Burn

Explanation

Nine

Beep. Beep. Beep.

What is that?

I try to open my eyes but my eyelids are heavy, like weights had been glued to them. I feel like someone had hacked my arms into pieces and my entire body aches all over, like I've been run over with a dirtbike.

"Oh god," says a voice next to me. Or above me?

"Chloe, Chloe, my precious baby," the voice sobs.

"How could you have let this happen?" The voice is female and growing shriller, dragging me closer and closer to full consciousness.

"I didn't let anything happen!" snaps a new voice, male and deep.

I can feel the heat of lights on my skin, feel the scratchy blanket on my legs, a light fabric draped over my body (a dress?), a hand holding mine firmly. Another smooths away my hair. Someone kisses my forehead.

"Chloe, please, if you can hear me," whispers the woman's voice close to my ear, "wake up. Please."

I relax slowly and my eyelids creep open inch by inch.

I see black and green and red-brown and blue.

The lights are searing and I turn away from them. "Shut off the lights!" the man's voice hisses.

The lights clicks off and in the dim, I can see him.

A man with black hair and worried green eyes, acne staining his cheeks and a nasty looking pimple on his chin, sits by my right hip, holding my hand tightly.

Someone moves into my vision and a red-brown-haired woman leans above me, dripping tears down onto my cheeks. Her blue-grey eyes are glossy and bloodshot, like she's been crying a lot.

Mom.

"Chloe, Chloe," she sobs as she wraps her arms around me.

I blink hard. "Who are you?" I blurt. They're so familiar but I can't name them.

"You don't…remember us?"

"Her brain's all foggy. It's the drugs," murmurs the man.

"Aunt Lauren," whispers a voice tauntingly, so close yet so far away, but I can't see anyone.

"Aunt…Lauren?" I ask slowly, testing the words, shaping them with my mouth, sounding out the letters slowly. My dry skin peels and cracks.

The woman wails and throws her thin, boney arms around me. She smells like soap.

"And you're…" I trail as I look over at the man sitting.

"Derek," the whispering voice laughs.

"D-Derek, I'm s-sorry," I mumble, pulling the blanket up to my chin as tears burn my eyes.

"What for?" Derek is hovering above me, worry clouding his eyes.

Something moves in the corner and I see Royce.

Damn him.

He is wearing a black sweater and jeans, the ones with holes in the knees, and his hair drips water onto the floor.

Plip.

No one else seems to notice him.

Plip.

Aunt Lauren has to leave, her pager going crazy.

Derek sits at my side.

Plip.

Royce crosses the room, gliding on air, steam peeling off. Red blossoms on his chest, stained his sweater darker than ebony.

Plip.

A puddle of pink water pools at the hem of his jeans and under his bare feet. His tattoo is still there.

"What's wrong?" Derek asks me slowly, eyes flickering to his left, where Royce hovers, too close for comfort.

"Hello, Chloe. Looks like the good old man Upstairs didn't want you to join me in the after life," he laughs, pale teeth gleaming like bleached shells, only, you know, pointy like a demon's.

I shift and the sheets rubs against my bare legs. "It's freezing in here," I say to Derek, pretending not to notice Royce.

His eyes blaze with fire as he stalks up to me and even in death, he is just as intimidating.

I flinch back, away from him, like I always did before.

"You're mine, whether you want to admit it or not," he whispers in his soft voice, the one that scared the living hell out of me every time he used it.

I stiffen and grip Derek's hand as tight as I could. Bones press against my paper-thin skin.

Royce isn't real.

He can't hurt me.

"Ah, yes. The age old death-living barrier. Remember my little friend?" Royce levels himself horizontal and pretends to lay down in a recliner, buffing his nails.

Which one? He had tons, being the son of a mobster after all.

I begin to sweat and notice Derek's rigid stance, his eyes looking around widly.

"Which one?" I ask lowly, my voice weak and wavering.

Royce pauses in buffing his nails and glances down at Derek with disinterest, his eyebrows merely lifting an inch in questioning before they lower again. Curls fall into his forehead and eyes.

"A girl," my ex answers, smiling predatorily.

The merry-go-'round of nausea passes as I search my brain desperately for a memory.

He had many female "friends." All of whom slept with him.

"Does this friend have a name?"

Derek shifts closer to me, confusion written on his face as he follows my side of the conversation. "What's going on?"

Royce hops off his imaginary recliner and gets in Derek's face. Horror washes through me as he spits, "Mind your own damn business, you piece of fat, ugly shit." He turns to me and shakes his head from side to side, like he was disappointed and scolding me.

I feel two inches tall under his blazing, penetrating glare. "You know," he chuckles and my brain stops searching as I find his dark eyes.

"Her?" I squeak. My nails bite into Derek's rough palm.

"Yes, her." My ex glances over his shoulder and his lip curls. A look of fury washes over his face and he vanishes with the crackle of static.

"I'm not crazy," I tell Derek.

He doesn't say anything, just rubs my knuckles with his thumb softly, the soothing sensation nearly putting me to sleep.

I'm sure whatever Royce had planned, someone's bound to get hurt. Bad. Being a mobster's son meant you know where to hide the bodies when someone dies under mysterious circumstances.

I'm just hoping it won't have to come in handy.