“Where is he?” Aunt Lila asks, hopping out of bed and throwing on her robe.
I point down the hallway. “In the closet in my room.”
She races into my room with my mother and me following. She sticks her head inside the closet, and her shoulders relax.
I relax, too, but only a little because I can still remember what Ayden said to me. His words are an echo in my head. His mother was dead while he was with those people. He wasn’t allowed to sleep until the ritual.
What the hell?
“Come on, sweetie,” Aunt Lila speaks tenderly as she holds onto Ayden’s arm and guides him out of the closet. Ayden is still asleep and can hardly stay on his feet as they make a winding path to my bed.
Once he’s lying down on the mattress, Lila turns to me. “Lyric, would you mind if I slept on the floor?” she asks in a hushed tone. “I want to keep an eye on him, but I’m worried that, if I try to get him into the guest room, I might wake him up.”
“Lyric can sleep on the sofa.” My mom pets my head like she used to do when I was child.
“Yeah, of course.” I grab a folded up quilt from the trunk at the foot of the bed.
“Thank you.” Aunt Lila draws the comforters over Ayden.
“I’ll go get a sleeping bag for you,” my mother tells Aunt Lila then hurries out of the room.
I start to follow her but Aunt Lila calls me back.
“What exactly happened?” She momentarily stares out the window then tugs the chord and closes the blinds.
I shrug, hugging the quilt to my chest. “I was woken up by a scream and found him in the closet.”
“Did he … say anything to you?” Her question is casual as well as her demeanor, but it almost looks forced.
“He was muttering some stuff.” I omit the details, figuring I’ll tell Ayden in the morning and let him decide if he wants to tell her.
“Are you sure you couldn’t understand what he was saying?” She studies me from across the room.
I shake my head. Something feels off. It’s like she already knows the answer to her question and only wants me to confirm it. “I’m going to get set up on the sofa.”
I leave the room, feeling strange and really uncomfortable in my own home. The feelings amplify when I realize I’ll be sharing the living room with Kale, Everson, and Fiona.
The three of them are sprawled out on the floor, fast asleep in their sleeping bags. It’s like a maze to get through them to the sofa.
“Is he going to be okay?” Fiona suddenly asks while I’m making a bed on the couch near the fireplace.
I jump from the sound of her voice. “I thought you were asleep.”
“I was, but then Ayden woke me up.” She rolls over in her sleeping bag and stares at me. A fire is crackling, my parents’ heat source during the mild winters in California. Fiona’s eyes glow orange, the flame reflecting in her pupils. Dark strands of hair poke out of her braided hair at every angle.
“You heard his screaming?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No, I felt it.”
My brows knit. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about.”
“Most people don’t.” She turns over like nothing about the conversation is strange.
Although, it is.
The entire night has been strange.
I just cross my fingers, hoping that, by morning, things will have returned to normal.
Chapter 13
Ayden
“I don’t know what to say,” I mumble to Lyric the next day after the break-in.
It’s late in the evening and the pale pink glow of the sunset streams though my window. We’re in my bedroom, searching for something the guy might have left, but so far, we have come up empty-handed. For the last five minutes, Lyric has been explaining to me what happened last night, how I talked to her in my sleep. The things I said to her … I feel so embarrassed. She has to be afraid of me now, right?
While I don’t give a reason aloud as to what caused my sleepwalking and talking, I have a theory that perhaps it has something to do with the amnesia session. My therapist told me that it could cause an increase in night terrors and problems with sleeping
“You don’t need to say anything,” Lyric says as she hauls my dresser away from the wall and peers behind it. “I just wanted to let you know what happened so you can decide if you want to tell your mom and dad.”
“You said Lila was acting strange?” I flatten myself on the floor on my stomach to check under my bed. Having no idea what I’m searching for, the task seems pretty much pointless, though.
“She was acting like she knew you told me stuff about your past.” Lyric purses her lips as she glances around my room. “If I was a creepy guy trying to leave something in a room, where would I put it?”
I push to my feet. “I don’t know. I’m still not convinced that’s why he was in here, anyway.”
“Maybe.” She flops down on my unmade bed, seemingly unsure about something. “Has Fiona ever said anything weird to you before?”
“Like what?” I rummage around in my nightstand drawer, but the only thing in there is my lyric book.
“I don’t know.” She shrugs. “She just said something strange to me last night, something about feeling you scream instead of hearing it.”
“That’s strange, but she kind of marches to the beat of her own drum.” I shut the drawer. “Ever since I moved in, she’s been obsessively drawing butterflies. She says she can’t get them out of her head.”