Page 85 of Through the Water

16

Ariana

“I looked at the stars, and considered how awful it would be for a man to turn his face up to them as he froze to death, and see no help or pity in all the glittering multitude.”

-Charles Dickens, Great Expectations

All that running and I’d managed to end up back where I started. Shards of glass from the shattered windshield bit into the skin around my ankles, holding me captive. The headlights flashed on and off like a message being sent in Morse code.

My palms squeaked noisily against the hood of the convertible as I clumsily searched for something to grip—some object that would free me from my glass prison.

But there was no escape.

The motor was still running, heating the metal hood until it burned against my cheek, but I couldn’t move. The radio switched stations at random, the volume rising higher and higher. That, coupled with the vicious pounding in my skull, drowned out any hope at a coherent thought.

I was Humpty Dumpty—if he’d tried escaping the wall instead of just sitting atop it. Regardless, the outcome was the same. We’d both ended up cracked open on the pavement below.

And all the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Ari together again…

“Ari? Oh, Ari, what have they done to you?”

My skin prickled in fear at the sound. It had been easy to feign bravery with Killian sitting beside me, but I was alone now, and this ghost felt just as real to me as he did.

The leaves began to rustle as if something big was tearing its way through them. I didn’t want to be scared, but I knew what was coming through the trees, just like I knew exactly what it wanted.

Me.

“Ariana,” it taunted, masked behind the green foliage. I choked back a scream, recognizing that this was no ghost.

This monster was real.

“Those walls were built just for you.”

“Ari?” The ghost cried out again, pushing into the clearing. She jerked her head to the left and right, searching for me in the dense smoke of the wreckage. “I can help you, but you have to come back to me!”

The monster mocked her words with a cold laugh. “Ariana, I can help you! Why don’t you tell me your sins, and I’ll tell you mine!”

I brought my palm down over my ear, trying to block the sound of their voices, but they were too loud. Almost as if the noise was coming from inside my head.

When she saw me, the ghost’s mouth fell open in shock, but she didn’t come any closer. A twig snapped on the ground from somewhere behind me. Her eyes slowly moved up, taking it in.

It wasn’t just me anymore—she could see the monster too.

“Listen to me,” she commanded, lowering herself into a crouch. “You’re the only one who can end this.”

“I can’t—”

“It will only get worse unless you can remember who you are and why you left that night. There was a reason, Ari!”

The monster slid around the front of the vehicle faster than I would have imagined, approaching the ghost with a wide grin.

But there was nothing happy in the dark red blood that ran from its teeth, coating its chin and neck. This was a shark in search of a meal. The ghost knew it, but she didn’t run. Instead, she straightened and matched its menacing grin with one of her own.

“Ari, you take down a monster by exposing it,” the ghost stated before taking a step forward. “Let the world see the truth, and it loses its power.”

“Daughter,” the monster drawled in Tristan’s voice before raising its fist. “Such sin lives within you—”

“Ashlynn!” I screamed, but it was too late. The monster’s arm came down on her, and everything went black.

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