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Chapter Nine

RAELYN

“Are you ever going to share what happened?” Ronnie pushes. “You can’t hide in yourself forever, and I can’t help you if you don’t ever tell me what happened.”

I stare at her, unsure of what to say. My hands twist in my lap as we sit at a table at a Denny’s on the strip. Our Everyday Value Slam sits in front of us. The smell of the pancakes and sausage instantly makes my stomach grumble in hunger.

Watching the butter melt on the fluffy stacks in front of me, I let out a long breath. “I wish I could remember. I wish I knew what happened, but I only get bits and pieces. Things seem real but dreamlike at the same time. I… I don’t even really remember myself, if that makes sense.”

She hums and nods. “Well, yes and no. Eat. While you talk, you need to eat,” Ronnie says as she bites into her scrambled eggs that she doused in ketchup.

I stab one of the sausages with my fork and slowly lift it to my mouth.

Biting down, the juices explode in my mouth, and I let out a small moan when I finally swallow it down.

This is a treat for us. We have been stealing things from convenience stores to get us by, but we decided to splurge a bit this morning on breakfast.

Ronnie won’t tell me how she gets the money; she just says the money comes from side jobs. I don’t push or question it. Because right now, I’m enjoying pancakes with that money she makes.

I take a deep breath and move the scrambled eggs around my plate with my fork.

“All I know for sure is when I was in that house. And even then, a lot of it is missing. He would drug me. Often. I remember waking up, feeling sore and dirty. Parts of me would hurt.” Tears start to blur my vision.

“But I can’t remember who I am. Like, I have these images that flash in my mind, but I don’t know what is true and what isn’t. For fuck’s sake, I thought I got away.”

“What do you mean you thought you got away?” She frowns as she lifts her orange juice to her lips, peering at me over the rim of the glass.

“Before I woke up in the hospital, I thought I had run away. That a man ra—” I choke back on my tears and have to steady myself. “A man did horrible things to me, and that he left the door open, and I escaped. But then I woke up in a hospital, and I was told I was rescued from a fire.”

Ronnie’s mouth drops open. “Holy shit balls.”

“And it felt so real. I could feel the guy on top of me. The smell of his breath.” I gag at the memory. “I could feel the ground under my feet as I ran. But it was all a dream of some sort.”

She nods, “So, how can you know what you are seeing is truth or a hallucination?” It’s clearly a rhetorical question.

“Exactly.” I cut into the pancakes and take a small bite, savoring the buttery, fluffy food on my tongue. This pancake could be a hallucination for all I know.

“Um, are you eating pancakes without syrup?” Ronnie scrunches her face as she judges my eating habits.

“Yeah, syrup is sticky. Hard pass.” I wrinkle my nose.

“You are a strange duck.” She takes a bite of her eggs and chews for a moment. “So, you have no idea who this guy is who had you?”

“No.” I shake my head. “If I hadn’t been told I was in that fire, I would probably question if I was really there. I kinda question if the guy was real or if who I saw was real. I just don’t know. I don’t know if anything in that house was real. These images…” I trail off.

“And these images or things you see, what are they exactly? Besides the escape.”

I look around at the people sitting at their tables, talking amongst themselves. They laugh and eat as if there isn’t a worry in their world. Like evil doesn’t truly exist.

“I… I just see these black shadows. Their eyes. They are all looking at me.” I shake my head as my mind replays what it remembers of visions. “They hover over me. There’s a murmuring, but I can’t understand it. I don’t know. It all goes fuzzy.”

Ronnie stares at me, her face giving away nothing.

“What about the one you had at the shelter?” she asks.

My mind tries to replay the images from my sleep. Except I can’t remember all of it. “I remember I couldn’t move, that everything felt heavy. There was blackness, but that’s all I can remember.” I chug my water, my throat feeling dry and scratchy.

“Damn. Well, look, you need to talk to me if you get a flashback or something. Maybe I can help piece together what is going on. I don’t want you suffering alone.

You aren’t alone anymore, Raelyn. You’ve got me.

Which, I know you haven’t known me for too long, but I’m kinda cool and all. ” She smiles at me.

“I just don’t know where I belong. I don’t know where I fit. Everything I know or think I know, I can’t even be sure is factual. It could be my head playing games with me.” I frown and take a sip of my milk.

“Do you know what drugs the asshole gave you? What he used to keep you loopy?” She tilts her head to the side.

I shake my head, not wanting to tell her what he really gave me.

“No. He called them my vitamins. That’s all I know.

He didn’t give me a choice; he made me take them.

And the few times I tried to fight it, he beat me so bad I was bruised and broken for what felt like weeks.

Then he would beat the same spots, making it hurt more.

” My lips wobble as I try to keep the emotions from flowing out of me.

The lump in my throat threatens to spill over.

“What a fucking monster!” Ronnie’s jaw drops. “I want to find the fucker and peel his skin from his body and then roast him over an open fire.”

My eyes widen at her confession. “That’s… dark.” But maybe I kind of want to do the same thing.

She looks at me and then busts out laughing. “That was the least dark of the dark things running through my head.”

“Thanks for keeping it light.” I crack a smile.

We spend the rest of breakfast filling up on food and talking about our plans for the night.

She tries to pull my focus away from my nightmares, encouraging me to think of other things.

She got us a cheap room at a run-down place called the Nexus Hotel for a couple nights, so at least we will have a bed to sleep in for a bit.

We decided to stay away from the shelters and brave the streets of Vegas.

While the shelters are nice, they felt too confining to me. Too many people, too many questions. And every now and then, we get a room in a run-down motel or hotel. It’s a bed for the night. And sure, the room smells, and there is who knows what on the sheets, but it’s a bed in a room.

At least it’s better than sleeping on the street.

“Okay, so I’m gonna go do that job really fast, and then I will be back. Do you want me to pick up something to eat?” Ronnie asks as she packs her small handbag.

“Are you ever going to tell me what it is you do?” I mean, I’m not complaining at all. While this room is the absolute worst, whatever she does is letting us stay here.

Looking around, I take in the dirty beige walls that are across from me, a salmon-colored wall painted behind me, and the dingy bed I’m sitting on. The orange and pink comforter looks like it has seen better days, and there could be a science experiment on this thing.

Don’t even start thinking about that.

The floor is tile, but the grout is black and stained. There are brown stains on the ceiling, which I’m sure are from leaky pipes, and don’t even get me started on the cracks in the tub in the bathroom. But it has hot water, and it lets us shower. Beggars can’t be choosers.

“I will be back in a couple of hours. Don’t worry. Just keep everything locked up and watch some TV.” She smiles at me, ignoring my question and heading out the door.

I get up and immediately look out the window, watching her get into a beat-up black SUV. I narrow my eyes, my mind turning with what she could be doing.

I watch the SUV drive off, and I slink back into the bed and turn on the TV.

I flip through the channels, not really seeing anything that interests me.

Turning it off, I lean back on the pillow, my eyes feeling a bit heavy.

A little nap wouldn’t hurt, and I will be fully rested when Ronnie finds her way back.

So, I close my eyes and let sleep take me.

“Well, I need you to watch her for a bit. I have to get on stage,” a woman decked out in a glittery, skimpy outfit says into the phone.

“I know, Tom, but we need the money. So just deal with it.” She angrily punches the phone with her finger, ending the call.

She huffs as she walks out the door past a big, burly guy.

I look back at the area in front of me. My makeup is eccentric, my hair filled with glitter. My heart beats wildly, nerves on complete edge.

“River! You’re up next, so get your ass out here.” My eyes meet a slimy looking older man. I cringe as he smiles at me, his yellow teeth and chapped lips making me want to vomit.

There are voices all around me, but I can’t make out the conversations. The music is too loud. Before I realize, I’m up on stage. The music starts up, but all I hear is the beat. My body glides toward it effortlessly.

My ass shimmies as my legs move me toward the pole on the stage. My body winds around the pole as the music plays on.

Suddenly, the music comes to a stop, and the lights go dim. I look back toward the back of the stage in confusion. Where did the music go?

Looking back at the crowd, my heart stops. All I see are their eyes. I can’t make out who they are, but an endless sea of eyes stare back at me.

They stand up and start to come closer to the stage, and I try to scream, but no one can hear me. Nothing is coming out. I look over at the bar, but it’s empty. Shaking my head, I start to walk back but fall on my ass.

When I look up, the black shadows are hovering over me, their eyes locked on me.

And I let out a blood-curdling scream.

“Raelyn! Raelyn! Wake up!” Ronnie’s voice wakes me, her hands shaking my shoulders. I shoot up in a sitting position, my breaths coming out fast. Sweat drips down my back.

She hands me a bottle of water, and I chug it down. My eyes dart all around me, trying to make sense of what is reality and what isn’t.

“What happened? What did you see?” Ronnie frowns as she studies me.

“River,” I gasp.

“You saw a river?” Ronnie scrunches her face.

I shake my head. “No. Someone called me River.” The images start fading from my memory. “I was on a stage. They called me River. The eyes were there.”

“Okay, okay. Relax. A stage. You were performing a play? Were you in a band?”

I shake my head. “No. There was a pole.”

She narrows her eyes at me. “Like a stripper pole?” I nod. “Okay, were you a stripper?”

“In the dream… I guess I was. I don’t know. It felt so real, but I still felt like I was outside of my body. I can’t explain it.”

Ronnie hums. “Maybe it was just your mind messing with you.”

“That’s all it seems to be doing these days. Fuck. I don’t know right from wrong. I feel like I’m losing it.”

“Stop that. You are not losing it,” she chides me. “Your mind is just trying to put the pieces back together. You will get there. We will figure it out.”

“Promise?” I look at her hopefully.

She smiles at me. “Pinky fucking swear. Now, I got you a cheeseburger with extra circle pickles and a shitload of fries, so eat something.”

I take the Styrofoam container and open it up to the smell of a delicious burger. “How was your job? Did you do what you needed to?”

Her face blanks out, and for a brief second, I can see the pain in her eyes. But she quickly recovers and smiles. “It did what I needed to. I got us a few hundred, so we’re good for a few days.”

I nod to her as I pick up a fry and bite into it. She clears her throat and heads over to her bed, where she pulls out her food and starts to eat.

Guess that is all we are going to mention about the job then. Whatever it is, I can’t tell if she hates it, or if it’s dangerous. Either way, between the two of us, we have some serious demons that are clawing their way up from hell.

The only difference is that she knows what hers are. Mine have yet to show their faces.