Chapter Fifteen
FLYNN’S head hurt, like really, and he groaned as he reached for the back of his skull. He squinted, the sun almost painfully bright until he shaded his eyes.
He was in the van, half sitting, half lying in the back seat. The laptop was on its side on the floor in front of him. He squinted harder to make out the picture. It was the stairs of the hospital—the guys were obviously on their way down after… after being in room 204.
“Blaine?” He looked around, but Blaine wasn’t in the van with him. “What?” He couldn’t see Blaine anywhere, not on the grounds, not on the steps to the doors of the hospital, nowhere.
The guys burst out of the doors a second or two later and headed right for him.
“Flynn! Blaine! You guys all right?”
He blinked, looking at them as they pulled open the side panel door.
“What happened? You guys all of a sudden stopped communicating.”
“Yeah, we thought something had happened.”
“Hey, where’s Blaine?” Darnell asked.
“I… I don’t know.” They’d been watching the guys on the monitor, and then all of a sudden…. He put his hand on his head and groaned again. Someone had hit him. Hard.
“Jesus. Jesus, Will, grab me a towel or something. Where’s Blaine?” Darnell asked.
“I don’t know! He didn’t go up to room 204?” Flynn blinked, trying to clear his mind.
Will passed a towel to Jase, who grabbed Flynn’s hand and lifted it to put the cloth between his head and his hand. “You’re bleeding like a son of a bitch.”
“Oh.”
“Looks like you got clocked pretty good.”
Well, that explained the splitting headache and the pain where he was pressing the towel against his scalp.
“Who did this to you, man?” Darnell asked.
“I don’t know.” He remembered the look on…. He hesitated to say Blaine’s face, because it sure as hell hadn’t looked like Blaine. “Something’s really wrong with Blaine.”
“We need to get you to the hospital, Flynn.” Jason looked worried as fuck. “Darnell, can you see Blaine anywhere out there?”
“Give me five to look; then we’ll take him.”
Flynn shook his head and regretted it immediately. “No, I’m okay. We need to find Blaine first. He can’t have gotten that far on foot, right?”
“We can look for him on the road, maybe? I don’t like this, Flynn.”
“No, I don’t either. I don’t…. Guys, I don’t think he’s in his right mind. After we heard the shots, he started freaking out. He called me David, and the last thing I remember was him yelling at me, and his eyes….” He shivered. “It wasn’t Blaine in there. We have to find him.”
“Okay. Okay, uh, Darnell? Will? Ideas?”
“I’m trying to call him,” Will said. “I don’t want to get his parents involved until we have to.”
“Are any of you on the same network as he is? Most of them have that find-my-friends app,” Flynn suggested. He was totally going to set up software on all their phones that let them track each other.
“Uh…. That’s a thing?”
“I’ll go outside, see if I can see… I don’t know, anything?” Darnell grinned at him, rolled his eyes. “I’ll channel my inner Boy Scout.” He walked off briskly, and Flynn spared a moment to appreciate his new friends.
“Pass me my phone.” Flynn leaned back against the seat, his head pounding harder as he moved.
“I really want to take you to the hospital, man. That looks bad.” Jason peered at his skull. “I don’t understand. Blaine did this to you?”
“No. It was someone else in Blaine’s body.”
“That’s it, time to get him to the hospital,” Will said. “Let’s go.”
“No,” Flynn insisted. “Something’s got hold of Blaine, and we need to find him before something awful happens to him. I mean, he hasn’t got a car or anything. Where the hell is he?”
“Well, I—shit. Shit! Call his phone again, Will.” Jason hit the side of the van, cheeks a dark red, and Flynn could see it—how much Jason cared about all of them, how scared their self-appointed leader was.
“It’ll be okay, man. We’re going to find him. We’re going to figure this out.” He wasn’t sure he believed it—the pit of worry in his belly was hard and ugly—but he needed someone to believe it, and he could pretend that was him for now. He was hurting, but he didn’t think having a meltdown was going to help that. Besides, he didn’t have meltdowns. He just didn’t. And if he was on the verge of having one, well, it would just have to wait.
“What…? Okay, so let’s assume it was the Dave guy in Blaine,” Jason started, and Flynn shook his head.
“No. No, it’s Christian. No question.”
“How can you be so sure?” Jase asked.
“Because he called me David. And it wasn’t the first time either.” God, had he just not been paying enough attention? No, no. He had been. He’d called Blaine on it a couple of times. This wasn’t his fault. Right?
“Okay, so, Christian. He was local, right? Where would he go?”
“Oh, that’s good. Look up his home address. See if you can find anything.” Why hadn’t he thought of that? Maybe because he’d been beaned over the head and the man he was falling in love with was possessed by the ghost of one half of a dead couple.
“Right. His home address. The family’s address. Maybe his work or his lover’s work.”
“See what you can find, and we’ll try the closest place first,” Flynn suggested.
“Yeah, that makes sense.”
Will’s fingers were already flying over his phone. “I got nothing on the home address, but the school is still open and downtown, and the family owned a dairy farm just… I mean, just about four miles from here.”
“Four miles? Blaine could totally walk that. Hell, how long has it been since you lost contact with us?”
Jase checked his watch. “Uh. Maybe twenty minutes.”
“If he was running, he could totally almost be there by now.” Flynn sat up and dropped the towel from his head. Hopefully it wasn’t bleeding anymore. He put on his seat belt. “Let’s go.”
“Well, let’s get Darnell first. He’d be pissed if we left him.”
“I suppose we should. Phone him and tell him to get back here pronto.” Flynn had a bad feeling at the back of his mind, and it wasn’t from the bash he’d taken. Something was wrong.
“I’m on it,” Jason called. Will typed in an address, and Flynn focused on not puking.
He took a few deep breaths and tried not to think of Blaine with those dark eyes that totally belonged to someone else. God, this was fucked up big-time.
“Come on, come on. We need to get going.”
“Darnell was on the other side of the hospital. He found Blaine’s phone, shattered.”
“Shit.” Flynn’s stomach jumped into his throat, worry eating hard at him. “Tell Darnell to hurry. We need to get moving before anything happens to him.”
Why would Blaine break his phone? Why on earth?
Because it wasn’t Blaine anymore.
Flynn pushed that thought aside along with the lump of worry. He breathed a sigh of relief as Darnell came back, running.
“What’s the plan, guys?” Darnell closed the door, plopped in the seat. “Calling the cops?”
“What? No! What would we tell them anyway? ‘Excuse me, but our friend is possessed by the ghost of this guy who died in the hospital we’re investigating and we can’t find him’?” Flynn shook his head emphatically. “We’re going to check out Christian’s family’s farm. It’s only about four miles from here.”
“Rock on. I was just thinking, what if the knock on the head confused you and Blaine’s been taken?”
That stopped him short, and they all looked at him as he considered it.
“I suppose it’s a possibility, and if things hadn’t already been weird and creepy, I’d highly entertain it as our number-one possibility. How about we go check out this dairy farm, and if he’s not there, we can reconsider the calling-the-cops option?”
“Sounds fair. A little scary, but fair.”
“This whole fucking thing is scary,” Flynn noted. Maybe he was supposed to be all macho and shit, but he was really worried about Blaine and couldn’t put up a front.
“You think?” Jason rolled his eyes. “I’ve been doing this shit with Blaine for years, and we’ve never ever seen anything like this.”
“I guess you just needed all the right elements in place, eh? You are taping, right? If we can get anything on tape, this is the type of thing that gets you your own show. Maybe even some grant money to make it. New equipment and shit. I mean, as long as we’re getting some of the stuff recorded. The other day we had bupkes despite the fact that there was tons in person.” Flynn knew he was babbling, but if he didn’t he was going to scream at Will for driving so slowly, even though he knew it was because the road was bad for the first half mile or so and Will was just being careful.
“Yeah. Yeah, you have a point. We’re recording everything.”
“Good. Good. Because Blaine is going to be pissed if he finds out we weren’t.” Flynn refused to contemplate them not finding Blaine.
Will hooted. “Blaine is going to be pissed if he’s possessed. The man gets grumpy when he’s distracted.”
“I think being possessed comes with a get-out-of-jail-free card.” It was a poor joke, but Flynn was trying. He really was, but he didn’t like how this whole thing was shaking out.
Darnell nodded. “Totally. We’ll solve this a la Scooby Doo and gang.”
“Uh, dude,” Jason pointed out. “Scooby only had real-life bad guys. We have a ghost.”
“Ghosts!” Will added.
“Ruh-roh?” said Flynn.
They all cracked up, and Flynn actually had to snap his mouth shut to stop. He was far too close to hysteria.
Darnell reached out, squeezed his hand. “It’s cool, man. We’ll find him.”
“Yeah, I know we will.” He just hoped Blaine was in his right mind when they did.
They stopped in front of a dilapidated old farmhouse with a rusted old Ford pickup parked in the drive. The paint was peeling, and ivy almost engulfed the whole place.
Flynn frowned. “You think anyone lives here?”
“It looks like someone’s here, for sure.” Will stared. “Should we go knock?”
“Yeah. It’s not like Blaine would have left a vehicle in the driveway—he was on foot.”
They all piled out of the van and approached the front door, Darnell and Will filming. Flynn looked at Jase, who nodded, and so he’d lifted his hand to knock when he heard a voice.
“You killed him! You bastard!”
“You’re insane. I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
“Oh fuck.” Deciding to forego knocking, Flynn tried the door, nearly falling into the place when it proved to be open. Then he did go in, calling out for his lover. “Blaine!”
“You stood there and shot him in the head while he cried over my dead body, you fuck! Jerry, I watched you!”
Blaine was standing there making the accusations, but it didn’t sound like Blaine, and Flynn felt something cold run down his back.
What the actual fuck?
“Who the fuck are you guys? That’s it! I’m calling the cops!” The man had lank, greasy hair and a thin face with a pinched expression. He was dressed in sweats and a flannel jacket, which fit in with the surroundings just about perfectly.
“Call them!” Blaine roared. “You shot David Swans, my lover, your own brother’s lover, while he was holding my hand! I saw you!”
Flynn’s eyes went wide. “You’re Christian’s brother. You kept them apart when Christian was dying!”
The guy turned and ran, heading for the back of the house, and Blaine took off after him. Flynn had no choice but to follow.
“Blaine! Stop! Uh, Christian! Come on, he’s not worth it. We’ll call the cops.” He was worried Blaine—or Christian or whatever the fuck had possessed him—was going to do something stupid. Better to let the cops sort this out. There was no statute of limitations on murder, right?
And as far as he knew, possession was not a defense.
Blaine moved fast, almost a blur, and Flynn knew Christian was pushing him. He caught up with them in the bedroom, Christian’s brother standing on one side of the double bed, Blaine standing on the other.
Flynn grabbed Blaine’s arm. “Come on, man. Let me call the cops, and they can deal with this.” He had his phone in his hand to prove it wasn’t an empty offer.
“Get the fuck out of my house!” Christian’s brother was red-faced with anger, but there was a hint of uncertainty in his expression as well.
“It was our house, Greenie! It was ours. I smoked my first joint with you out in one of the empty stalls. We used to build forts in the back. It’s not yours!”
The guy—Greenie, and what the hell was that short for?—lost some of his color, and the look in his eyes was more than a little freaked out.
“I don’t know you, you freak! Shut the fuck up and get the fuck out of my fucking house!”
“Hey, now.” Flynn let go of Blaine’s arm and took a couple of slow steps, figuring he could go around the bed, more or less get between Blaine and this Greenie guy. “Why don’t we all just take a few breaths?”
“Blaine? Flynn? You guys okay?”
“Go outside, Jase!”
Fuck yes, the last thing they needed was all five of them in here with this guy already on the defensive like this. “Blaine and I have it, Jase. We’ll be out soon. Right, Blaine? How about we go out and take a breath or two and let Greenie here do the same thing?”
“You killed him. You shot him in the head, Jerry. You shot him in the head because why? He wanted to tell me goodbye?”
“He was sick!”
“I was sick! I had a fucking brain tumor! Dave could have gone on to live a long life.” That wasn’t Blaine’s voice.
“And what? He could corrupt someone else?”
Fucking shit. This Jerry guy had actually killed David. And hadn’t even denied it. Was in fact trying to justify it.
“You killed your brother’s lover after your brother was dead?” Flynn asked. And Jerry thought there was something wrong with Christian and David for who they loved? Christ.
“Fuck you. Get the fuck out of my house. Fucking fags, digging up dirt on good families.”
“You did!” Flynn was outraged now too that this man had actually killed someone just for being gay. “How can you live with yourself?”
“How can I…? That motherfucker made my brother sick and damned him to an eternity in hell!”
“I had fucking cancer. Cancer!”
“The AIDS. No one wanted to tell us, but I know that was it!”
“It was brain cancer, you asshole,” Flynn hissed. “And he didn’t get that from his lover. That’s not how cancer works. The guy just wanted to see the man he loved before he died, and you took that away from him, and then you took his life too. God, you make me sick.” Like, physically ill. He knew a part of it was the whole my-lover-is-possessed thing, but a part of it was this asshole too.
Blaine—Christian—stabbed a finger at Jerry. “And you killed him. You killed him for loving me.”
“Shut up!”
“You held the gun to his head, and you shot him!” Blaine’s scream rang out, so much louder than anything Flynn had ever heard come from a human throat.
“Shut up! Shut up! You aren’t him! You can’t know!”
Jerry made to lunge across the bed at Blaine, and Flynn couldn’t have that. He ran the rest of the way around the bed to stop him and came up against the hard circle of a gun’s muzzle, pushed right against his chest.
Flynn gasped and froze, his eyes going wide, and he slowly raised his hands. “Okay. Okay. Okay. Let’s all just take a breath.” Oh God, he was going to die.
“You fucking queers, looking into things. It’s done. It’s all done now. It’s over. Suicide. He shot himself in the head and—”
“No.” That was the not-Blaine voice. “He was devastated, but he had his whole life ahead of him. He was young.”
The gun pressed harder into Flynn’s chest, and he swallowed. “Uh, Blaine. Or Christian.” Whoever was in control right now. “He’s got a gun….” Just in case he hadn’t noticed.
“Christian is dead!” Jerry screamed, and suddenly, impossibly, Blaine slammed himself between them, the report of the shot loud, stunning Flynn.
He waited for the pain to hit him, but it didn’t, and he grabbed his chest, but it was fine—no hole, no bullet, nothing.
Blaine stood there, staring blankly, and something… separated from him. Like a mask peeling off.
Flynn moved to Blaine’s side, nearly tripping over what proved to be Jerry on the floor, in a puddle of blood.
Oh God. “Blaine! Blaine, come on. We have to get out of here. We have to call the police.”
“You killed him, Jerry. He was a good man. He was my good man.”
Oh fuck. Fuck. “Leave Blaine alone!” he shouted, his arm going around Blaine’s shoulders.
The form—because it didn’t look like a man, it didn’t look like a man at all, but this red, fuzzy mist—advanced on Jerry, beginning to cover him.
“Oh fuck. Blaine, I think we should get out of here. I don’t know what the fuck is going on, but that thing was in you. In you.” He tugged on Blaine, needing to get his lover moving.
Blaine stared at the form. “It’s okay to be angry,” he whispered. “Thank you for keeping Flynn safe.”
“Babe. Come on. Before it decides you’re its permanent ride.” He tugged harder, trying to get Blaine moving.
They needed to call the police.
Will was standing in the bedroom doorway, camera in hand, filming. “He shot himself. Guys, he shot himself.”
He hadn’t even realized the guys had ignored him and followed them back here. “What?”
“He just shot himself. I have it on tape.”
Flynn looked back down and shook his head. That hadn’t been what happened, had it?
“I don’t….” What the hell? “Let me see.”
“Let’s get out of here first. Wait for the police outside,” Jase suggested.
Blaine was simply standing there, staring. Flynn nodded and grabbed Blaine’s hand, tugged him along.
“Come on, Blaine. Seriously. You did what you were supposed to, right? You brought Christian here.”
He kept dragging Blaine with him until they were out. Then he put Blaine into the van, sitting him down. “Breathe, babe. It’s okay. I’m pretty sure it’s over now.”
Blaine just sat there, blinking slowly.
“Blaine? Man? You with us?” He took Blaine’s face in his hands and looked into his lover’s eyes. “Blaine? Come on, man.”
Those blue eyes looked vacant, empty. Like Blaine was sound asleep.
“Blaine. Man, you’re scaring me now.” Had carrying Christian done something to his mind? He slapped Blaine’s cheeks lightly, just enough to wake someone from a deep sleep, and Blaine took a deep, deep breath, blinked at him, stared.
“Flynn.”
Oh thank God. “Blaine. Are you okay, man? You gave me quite the scare.”
“I—where are we? What’s going on? Why are you bleeding?”
“Seriously? I’m bleeding because you walloped me over the head.”
“What? I did not!” Blaine looked at Flynn like he was the one who had lost his mind. “I wouldn’t…. Why are the police coming?”
“Because Christian Singer’s brother was shot.”
“Killed himself,” Jase interrupted.
“Maybe you’d better let us take a look at that film before the cops show up so we know what the fuck our story is here.”
“Well, the sirens are coming, so you’d better hurry up.” Darnell was so not helping.
“I know what’s on camera. The dude pulled a gun out, Blaine grabbed you, and he shot himself.”
“What do you remember, Blaine?” Flynn asked, snatching the camera and hitting the playback.
“Sitting in the parking lot at the hospital and hearing the shots.”
“Seriously? That’s the last thing you remember?” That was fucked up. He turned his attention to the playback. It was just like Jase had said. Jerry had a gun out, Blaine pushed Flynn out of the way, and Jerry turned the gun on himself. Flynn shivered, no sign of Christian’s ghost. At all. “Christian was there, guys. I swear to you. He was there.”
“Don’t tell the cops that. Why were we here?”
“Asking questions about the hospital,” Jason said. “That’s the truth.”
Flynn nodded. “Yeah, yeah. Looking into the two guys from room 204. The camera proves we didn’t do anything but talk to him and get out of his way when the gun came out.” He was entirely freaked out and pissed off too that they didn’t have any proof.
Still, this kept him and Blaine out of jail, mostly Blaine. Right. Right. It was a good thing. It was. He was just freaking out a little.
“I’m going to see if we can get you to a hospital for your head, Flynn,” Jase said. “When the cops ask about that?”
“I fell out of the van.” Flynn was freaked out enough about everything that it would be believable.
“Fair enough. Okay, guys, game faces on. You ready?”
Flynn looked at Blaine, who looked back, and they nodded together. Yeah, they had this.
They had to.