Page 27 of Possessed By Shadows
It took me a minute to catch up with what he was talking about. The haunted house and my subsequent possession. “Um, no. I don’t care about the fucking footage. I don’t care about your new obsession with ghosts. Or my life in general. I saw your little murder board layout over at the house.”
“Don’t you see how important this is?” Lukas demanded. “I’m putting together all the pieces.”
“To do what? Prove I’m insane?” Because that’s what it felt like. Even if it was something supernatural taking me over, the world would never believe it. It was one more reason for them to lock me up forever.
“No. This is exactly the opposite. It proves you’re not crazy. That something else is taking control.”
But I knew full well that anyone could easily find more mental illness related explanations for that video. “Did you show that to the doctor? Is that why he thinks I’m schizophrenic?”
“You’re not,” Lukas insisted. “I think if you can face down your fears, you can keep it out of your head.”
But the video didn’t disprove that. The shadows could have been explained away by a thousand things, and they’d blame me for all the laughter because I’d been speaking at the end. My fear, facing it or not, hadn’t seemed to help anything. “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove. But I’m done helping.”
“I’m close,” Lukas said.
“Close to me losing my sanity, yeah. I’m done with all of this.”
“I’m doing this for you.”
“No. You’re not. If you were, you wouldn’t have subjected me to any of this. I wouldn’t have just spent a week locked in a mental ward barely existing. Whatever this is, this self-destruction of yours, I’m out. Twin or not, you don’t get to drag me down with you.”
“And if it takes you again while I’m not around?” Lukas demanded like he had somehow saved me.
“Guess it’s back to the psych ward I go then? Maybe you should have left me there?” I shouted. Micah wrapped an arm around me. I must have woken him. I guess we’d all be getting shit for sleep.
“I just need a little more time,” Lukas said softly. “I have to finish it. I owe them.”
Owe who what?
Micah pulled the phone out of my hand. “Lukas,” he said, his tone tired but clear. He listened, tugging me close, but not close enough to hear. “Fine. But you need to check in. Set a time. And if we don’t hear from you…”
He listened again. “I know you don’t care, but you’re shorting us at the shop.” He paused, then added, “No, it’s not for Alex. Whatever this is, is about you, not Alex. Maybe you should let me worry about Alex and worry more about Sky yourself?”
He sighed. “At least there, we agree. She could do better than someone who never puts her first. But whatever.” He shook his head as though Lukas could see it. I could only see the movement from the pale light illuminating from the phone pressed to his ear. “Three days. After that, all bets are off.” He listened a little longer. “We’ll see. Fine.” He hung up when I would have taken the phone back to scream at my brother.
Micah leaned over and turned on the lamp. He handed me my phone. I waited. But he looked tired. Not the first time, he had said. In fact, so not the first time that he almost seemed to know what to do when it happened. “Micah?” I asked, feeling left in the dark.
He put his hands on my cheeks and pressed his forehead to mine, breathing me in, but not meeting my gaze. “It will be okay.”
“If my brother loses it trying to solve what’s happened to me?”
“Yes,” Micah agreed.
I tried to pull away, but he held on. He kissed me lightly, peppering my face with small kisses. Not the first time, he had said. There were tears on his cheeks. “Did he do this when you got back?” Micah had vanished for a few months, taken in the middle of the forest, vanished without a trace, and then dropped down halfway across the country with no memory of what happened.
“Yes, and no.” Micah sighed. “He was obsessive. To the point I filed harassment claims against him. He was always showing up, asking questions.”
“And you became friends somehow?”
“Sky,” Micah said as if that explained everything. He reached out and turned off the light, then tugged me back down, pulling the blankets over us like a shield.
“Someday you’re going to have to tell me.” I wrapped an arm around his waist and tucked myself as close to him as possible.
“We had a common goal, that was all that mattered. Afterwards he mellowed, somewhat. He was always one of the only ones who took me seriously about the night noises. Even set up recorders and stuff.”
“But he never caught it?” I didn’t think we had either, with the video and audio running all the time outside our place. “Seems like a lot of work for no proof.”
Micah shrugged and nestled his face beside mine on the pillow. Jet hadn’t more than perked his ears in our direction. “Sleep. It looks like we’re handling your brother’s scheduled crap tomorrow, too.”
I groaned realizing that meant more than the shop. It meant dealing with my dad, and Lukas’s stupid haunted mansion.