I was alone in the last place I had seen my mother alive. Once I entered the asylum, out of sight from the dozens of snipers trained on me, I started shaking. Fear was trying to leak out of my pores. What made me think I could do this?
It wasn't a mater of if I could, but I had to. My family depended on me. The Chu family depended on me. I...I might never see any of them again.
I might never see... him again. Danny. He deserved so much better than how I left him. But I had to go. I had to.
I climbed the old stairs of the asylum one at a time. On the seventh step, my foot fell through, and I let out a yelp. I was too wired. I pulled myself up and continued the climb.
I thought about how fifteen years ago my mother had come here by herself, not knowing what I knew. She would have been calm, collected. This would have been like any other job. Like any other spiritual cleansing. Everything would be okay as long as I didn't get possessed.
As I suspected, the spiritual presence was strongest in the room where I had watched my mother strangle my father, where she then jumped out the window.
I slowly made my way to the middle of the room. I sat down carefully on the dust covered floor. This would have been near the spot I saw my mother choking my father. He'd be upset if he knew I had come back here.
I closed my eyes. I opened my mind up to the connections around me. I visualized what I had to do and started letting go of the lines that tethered me.
It was dark and quiet. I felt a tug at my psyche. That must have been her. My eyes flew open as I said her name. "Helena."
She burned into visualization. Purple flames licked at her wild hair. She looked at me calmly, but the cruelty and pain wasn't gone from her eyes.
I took a breath and tried my best not to let it shake. "Helena, you have suffered great pain from this world. There is nothing left to connect you to it. I compel you to move on and find rest."
She tilted her head and gave a sinister smile. "You think just because you're a psychic you can erase my pain."
She assaulted my mind, prodding and yanking at the walls, trying to get inside. It burned. I bit back the pain.
"Stop that. I don't give you permission to enter my mind," I growled.
She laughed. "Do you think I gave any of those monsters permission to mess with my mind? They feared what they couldn't understand. The secrets I knew. I can still feel the electricity in my brain. I couldn't tell reality apart from my nightmares. To me, they were the same."
"It's over," I urged. "You can move on."
"I won't. They're still alive. The man who could have saved me. We were meant to be together, and he abandoned me. He came to me everyday, but still stayed with his wife," she hissed. "His excuses hurt me more than the electricity could have. His family must pay. They kept me from my one true love. My soul mate. Don't you know that pain?"
"No." I winced as she burned closer.
"Liar!" She screeched. She pulled down my walls as though they were nothing. Like a tablecloth being ripped off a table. Thoughts of Danny began spilling everywhere. His touch. His smile. The anguish of leaving him and coming back to his painful indifference.
"No!" I insisted. "I'm not in love with him."
"You can't lie about something like this," she reveled as she made herself comfortable, burrowing inside of my mind. "You can't deny love any more than you can deny yourself. It's painful. So painful. You poor girl, deluding yourself into thinking this torture could be avoided. Did your mother teach you nothing?"
Anger ripped through, but it wasn't entirely my own anymore.
"Revenge." I wasn't entirely sure where the words were coming from anymore. "You and I want the same thing. We're not so different."
Memories of my mother flashed before my eyes. Her last moments as she strangled my father and flung her body out the window just a few feet behind me. The looks of everyone in town when they saw me. The misery the Chu's had caused my family.
I was still in control of my limbs. I slammed my arms on the ground. Pain shot through my body as splinters embedded under my skin. "This is mine, Helena! Stay the hell away!"
Her ghostly visage attacked me, sinking into my body. I thrashed as I fought her, but I was running out of ways to fight her from the inside.
"I remember you now," she laughed as she gained access to my memories. "You're the one who disrupted my last psychic. She was gone too soon. Don't you want to see your mother again?"
I screamed. She was torturing my mind in every way possible. I was reliving my worst fears in an infinite loop. She was feeding off my pain
"Don't worry. I won't kill your sister. She'll be in reserve should something happened to you. No promises for her lover, but I suppose I'll have to deal with the Chu's outside first."
"I'm not in love with him. I'm not in love with him," I muttered my mantra.
"Are you still going on about that?"
I writhed. Tears blazed down my face as the pain swept over me. The last time I had seen him, our connection was gone. He had looked at me so coldly. I wanted him. I had wanted him to hold me again. To kiss me. I wanted to be closer to him and finally connect with someone I could trust with my life. It was my fault that he hated me now. He would never be with me now. The lonliness was unbearable.
I wailed. I was losing my grip.
"You were there for your mother, but there's no one left to be there for you," Helena said through my own lips.
I fought for any of my own connections. Anything to claim this world as mine. To claim this body as mine. There was nothing left for me. Helena started making her own connections, stringing me up like a marionette. There wasn't time. I needed to stop her before she got out.
"Nora!" A faint voice echoed through the asylum. "Nora, where the hell are you?"
"Nooooooooooo!" I shrieked. That was Danny. What was Danny doing here? He wasn't supposed to be here. Why wasn't he stopped?
Helena tried to take over. I could see myself straddled over his bloody body, my hands acting as a vice around his neck. His blond hair matted down with blood. A rage coursing through my veins that encouraged me to squeeze tighter, knowing that the pain would end soon if I could only end his life.
"No! No!" I denied the vision with every fiber of my being that I could access. It was nearly not enough. I would only have control for a few moments. Helena was still there, waiting for another vulnerable moment.
"Nora!" Danny found me. "Nora, talk to me. What's going on? Are you okay? Is there anyone else here with you." He had his gun drawn. It was pointing towards the ground.
"Danny, you need to get out right now," the words barely made it out. It felt like I was choking on my own blood. "You're..."
"I thought I told you not to come here by yourself," he yelled. His anger was like daggers. "You were supposed to..."
Helena used the fresh pain to grip tighter. I screamed. "Danny!" I wailed.
"Nora, I'm right here..." He was scared. Confused.
"Shoot me, for the love of God, shoot me," I pleaded. I had one way out at least.
"What?"
"If you don't kill me, I won't be able to stop myself from killing you," I cried. The vision was too tempting. It was Helena's fate to kill the one she loved. She was going to take over and make me do the same.
"Why are you doing this, Nora?" His voice was shaking.
"Yao can explain. I don't want to hurt you," I begged. "Please." I hated that I had to make him choose.
Danny hesitated and raised his gun. He emptied the chamber and magazine. He placed them all on the ground and kicked the bullets and gun in opposite directions.
"Nora, I don't know what's going on. If you would just tell me, we can work through this. You know I can't shoot you."
"Shit..." Helena was starting to come back. She was going to kill him.
It was hard for me to move. I got up. My joints were stiff and painful as if there were rods shoved all over my body. I got to the window as quickly as I could. It was still as open and broken as the day my mother died. I stood at the very edge and spread my arms apart. If Chu's snipers did their job right, I'd be met with a bullet soon. Either that or I'd let gravity take over.
A pair of arms wrapped around my waist and pulled me back into the asylum. "Jesus Christ, Nora! Have you lost your mind?!"
He thinks I'm crazy. That thought wasn't mind. He thinks I'm crazy, no wonder he can never be with me.
I screamed, throat burning. I dropped my elbow into Danny stomach, forcing him to let me go. I wanted to run out the window, but instead I turned around to face Danny.
I swung my arm to punch him in the face, but he caught my fist easily. I kicked him in the groin instead, satisfied to see him keel over in pain. He dropped to his knees. I went back over to the window and broke a piece of glass from the window pane. I stayed out of sight from the outside just in case. Blood trickled to the floor as I gripped the broken glass in my hand. I urged my body to jump out the window, but I couldn't do it.
I stalked over to Danny. My eyes sting. I didn't want to watch. I tried to slash him but he caught my wrist again. He gripped it tightly, until I let it go and it clanked to the ground.
He pulled me down as well, trying to pin me beneath his body. I wriggled free, wrenching my hand free of Danny's grasp.
"This is all your fault!" I screamed and elbowed Danny in the face. No. Oh God no.
Danny's balance was thrown. I used the opportunity to pin him beneath me. Before he could act, my hands were at his throat, squeezing as hard as I could.
"We could have been happy together. Why did you have to get in my way?"
Helena was going to kill him. Not Danny! Oh god, she was going to make me kill Danny! I tried to fight it but the pain was drowning what was left of me, the original me, not the abomination Helena was corrupting me to be. Oh Danny, no!
Danny couldn't break my death grip. Even now, as I cut off his breath, he tried not to hurt me.
"Why couldn't you just love me?" I shouted with despair.
"I-I do...love you," he strangled out. He choked out a small laugh. "Always have, princess. That's the problem"
The connection hit me like a live wire. The same one as before, but stronger. Maybe because I had been forced to acknowledge my end. Either way it was clear. He was very much so in love with me.
I held on to the connection as tight as I could, pulling it closer to me. For a moment, it felt like I could see the future. Being filled with warmth at the slightest touch. Danny smiling slyly before he kissed me, knowing full well it would send my heart into a frenzy. We could be inseparable. Further along, I saw the toothy smile of a girl with freckles on her cheeks and light purple eyes. I wanted this.
Helena's grip faltered. She didn't know what to do with this. He wasn't supposed to be in love with me. He wasn't supposed to say that. But he was mine, not hers. I wouldn't let her touch him.
I pried my hands off of his throat and gripped my head. He wheezed as his lungs filled with air.
"Get out!" I screamed, my words finally my own again. "There's nothing connecting you here!"
She didn't move, but she couldn't do anything to me anymore.
"Get out of my head, you bitch!" I pushed her out with all I had. She was the one who couldn't get away from me now. I acknowledged all my connections and used them to surround her. I had friends. I had family. I even had enemies that would stand by me to bring her down. And most of all I had Danny, who was still alive and here with me. She had nothing.
She went quietly, unable to do or say anything more. She dissolved like dust. A purple light shone from my eyes and faded. It was done. She was gone.
Danny caught me by surprise and slammed me on the floor. He secured my wrists above my head and sat on my hips.
"Shit," Danny coughed out.
I couldn't help myself. I was so happy I began to weep. "Danny. Oh Danny."
"You good now?" He asked as he rubbed his throat.
I nodded. He let go of my wrists and shifted his weight.
I lunged at him, wrapping him in my embrace.
"You're so stupid. You're so stupid, Danny."
After the shock wore off, he patted my head. "Yeah, I know."
I didn't have to be afraid anymore. My connection to Danny was strong and unyielding. He seemed so close. My hands shook as I pulled myself up.
I kissed him. My lips were stiff. I had no idea what I was doing, but it felt good. Our psyches were nearly touching. We resonated the same.
I took a shaky breath. "I love you," I said with a strange certainty.
He was hard to read, probably because he was emotionally exhausted. "We should get out of here. Can you get up?"
Honestly, I didn't think I could. Danny had me covered. He hooked his arm under my knees and around my back. He lifted me as he got up and carried me out of the asylum.