The Unbound

The crash was far enough away to sound low, loud enough for it to echo around me, but it started in the far corner, the same direction Coach Metz went. I sprint across the gym floor and through the door marked OFFICES, only to find myself in a small hallway full of trophy cases. None of them seem disturbed, and besides, the crash was deep, like something heavy falling—not high, like breaking glass. Doorways stud the hall, each with a glass window insert; I make my way down the corridor, glancing in each room to see if anything’s off.

Three doors in, I look through the window and slam to a stop.

Beyond the glass is a storage room. Inside, it’s too dark to make out much more than the metal shelves, half of which have toppled over. I pull my sleeve down over my hand and test the door. It’s unlocked.

I step through, flicking on one of the three wall switches, illuminating the space just enough to better see the shelves. Two of them have fallen forward and caught each other on the way down. Balls and bats and helmets are now scattered across the storage room floor.

I’m so focused on not tripping on any of the equipment that I nearly slip on the blood.

I catch myself midstep and retreat from the fresh, wet slick on the concrete. I look up at the air above the blood, and my eyes slide off of a new void. The air catches in my throat as I listen for sounds of life around me, hearing only the thudding of my pulse.

But this scene is different from the others.

There was no blood at Judge Phillip’s house. None in Bethany’s driveway.

An aluminum baseball bat rests on the ground beside my shoe; I crouch and grab it (careful to keep my sleeve between the metal and my fingers to avoid leaving prints), then stand and turn in a slow circle, sca

I notice a clipboard resting facedown a foot away from the blood. When I turn it over with my shoe, I see my name written in my own hand, and my stomach twists. With a concerning clarity I realize this is evidence. I reach down and free the paper, pocketing it with a silent apology to the coach.

I clear the debris from the floor and kneel a foot or so behind the bloodstain, setting the bat to the side as I tug the ring from my finger and place it on the concrete. The void door will have burned through most of the memory, but maybe there’s something. I press my palm to the cold concrete, and the hum drifts up toward my hand. Then I stop.

Because something in the storage room moves.

Right behind me.

I feel the presence a second before I catch the movement in my periphery, first only a shadow, and then the glint of metal. I will myself to stay crouched and still, one hand pressed to the floor as the other drifts toward the bat a few inches from my grasp.

My hand wraps around the bat at the same instant the shadow surges toward me from behind, and I spring up and turn in time to block the knife that slices down through the air, the sound of metal on metal high and grinding.

My gaze goes over the bat and the blade to the figure holding it, taking in the silver-blond hair and the cold blue eyes that have haunted me for weeks. He smiles a little as he drags the knife along the aluminum.

Owen.

“Miss Bishop,” he says, sounding breathless. “I’ve been looking for you.”

He slices the knife down the length of the bat toward my hand, forcing me to shift my grip. As soon as I do, his shoe comes up sharply beneath the metal and sends it sailing into the air between us. In the time it takes the bat to fall, his knife vanishes into a holster against his back and he catches my boot with his bare hands as it co

I hit the ground and roll over and up onto my feet again as he lunges forward and I lunge back. Or at least I mean to, but I misjudge the distance and the toppled shelves come up against my shoulders an instant before he forces the bat beneath my chin. I get my hands up at the last second, but it’s all I can do to keep him from crushing my throat. For the first time I see the blood splashed against his fingers.

“Either you’ve gotten stronger,” he says, “or I’m worse off than I thought.”

“You’re not real,” I gasp.

Owen’s pale brow crinkles in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I be?” And then his eyes narrow. “You’re different,” he says. “What’s happened to you?” I try to force him off me, to get leverage on the bat, but he pins me in place and presses his forehead against mine. “What have they done?” he asks as the quiet—his quiet—spills through my head. Tangible in a way it never was in my dreams. No. No, this isn’t real. He isn’t real.

But he’s not like the Owen from my nightmares, either. When he pulls back, he looks…tired. The strain shows in his eyes and the tightness of his jaw, and this time when I try to fight back, it works.

“Get off of me,” I growl, driving my knee into his chest. He staggers backward, rubbing his ribs, and I grab the nearest bat and swing it at his head. But he catches it the instant before it can co

“The least you could do is ask me how my trip was,” he says coldly, twirling the bat still in his hand.

He’s not real. He can’t be real. This is only happening because I thought of it. This is a hallucination…isn’t it? It has to be, because the alternative is worse.

Owen stops spi

“Then how did you get out?”

“Perseverance,” he says. “The problem with these things…” He nods at the rip in the air and makes a small, exasperated sound. “Is they don’t stay open very long. As soon as someone gets dragged in, they snap shut. I couldn’t seem to get out first. I couldn’t go around them. Finally, I decided I had to go through them.” His eyes flick toward the blood. I think of Coach Metz’s body, floating in the void, torn in two by Owen’s knife, and my stomach twists. I curl my fingers around the metal shelf behind me.

“Messy business,” he says, ru

Owen doesn’t get a chance to finish. I pull the shelf as hard as I can, twisting out of the way just before it comes crashing down on top of him. But even in his current shape, he’s too fast. He darts out of the way, and the metal rings out against the concrete. A second later, the lights go out, plunging the storage room into darkness.

“Feistier than ever.” His voice wanders toward me. “And yet…”

I take a step back and his arm snakes around my throat from behind. “Different.” He pulls me sharply back and up, and I gasp for breath as my shoes lift off the floor.

“I should kill you,” he whispers. “I could.” I writhe and kick, but his hold doesn’t loosen. “You’re ru

I can’t get enough air to make the word, but I mouth it, I think it, with every fiber of my being.

No.

Just like that, Owen’s grip vanishes. I stagger forward and land on my hands and knees on the concrete, gasping, inches away from the streak of Metz’s blood.