"The scandal and violence connected with the house had occurred before their births, but small towns have long memories and pass their horrors down ceremonially from generation to generation." —Salem's Lot
Ethan's pretty sure they're gonna die here and that their parents are going to ground them for the entirety of their afterlives.
After the lights had gone out, the twins had scurried back to the waiting room and hidden behind one of the couches. There's a gunshot and the sound of shattering glass, then rushing footsteps and muffled conversations. Ethan can't make out the words, but he recognizes the familiar cadence of Boyd and Erica's bantering.
"What the fuck is going on," Ethan hisses. He's pressed as close as he can to his brother until he doesn't know where he starts and Aiden begins. He should have just stayed home tonight, he could have worked on the blanket he's crocheting and watched scary movies. He might even have been able to stop his parents from getting kidnapped.
"It's gonna be okay," Aiden says. He wraps Ethan up in a tight hug, putting himself between the door and his brother. Aiden's always been protective, says it's his job since he's fifteen minutes older. "We'll get out of here."
"How? The exits are blocked." Aiden's shaking, but he doesn't loosen his hold. He tenses suddenly and Ethan's sure that one of the gunmen has found their way into the waiting room.
"What the fuck is that?" Ethan cracks his eyes open, twisting in his brother's hold until he can see what had captured Aiden's attention. There's a faint mist gathering in the corner of the room, person-shaped, dainty, and then a girl is visible in the blackness.
"Can you see me," the girl asks. Her voice is little more than a puff of air, but it gains strength when she speaks again. "You can, can't you? You can see me." There are tears on her cheeks, frozen there, and her staccato breaths are carried out on a vapor. It's like she's standing in the cold, but it's still seventy degrees outside.
"Are you…? Are you Kira," Ethan asks. She nods excitedly, her long hair dancing over her shoulders. "Holy shit." There wasn't much about Kira Yukimura in any of their Google searches, mostly just that she'd tried to set a classmate on fire and then she disappeared inside the Hale Institute. Her parents had never given up searching for her.
"Nobody's seen me in so long. I almost forgot I was real." She steps closer to them and they can see right through her like a frosted pane of glass. "But you two can see me and that means you can help me."
"Help you with what," Aiden asks. There's an edge to his voice, his arms a little tighter. He doesn't trust Kira and who could blame him? The ghosts in this place tend to be bloodthirsty.
"First we need to get somewhere safer. Follow me." She passes through the back wall and there's a faint click before a small section is swinging open. The twins share a look but they know they don't have a choice. Beyond the waiting room, a man is screaming and throwing things. It won't be long until they find this room and the twins.
"I have a feeling we're gonna regret following her."
"We don't have a choice," Ethan reminds him. They move in sync with each other, Ethan crawling through the opened section first. He finds himself in an old corridor cluttered with spider webs and exposed boards. Aiden follows after him and swings the hidden door shut, a spider web caught in his hair. "How'd you know about this?"
"I've had a long time to explore," Kira says sadly. They have to crawl a few more feet, but then they can stand up and move easily. "This passage leads to an office and there are a few others throughout the place. They're how the survivors escaped before Hale threw the switch."
"This place is like a funhouse," Aiden mutters. "Or the damn TARDIS."
"I knew you liked that show," Ethan says, careful to keep his voice low. Aiden rolls his eyes and shoves Ethan against the wall. A few of the boards snap in half, rot weakening them. There's all kinds of water damage in the passage, but none of the black mold that's spread through everywhere else. "Why isn't it moldy in here? It's so damp."
"Because the Nogitsune doesn't know about this corridor yet," Kira says. She's still hard to hear, but she's becoming a little more substantial. Maybe ghosts are like Tinkerbelle and they need attention to live. Er, be seen? They just need attention. "It infects everything it touches with the mold, but it's particularly fond of fire."
"Because of what happened to this place?" Kira stops in front of another section, this one tall enough that Ethan will only have to duck his head to get through. "The patients started a riot, right? Caught some shit on fire."
"That's not how it happened." She passes through the section and Aiden shoulders it open, knocking a couch out of the way. The new room isn't as pleasant as the last one, but it's relatively clean. Soot coats the walls like paint, there are a few questionable stains on a couch that used to be white, and the desk has collapsed into a pile of splintered wood. There's no fire damage, though, no mold. "This was Stilinski's office."
"Marcelina, right," Aiden checks. "Stiles' great-grandmother." Kira nods, running her fingers through her hair to draw the long strands off her face. She keeps fidgeting with it and Ethan wishes he'd brought one of Erica's hair ties with him.
"She was so beautiful," Kira breathes. "So kind when I first met her, but then she revealed her true colors. She and Corrine liked electroshock therapy, they cataloged all the effects of it on their patients. It never helped me." She presses her fingertips to her temples and strands of her hair rise from phantom static.
"What happened to you, Kira? There aren't any records that you ever came here."
"It was three years of hell." She sits on thin air, floating crisscross applesauce like it's the most natural thing in the world. "It wasn't as bad at first, a lot of talking and solitary confinement. The Nogitsune would act up, but I had some control over it, I could keep it from attacking the staff too badly. Year three would have been like the other two, but Hale's daughter disappeared and he blamed me for it."
"Why?"
"I dunno. He locked me in a basement room to beat me, sometimes he'd throw me in the saturation chamber with its spinning pictures. The Nogitsune loved it, it thrived on my pain and the terror. Then Hale decided he would get nothing from me. He decided it was time to get rid of me…."
October 11, 1931
Kira has been given enough drugs to kill a Clydesdale but still she struggles. The leather restraints creak, the metal bed frame groans beneath her, and Peter grins. He knows this bitch had something to do with Malia's disappearance, he knows.
"Keep fighting, little girl," he says, watching her. He stands over the bed like a reaper, scraping blunt nails across Kira's neck and chest. Her thin gown doesn't cover much, doesn't offer a scrap of protection. "That's right, struggle as hard as you can." There's a sickening pop as her shoulder dislocates, but Kira doesn't even seem to notice. He broke her wrist five minutes ago, the tip of white bone barely visible in the bloody mess. Fifteen minutes before that, he'd busted her lower lip and shattered most of her teeth. "Where's my daughter? Tell me and I'll leave you alone."
"Burn in hell." Peter cracks a baton against her jaw and lets out a satisfied sigh when the bone shatters. Kira's next words should come out slurred, but they're clear as day. "When I'm done with you, your soul is going to be in tatters." Her voice has gone cold, like an icy pond just waiting for you to wander out onto it before it shatters beneath you.
Peter lashes out with the baton, a sturdy thing made of hickory wood. He keeps hitting her until he can't make her out through the mist of blood in the air and he'll barely be able to lift his arm the next morning. When he's done, Kira's dead and he's still no closer to finding his daughter.
"What should we do with her," Boyd asks.
"We could bury her in the back," Argent suggests.
"No," Corrine says, shaking her head. Peter glances at her over his shoulder and knows they're thinking the same thing. In the three years Kira's been here, she's somehow started eighteen fires and killed another patient by stuffing matches down their throat. "No, we're going to cremate her."
"Let her burn through the night," Peter agrees.
"The Nogitsune is tied to this place, to the survivors," Kira explains. "That's why those people took Boyd. If they kill him, then the Nogitsune can wander freely." She chews on her lip, looking up at the twins like they're her saviors. Ethan's never felt less like a knight in shining armor than he does right now.
"How is it tied to the survivors, though," Aiden demands. He'd been pacing while Kira told them about her final night here—final night alive, anyway—but now he's gone still beside a window. Outside, the moon is full and round, but the metal plates have blocked out any trace of light.
"The Nogitsune possessed Hale after I died and Hale's grudge became the Nogitsune's prison. Those five bastards survived the fire that killed Hale and they're the key to freeing the spirits trapped here." She goes quiet for a long moment, the mist growing a little thicker around her like a shadow. "You could get me out of here, too. I could see my parents."
"Wouldn't it come with you, though?"
"No, it's stuck here." She takes a deep breath and the mist seems to recede a little as she grows less transparent. Ethan can still see the broken desk behind her, but it's harder.
"Like Bly Manor," Aiden says. Ethan turns to glance at his brother, raising a brow. "Remember the episode about the sisters, E? The one died and created her own gravitational pull to keep every spirit trapped there. I'll bet Hale is doing the same thing and that's why the Nogitsune is stuck. That's why it sent out those invitations last year."
"It was almost freed last year. I can feel its strength growing the more it feeds. Stiles and Derek are like batteries." Ethan thinks of the battered paperback Aiden keeps in his desk drawer, the last present their mother had given him before she passed away. The Overlook would have used Danny like the Energizer Bunny and it had nearly driven Jack crazy enough to kill the poor kid.
"Jesus Christ on a skateboard, I haven't had enough caffeine to deal with this shit." Aiden stomps away from the window to kick the splintered remains of the desk. There's a loud crack of breaking wood that makes all three of them tense. They're still on the first floor and God only knows where those gunmen are.
"Aiden," Ethan hisses.
"Sorry," Aiden growls back at him. He slides down the wall, pouting like a little boy in timeout. Ethan lets out a breath when he doesn't hear footsteps out in the hallway, locking the door just in case. If nothing else, the locked door would give them enough time to hide in the secret hall again. "So, what now?"
"We find Boyd," Kira says, determined. "We find him and get him out as soon as we can." Ethan nods and looks over at her. Kira's only sixteen, she's a kid just like the twins, and she hasn't known a moment's peace in so long. He can't just leave her here with those other assholes.
"Yeah," he agrees," we get Boyd and Erica out of here, but we also get you out." Kira's brown eyes go wide in surprise, the mist pulsing like a heartbeat. "We can't just leave you here, Kira. You should be buried next to your parents."
"My parents?"
"They never gave up on you," Aiden adds. "Good parents never do." The twins share a look and Ethan knows they're thinking of the same people. Their biological mother, a sweet woman who'd done her best, and their new parents. Erica and Boyd have only been in their lives for a year, but Ethan's never felt so at peace. Aiden doesn't even flinch when people come close to him anymore. "Where are your remains, Kira."
"In the basement."