To all the readers, you're the driving force behind this story. Without you, it would be nothing.
To all the reviewers, I need to come up with a new word to describe how awesome you all are. My gratitude is undying.
Like promised, this is set during The Summoning when Chloe summons in the crawlspace.
The dead come back to haunt us
DPOV
Everyone was going out for the afternoon to the local pool; everyone except me, Chloe and Tori. Chloe didn't have a bathing suit and Tori was probably doped up into a trance after the meeting she had had with her mother, who was unbelievably cruel. I had seen Diane Enright a few times and I could tell by the way she presented herself, cool, superior and judgmental, that she was a bitch. There was no nicer or subtler way to put it. After hearing her conversation with Tori, my thoughts were confirmed. No kid, even Princess Victoria, deserved to be treated like that. If I felt like being generous, I could say that Tori came by the way she was honestly, having a parent like that. I wasn't in a particularly giving mood though and I believed that everyone has a say in who they are. Nurture can only mold a person so much before nature comes into play. I knew that better than anyone. I had been raised in a stable, fun, loving environment since the age of five, but when push came to shove and it all came down to it, what I was couldn't be ignored and I let the instinct that naturally wanted to dominate take over for one second and made the biggest mistake of life.
I had taken away a life.
That was why I was confined to the house, not allowed to leave. They were probably afraid that I'd purposefully and unremorsefully drown some innocent, unsuspecting bystander and then steal away, giving my "antisocial personality" tendencies free reign. It was irritating and discouraging. I liked to think-at least I hoped-that I wasn't that big of a monstrosity. But what could I do? They had already decided that I was, and becoming a saint probably wouldn't even be able to change that.
I went to my session with Dr. Gill, which was uneventful and a sham on my part. She asked me how my new medication was working and I responded by listing its intended positive results that I had learned about on Wikipedia a couple of days before. I usually refused to use such a scientifically invalidated source, but I made an exception when it came to the research I did on the medication I was supposed to take. It wasn't like she'd ever know, she ate it up every time, and all I needed was a basic outline anyway. Then she asked me how I was feeling, which I thought was rather pointless because she had been the one who established two and a half months ago that I was incapable of feeling. Instead of saying that though, I said that I was okay and threw in how I was getting better at dealing with boredom, that I was less irritated when I was. She nodded approvingly and bit the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling. It didn't matter. I could still see the almost manic pride shining in her eyes at my confession. She looked like I was her child who had just told her I had gotten accepted to an Ivy League school as opposed to her patient who had just admitted that he was getting better at handling boredom.
Inability to tolerate boredom. That was a sign of antisocial personality disorder. I don't enjoy being bored, I don't think anyone does, but I wasn't incapable of being in that state.
After I had been diagnosed, I spent three hours on the computer that night researching the disorder, the signs and symptoms and the causes and treatment options. After reading medical journals, studies, essays and exemplary cases, I was fairly certain that I didn't have ASPD. You needed to be over eighteen to be diagnosed-which I wasn't-and aside from the aggression and lying-which I only ever did to Dr. Gill-I didn't exhibit any other indication that I had it. Plus, I would have had to display at least three symptoms and had to have displayed them before the age of fifteen. I hadn't been a problem child. Up until two and a half months ago, I had never had behavioral problems. I was quiet, reserved. It wasn't a crime. If people wanted to mistake that for sullenness-which it wasn't-then so be it. They were obviously ignorant and that wasn't my problem.
Doing the research had helped me. Even though I knew, deep down, that I didn't have antisocial personality disorder, I had just wanted to know, to make sure, just in case. And the scientific jargon and facts had comforted me. They were the only things that could still comfort me as I sat around in this place with an erroneous label over my head, waiting for a break that would kick Simon's chivalrousness into high gear and get him and Chloe out. Simon needed to get out of here, needed to find Dad, who, as we sat around doing nothing, could be in serious peril.
At first, Simon hadn't wanted to leave without me; he was unmovable and would ignore me whenever I tried to reason with him. Even when I started getting mad, he refused to go, saying that he wasn't leaving without me.
Our conversations started moving in circles. I would explain to him that there were too many risks of confrontation in the streets and I didn't need to be responsible for ruining another life. I wasn't God, I didn't get that power. Simon would then proceed to call me stupid and tell me to stop blaming myself for something I couldn't have controlled. I would subsequently reason that I could have controlled it if I had taken a moment to think before I acted. He would argue that if I hadn't acted when I did, he'd have been stabbed and consequently bled to death. I would tell him to stop being melodramatic and that it hadn't been necessary to throw the kid into a wall, the result of my lack of clear thought. He would then sigh in exasperation, mutter something about me being impossible and go back to ignoring me until I let it go.
Now though, with Chloe in the mix, things had started to change. I could see Simon's resolve to not leave me behind start to weaken and all I needed to do was keep him moving in the right direction until it shattered completely.
Simon's that typical good guy who always tries to do the right thing. Chloe was an inexperienced, defenseless necromancer for which things were starting to get rocky and who couldn't hide her powers for much longer while living under this microscope. Throw in the fact that she was attractive, and Simon was now starting to trip over his feet trying to do the right thing. It was getting to the point for her where she actually needed the help too. If she kept slipping up, because of the unavoidable powers, it would get to the point where it would be get out or get sent away to a real mental institution, which wouldn't be nearly as falsely welcoming as Lyle House, or…
The 'or' was a problem that started when Chloe saw Liz. And that raised a few questions and suspicions.
If Liz was in fact astral projecting like Chloe had suggested, she was doing it unknowingly, which I imagine would be difficult and highly unlikely. Not to mention that if Liz were astral projecting, that meant that she was a shaman. The likelihood of four supernaturals being randomly grouped together in the same place was near impossible because we were all so rare and dispersed.
Then there was the possibility that Chloe was seeing Liz's ghost, which would mean she were dead. That outcome was more believable. 25% of all people will be in an accident in their lifetime and 1 out of 140 will die. Liz could have died on the way to the hospital or in a completely unrelated accident. But I couldn't fully accept that explanation. There was something off about the whole situation one way or the other.
Finally, if someone were being paranoid or irrational or both, they might jump to the conclusion that Liz had been murdered. While the rational part of my mind scoffed at the thought-people, children, didn't get murdered because they were ill and weren't getting better-a stronger part, one governed by instinct, wouldn't let me push it aside and was giving me warnings to be wary and cautious.
Tired of all the questions and lack of answers and of problems I couldn't sit down and solve, I sat down to my math work, which always managed to calm me down and clear my head. I was really starting to get into the problems on advanced ordinary differential equations when I heard the oddest, most unbelievable thing: Tori was humming. And she wasn't humming the 'Jaws' theme song either. No. She sounded rather…content? That was shocking. The one sure thing about bipolar Tori is that she's never content. Ever. I immediately knew something was wrong. Then I remembered how Tori had sounded when she spoke of Chloe earlier today and how I had heard two steps of footsteps going downstairs, but only one coming back up. I added two and two together and tried to control the anxiety that was quickly spreading through my chest as my mind sped theories, each one wilder than the next, about what had happened with Chloe that made Tori so happy.
I left my room and started following Chloe's scent. Simon would kill me if anything happened to her while I was here and the plan might be jeopardized if he no longer had anyone to save. I gulped at the thought and quickened my pace; worry making my heart beat a little faster. It was inexplicable, but I didn't want anything to have happened to Chloe, I didn't want her in danger. I didn't have time to further examine the realization because I opened the door to the basement and heard it: Chloe's heart. It was beating unnaturally loud and dangerously fast, and I knew that whatever had happened-might still be happening-was terribly wrong. I ran down the stairs, her scent disappearing into the crawlspace. I opened the door and sight, sound and smell coincided.
Chloe was whimpering, cowering away from an arm, an arm composed purely of bone, which was attached to an equally skeletal body. The body in question was making odd moaning sounds, like it was trying to speak, and was thumping along, advancing on Chloe. The smell was the worst though not only could I smell the decay and the moth, I could also smell, almost feel, Chloe's terror, that was rolling off her in waves. After the moment I took to process, I rushed in. as I crawled towards her, I got a better look at her and saw that she had been gagged and I was guessing bound. Tori was crazy, she had problems. I knew that. I never thought she was homicidal though. Well, we all make mistakes. Chloe was writhing and crawling, trying with all her might to get out of here. I needed to stop her so she could fix this.
"Chloe! Stop. It's-" I began, but was cut off by her kick to my thigh. I hissed in pain and let out a curse. She wasn't as weak as she looked.
"Chloe!" I said, fingers curling around one of her arms, trying to prevent another outburst. She swung at me in a panic, obviously not realizing who I was and focused solely on getting out. I grabbed her other arm and yanked her off balance.
"Chloe. It's me. Derek." The effect of my words was instantaneous. She collapsed in my arms, probably relieved at no longer being alone. Having her there was an odd sensation all on its own, but I didn't have time to dwell. I knew she was terrified, but I also knew that she had to undo what she had done or we would have a serious problem on our hands. I ripped the gag away and the body made another sound, prompting her to scramble up.
"Th-th-there's-" The fear was kicking her stutter into high gear. She needed to calm down.
"Dead people, I know. They must have been buried down here. You accidentally raised them."
"R-r-raised-" Her breathing hitched another notch. I needed to get this under control or she would burst, from fear or from panic.
"Chloe, focus!" I grabbed her forearm, holding her still and pulling her closer. I needed to calm her down or she would never be able to fix this. "They won't hurt you. They aren't brain-eating movie zombies, okay? They're just dead bodies with their spirits returned to them." I said, conjuring up what knowledge I had on necromancers and their powers.
"I-I-I need to send them back." she said, finally seeming to absorb what I had been trying to get across.
"Yeah, that'd be the general idea." Strain sapped the sarcasm from my words. I was struggling to stay calm, to breathe evenly, because if I wasn't, she would assume that there was something to worry about and wouldn't be able to focus on the task at hand.
"O-okay, so how do I send them back?" she asked, assuming that I had all the answers. But I didn't. I didn't know everything. I wasn't an experienced necromancer and from what little I did know, you needed some sort of ritual to even attempt to return a spirit to its body.
"Derek?" she asked, shaking me from my silence.
"I…I don't know." I admitted grudgingly. I rolled my shoulders, trying to ease some of the tension. "You summoned them, Chloe. Whatever you did, undo it. Reverse it."
"I didn't do-"
"Just try." We needed to stop talking so she could start working.
She closed her eyes, repeating, "Go back. Back to your afterlife. I release you." Her heart was still thumping wildly though. The body was right behind her and in a guttural, low voice, said, "Help. Help." Her eyes snapped open and her heart sped up. She needed to focus and stay calm or she would never be able to send it back. I muttered a curse and tightened my hold on her arms; reminding her she wasn't alone and hopping the physical reassurance would help.
"Keep your eyes closed, Chloe. Just remember, they won't hurt you."
A bony fingertip touched her elbow and she jumped.
"It's okay Chloe. I'm right here. Keep going." These words seemed to comfort her for she closed her eyes once again and I could hear her heart slowing down and quieting, her breath coming more easily. As she did whatever it was necromancers do, I kept my eye on the body and let all that had happened sink in, catch up with my mind, which had been previously solely occupied with finding Chloe and calming her down.
Chloe had summoned a spirit back into its body. She had raised the dead. A fifteen year old who had just found out she was a necromancer and probably still hadn't accepted it, should not be able to do that. From what I've read and heard, raising the dead required a complicated ritual and a lot of power and even then, there isn't a guarantee that you'd be able to do it. Doing it unconsciously wasn't normal. I snorted internally at the thought. I don't think that I was the best judge of what was and wasn't normal. I was a werewolf for God's sake. One thing was for sure though. There was now no doubt that Chloe was a necromancer, and a damn powerful one at that. Unfortunately, this misfortune raised more questions too. How was Chloe this powerful? Why were there dead bodies buried in the crawlspace of a by no means ancient house?
I realized with relief that the body hadn't moved in a while and was no longer making sounds.
"They're gone, Chloe." I whispered, afraid to disturb the silence. She twisted sideways and the once-again corpse fell at her feet. I let out a long, deep breath that I hadn't realized I had been holding and ran my fingers through my hair. She did it. She was relatively okay. Thank god she was okay. The latter was like a mantra, replaying itself in my head. I realized that I should actually ask if she was okay, as opposed to assume she was, considering that she must be going through mental turmoil and Tori might have inflicted more damage that I could see.
"I'll live." she said, in a voice that would have been wry had it not been shaking.
I took another relief filled deep breath, and then looked at the body.
"Guess we've got some work to do." It wasn't as if we could leave it here for someone to find. She took a deep breath, regarded the body almost unwillingly, and nodded.
This one is longer and I wasn't sure if I should continue, do a part two of this one-shot. Maybe cover Chloe's meeting with her aunt that Derek no doubt overheard and their meeting with Gill and Davidoff? And maybe Chloe's confrontation in the bathroom? I don't know, let me know. R&R :)