As Dead As It Gets

Then came the pause I’d been dreading.

Then: “Alexis?”

I was too cold to speak, so I stood there dripping all over the welcome mat, pretty sure the blood from my forehead had tinted my entire face pink.

Jared grabbed me by the arms, and his fingertips squeezed a sore spot on my shoulder, making me flinch. He let go like I’d tried to bite him.

“What happened?” he asked. “Who did this to you?”

I opened my mouth to answer, but it felt like there was a wad of cotton blocking my vocal cords.

“Should I call the police?” Jared asked. “Alexis? Why won’t you answer me? Are you in shock?”

“No,” I finally managed to say. “I’m sorry.”

“Sorry? For what?” He looked out into the night as if something might be following me. “Come in—you’re freezing.”

“I can’t, I’m all wet,” I said.

He herded me inside, a protective hand on the back of my neck, and led me to the dining room, where he flipped on the light and pulled out a chair. “Sit.”

A minute later he was back with a washcloth, a roll of bandages, and a bowl of water.

“Now,” he said, “tell me what happened.”

I stared at the gleaming surface of the table. “I can’t.”

But I did let him push back the hood of my sweatshirt and press the warm, wet washcloth against my hairline. “This cut needs stitches,” he said.

“No.”

“But it’s going to leave a—”

“No,” I said again. And then, aware of how utterly childish and ungrateful I sounded, I softened my voice. “Thank you, but it’s fine. It doesn’t matter.”

He sat back and gave me an incredulous look. Then he went into the kitchen and turned on the faucet. I looked around the room, which was immaculate.

I hadn’t known anyone could be as obsessively neat as my father and I, until I came to the Elkins house, which hardly even looked like anyone was living in it. At worst, you’d spy a clean dish or two in the drying rack, not yet put away. Pretty impressive for a single dad and a teenage son. Especially since Jared didn’t have the look of a neat freak. He was slightly scruffy; his unkempt dark eyebrows made him look incredibly serious even when he was joking. (To be honest, sometimes it was hard to tell when he was joking.)

Jared came back and went to work on my face. He put a bandage over the cut on my forehead and gently dabbed at my cheek. “Was it a car accident?”

“No,” I said.

“No, I didn’t think so.” He traced his finger in a short line under the smaller cut.

The simple chandelier over the di

He sat back and neatly folded the bloody washcloth. “People don’t do this, you know.”

“I know.”

“You think there’s something you can’t tell me.”

“Jared,” I said. “It’s bad.”

“Whatever it is…” His voice died out. “Alexis…you…you lost someone. I know that.”

I took a sharp breath. I don’t know if you could say I “lost” Lydia. I’d never had her to begin with—I mean, we weren’t friends, or anything. I just happened to be there when she died a horrible, scary, painful death. And now she was out to destroy me.

It would probably be more accurate to say I’d lost myself. But how lame is that?

“What I mean to say is, you’re not the only one who—” He shifted in his chair. “I mean, I feel co

I stared at him, wondering whether he’d gotten his deep brown eyes from his mother.

He got up and walked out of the room.

I studied the crisp, white crown molding and waited for him to return. But he didn’t.

I got up and went into the kitchen. Empty. The blank silence pressed in on my ears as I walked through the kitchen into the living room, which looked like a page from a furniture catalog. But he wasn’t there.

Where did he go?

“Jared?” I pulled my hoodie tighter around my body and tucked my hands into the sleeves. I briefly considered leaving. I even started backing toward the foyer. But something stopped me.

Ru

Not only that, but it wouldn’t be fair to Jared. He didn’t deserve to be treated that way.

Behind me, the refrigerator began to hum, startling me and setting my nerves on a knife-blade edge.

“Jared.” In the darkness, my voice sounded like the woof of a frightened dog.

Fair or not, I turned and took another slow step toward the front door.

Behind me, there was a soft sound—a rustle, like someone had crossed the hardwood floor in socks.

I spun around. The room was empty.

A pair of windows overlooked the backyard, which was still buffeted by torrential rain. Lightning struck nearby—and in the brief instant of light, I saw a figure silhouetted against the windows—right up next to them, like it was watching me.

Then the house was dark again.

And again, no thunder.

I was past taking Lydia’s powers for granted. My breath forced itself out in a gasp, and I turned to run, colliding with Jared.

“Whoa, whoa.” He switched on a lamp that sat on a side table. “What are you doing?”

“I saw—” I looked back toward the window. “I mean, I thought…”

There was another flash of lightning, a real one. This time all I saw was the yard. No eerie figure looking in.

You’re imagining things, I told myself. You’re seeing what you expect to see. There was a tall shrub that waved and swayed under the falling rain.

See? That’s all it was. A shrub.

Not Lydia.

He glanced at the window, then held out a bundle of fabric. “I brought you some dry clothes.”

“Thank you. That’s sweet, but I can’t wear those home.”

He cocked his head to one side. “You don’t have to leave yet, do you? Put them on for now.”

I hesitated, then took the clothes and headed toward the bathroom, where I had a chance to look at my injuries in the light.

The bruise on my jaw was a well-defined purple line, but I could probably cover it with makeup. The line across my throat could be hidden with scarves or turtlenecks. The gash on my forehead would be under my bangs. And the cut on my cheek was really just a glorified scratch—I could say I’d petted an unfriendly cat or something.

It wasn’t great, but it was manageable.

Jared had given me a pair of plaid fla

Jared was sitting on the arm of the sofa, staring into the yard. He jumped up when I came into the room. “I’ll take those,” he said, gesturing to the bundle under my arm. “If I put them in the dryer, you should be able to wear them home.”

“I should probably shake them out,” I said. “They’re covered in dirt. I should have thought about that before I came into the house.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“I can go outside and—”

His brown eyes flashed with hurt. “Alexis, please.”

So I handed my clothes over. He went past me to a door in the hallway, and his footsteps thumped down a flight of stairs. A minute later, I heard the whoosh and tumbling of the clothes dryer.

He came back, closed the door behind him, and sat down on the chair next to the couch. I faced the yard. He faced the wall. We studiously avoided looking at each other, and for a long time, neither of us spoke.

Finally I found my voice and said, “Thank you.”

“No.”