldn’t. He was everything to me. The only part of my old life I still had. The best part, too.

My cheeks burned with hot tears. I was sure I could see again, but I kept my eyes closed, not ready to face the world. I knew people were probably staring, but I didn’t care. Nothing mattered right now. Nothing but Ethan and how to stop him from dying.

Nora. I had to tell Nora. She could use her powers to help me. To help Ethan.

I opened my eyes and grabbed my things. To hell with asking permission and getting a hall pass. I didn’t have time to play by the rules. Ethan was running out of time. I stood up and stormed out of the room. Mrs. Stevens called after me, but I ignored her.

I was halfway down the hall when I remembered Nora had told me not to go anywhere by myself. I whipped out my phone and dialed her number.

“Sam?”

“Yeah,” I sobbed into the phone. “I need to talk to you.”

“What happened? Did you see Dylan again?”

“No. It’s something else. Something worse.”

The dismissal bell sounded above my head.

“Go to work. I’ll meet you there.” She hung up before I could say another word.

Students poured into the hallways. I quickly wiped my eyes with the backs of my hands. I couldn’t let Ethan see me like this. I wasn’t ready to confess everything and tell him he was dying. I just couldn’t.

“Hey,” Ethan said, coming up behind me.

I whirled around and kissed him, right in the middle of the hallway. I ran my fingers through his hair and pulled him to me. Kids cheered and yelled comments all around us, but I ignored them. I wasn’t letting go of Ethan. I wasn’t wasting a single moment with him.

“All right. That’s enough,” Mr. Ryan said.

Ethan gently pulled away from me. I was breathing heavily and fighting back tears.

“Ms. Smith, this is a school, not your bedroom. Please, take this somewhere else.” Mr. Ryan stared at me until I moved.

I didn’t respond. I grabbed Ethan’s hand and pulled him down the hall.

“What’s gotten into you? Not that I’m complaining. That kiss was amazing, but what was it for?”

I stopped at the end of the hall, and it took all my might not to kiss him again. “I just—”

“Whose phone is that?” He pointed to my hand.

“Huh?” I looked down. I was still holding the phone Nora had given me.

“That’s not the phone I gave you.”

“Oh. Um, I found this at the diner when I was cleaning up the other night. I forgot all about it. I guess I thought it was my phone when I grabbed it from my bag.” I put the phone away before Ethan asked to see it.

“So, are you going to tell me why you felt the need to maul me in the hallway?”

“I guess after what happened earlier with Dylan I realized how lucky I am to have you. I mean, I already knew I was lucky, but seeing someone totally creepy like Dylan makes me appreciate how wonderful you are.”

He leaned in and kissed me. Not a traffic-stopping kiss like I’d given him earlier. A sweet kiss.

“And that thing with Dylan, it was nothing. Only some creep trying to scare the new girl.”

“Well, I don’t like anyone trying to scare my girl.”

“I don’t think I’ll be hearing from him anymore. I got him taken away in handcuffs.”

Ethan smiled. “Yeah, that’s something I’ll be picturing for a while. He got what he deserved.”

“If it makes you feel any better, he told me he didn’t want to come anywhere near you after you kicked his ass at the cottage.”

Ethan put his arm around me and walked me to the car. “Guess I knocked some sense into him.”

I didn’t want to point out that beating on Dylan hadn’t stopped him from coming after me. I was going to let Ethan have his moment.

Nora was already at the diner when I got there. She was sitting at the end of the counter, drinking coffee. Ethan kissed me before he headed to the kitchen. I put my purse behind the counter and put on my apron, trying to act natural and not go running to Nora.

She waved her hands in the air and mumbled into her coffee. I narrowed my eyes at her, and she smiled. “We can talk now. No one will hear us.”

“How?”

“Are you going to make me go through this again?”

“Witch. Got it.” I looked around, making sure no one was glancing our way.

“I cast a spell so people won’t even notice us. We’re in sort of a bubble, shielded from view.”

I nodded and leaned my elbows on the counter. The tears came on before I got a single word out.

“There’s something I haven’t told you. I’m not just having attacks. I’m having visions, too.”

“I know.” She sipped her coffee.

“You know?”

“Yeah. The day we met, in the bathroom, you’d just had one. And then when you fainted, that was another.”

“How come you never mentioned them before?”

“I didn’t think I needed to. You’re seeing glimpses of the people you killed, right?”

Why did all of this seem so normal to her? Shouldn’t she be at least a little surprised?

“Usually, but I’ve been seeing someone I haven’t killed, too.”

She put her coffee down. Now I had her attention. “Go on.”

“At first I didn’t know who he was. He was old, but then I had another vision and he was a little younger. He’s the only person I’ve had more than one vision about, and it didn’t stop there. I saw him again today while I was in class. He was getting married. He…” I choked on the words. My throat was closing up.

“Did you find out who he is?” Nora asked.

I nodded, not sure if I could say his name out loud. A whimper escaped my lips.

“It’s Ethan.” Even though it was Nora who said his name, I burst into tears. My stomach cramped. I felt like someone was squeezing my insides in a vise.

“Don’t fall apart on me.” Nora came around the counter and held me up by my arms. “Let me look into it. I’ll see what I can find out.”

“How? How am I hurting him?” My eyes pleaded with her for answers.

“I need time.”

“He doesn’t have much time left. It was his wedding day. He was in his twenties. He’s seventeen, Nora. That’s only a few years.”

She nodded in understanding. “And you can’t give back the time you take.”

I hadn’t even thought of that. “Do you mean, even if you can stop this, he’ll still die before his wedding day?”

She didn’t answer, but she didn’t need to. Ethan had watched me die of cancer. Wither away to nothing. And now I was going to have to watch the same thing happen to him. Only I was the one doing it to him.

“What do I do?”

“Act normally, and whatever you do, don’t tell Ethan what’s going on.”

Of course I couldn’t tell Ethan, but how was I supposed to act normally? I’d gotten a second chance at life. Sure, it wasn’t at all what I would’ve wanted, but I was here. Ethan wasn’t going to get that. Unless…

“Ethan is the one who figured out how to bring me back,” I said. “He won’t tell me what he did, but he knows how to bring someone back from the dead. If I can somehow get him to tell me what he did, then I can save him, too.”

Nora shook her head. “Think about this, Sam. We haven’t gotten a hold on your situation. Do you really want to risk Ethan coming back the way you are now? Or worse?”

What could be worse than being a killer? And it was Ethan. What choice did I have?

“I won’t let him die. Even this…” I gestured to myself, “is better than being six feet under.”

“Give me a few days before you talk to Ethan. You said he was in his twenties in the vision. We still have some time to figure this out.”

“Why do you care if I talk to him? He could help.” I was getting louder and a few people around us were glancing in our direction, squinting like they were trying to see something that wasn’t really there.

Nora noticed it, too. “The spell is wearing off. We can’t talk anymore.” She stood up. “Give me two days. That’s all I need.”

Two days. How much time would Ethan lose in those two days? So far years were flying off his life. “Two days. Unless I have another vision. Then, I’m going straight to Ethan.”

She leaned forward and whispered, “Call me before you talk to him. No matter what.”

The rest of the diner came crashing back to me. The people, the loud discussions. The spell had worn off.

“Waitress.” A guy held his hand up to get my attention.

I nodded at Nora. “Okay.”

She left me to help the customers who had no idea I’d been here this entire time.

Somehow Gloria hadn’t missed me in my absence. Whatever Nora had done had made Gloria think I’d been doing my job since I’d walked in the door. Only when we closed up for the night did she sit down and question why she was so exhausted.

“I didn’t think there were any more people than usual tonight, but I’m wiped out.” She kicked her shoes off and rubbed her feet.

“Yeah, I think everyone was overly demanding tonight. I felt like I was on the go nonstop.” I wiped the counter down to avoid eye contact. More lies. Did I even know how to tell the truth anymore?

“Go collect that boy of yours and get out of here. It’s a school night.” She held her hand out. I untied my apron and gave it to her.

“Goodnight, Gloria.”

“Goodnight, Samantha. Don’t keep that boy up too late, you hear me? I heard about that kiss in the hall today.”

“How did you hear about that?”

“A couple of your school friends were in here. Some girl—what was her name? Beth something or other. She said the whole school is talking about that kiss.” Gloria winked at me. “I remember when Jackson used to kiss me like that.”

I smiled, but it faded quickly when I thought about why I’d kissed Ethan in the hallway. I was losing him.

Ethan came out of the kitchen and looked back and forth between Gloria and me. “Uh oh, looks like I walked into some girl talk.”

“Don’t worry,” Gloria said. “Samantha is a lady. She doesn’t kiss and tell. Your other school friends are a different story, though. They had plenty to say about that kiss.”

Ethan blushed. If it were his guy friends who’d said it, he’d be laughing and high-fiving. But coming from Gloria, it was totally embarrassing.

I took his hand, and we walked out to the car. “Let’s go somewhere where we can look at the stars for a while, okay?”

“You sure? It’s getting late. Don’t you have homework or something?” He opened my door for me.

“I don’t care. I want to be with you.” I sounded needy again, but I did need him. I needed to savor every moment I had with him because I wasn’t sure how many more there would be.

“Okay.” He walked around to his side and got in. “Mountain view or open field?”

“Doesn’t matter. You pick.”

He drove us back to the spot overlooking the river—the spot we’d stopped at the other night. It was perfect. Just big enough for the two of us. We reclined our seats and opened the moon roof.

“It’s beautiful,” I said, looking up at the stars.

“You’re beautiful.” He rolled over onto his side so he was facing me. “But there’s one problem with this arrangement.”

“What’s that?” I mimicked his sideways position.

He patted the center console between us. “I can’t get to you.”

“I have an idea. Follow me.” I got out of the car and climbed onto the hood, leaning my head against the windshield. Ethan did the same. My hair got tangled in the windshield wiper. “Ow. Okay, maybe I didn’t think this through.”

“Here.” Ethan untangled my hair and slipped his arm around my shoulders. “Now you can lie on me instead.”

I stared into his eyes. His beautiful blue eyes. “I love you.”

“I love you, too.” He kissed me, and I pulled him closer. I wanted to feel every inch of his body against mine. His warmth, his love. I kissed him more passionately as the seconds passed. I could feel hot tears welling up in my eyes. I wanted to stay with Ethan forever. That had been the plan. My cancer had come between us, and he’d found a way around it. I wasn’t sure what was killing him now, but I owed it to him to find a way to bring him back.

Ethan pulled away and stared at me. “You’re crying.” He kissed my tear-stained cheeks. “Talk to me, Sam. What’s upsetting you?”

“I wish we could be together like this all the time. Now, tomorrow, thirty years from now.”

He pulled me closer, wrapping me tightly in his arms. “We can be.” He kissed the top of my head, and I breathed in his scent. “We will be.”

My insides ached at his words. He didn’t even know he was dying. Maybe that was a good thing, because knowing was killing me.