Chapter 16
Felix
“It worked… I think,” I mutter to myself looking around the room.
I’m standing in the foyer of a really swanky house that has a deep love of the color white. White tile. White carpets. White walls. What isn’t white seems to be beige or brown, and everything is extra bright due to every light in the house being on. Looking out a nearby window, it looks like a desert wasteland with the closest neighbor a shadowed speck on the horizon of the night sky.
The air feels cold from an overactive air conditioner and smells like cleaning products. For a moment I stand transfixed, lost in the sensation of actually feeling and smelling again. I’m wearing my jeans and t-shirt from earlier, and looking down, there are literal goosebumps running along my arm.
“Damn it, focus. Callie needs us,” I grumble, upset that I literally just did what Kaleb warned me about. As real as everything feels, it isn’t, and somewhere here Callie is trapped within her own mind.
“Callie? Callie, where are you?” I shout, walking farther inside, but I don’t see or hear anyone. “The fuck? Did I screw this up, and I’m lost in some vacant part of her brain?”
I pace and rub at the back of my neck, once again surprised because I can feel both my hand and neck. I’ve been lucky as a ghost that I don’t go through myself, but I still don’t feel anything because that requires a body-- and nerve endings.
“Okay, Felix, think. What would Kaleb tell you to do?” I take a deep slow breath. Oh my god, air in actual lungs. Yeah, I can see how this can get addictive quickly.
“Kaleb would tell me to search the house first. If she isn’t here there might be a clue to where in her mind she is? Did the house have to be so big?” I grumble, my voice the only sound outside of the air conditioner.
The house is fancy and huge, but it feels like a bunch of smaller homes legoed together, which will make it a bitch to search.
I start with the first hallway I come across, continuing to shout her name, but only find some creepy office that’s covered in occult stuff-- it has color so there’s that, a bathroom, and a library, which looks to be filled with more creepy occult stuff, only of the book nature. At the end of the hallway is a set of stairs going up, but I decide to explore all of the first floor before moving upstairs.
Returning to the foyer, I go through the formal living room and I’m about to head through the dining room to the kitchen, when I notice another set of stairs going up to the second floor. These are carpeted and more elaborate, which makes me think these are probably the main ones. More importantly, I notice a small trail of blood that starts from one of the stairs and leads down a nearby hallway.
I follow the drips of blood and it eventually leads me to a heavy door, like one used to enter from a garage, but it’s on the wrong side of the house for that. It’s unlocked, and on the other side is more stairs, these are concrete, leading down to another matching heavy door.
My gut starts to twist, because the blood trail is more substantial on the concrete steps. Carefully, I make my way down, walking around the blood, with my heart thundering in my ears. At the bottom, I know I’ve found where I’m supposed to be, because now I hear, though heavily muffled by the door, the sickening sound of Callie shrieking in pain.
I quickly try the handle and burst through the door, but what I find on the other side freezes me in place. I know it’s her, because the screaming is her voice, but the body I see tied with heavy ropes to a stainless steel table is nothing but charred flesh that’s still on fire. There’s a low flame that runs the length of her body, like a log of wood that’s been burning for a while, and it cracks with every pop of melted fat. There’s an industrial sized fan sucking up the smoke, but the air still smells of cooked meat and burning hair, causing my stomach to roll, and I start dry heaving.
Beside the burning husk that sounds like Callie, is a middle aged man yelling at her that if she really wanted it to stop, she’d save herself. Everything about him, except for the insane rage in his grey eyes, is neat and precise: dark hair combed back, dress shirt and tie underneath a lab coat, pressed black slacks, and loafers that shine-- the picture of a psychopathic serial killer.
A violent fury fills me at the sight of this bastard who has yet to notice I’ve entered the room. Looking around for a weapon, I find a bloody, aluminum baseball bat that’s been abandoned on the floor a few feet away. Slowly I reach for it, trying to be as quiet and stealthy as possible.
Callie’s shrieks have turned to coughing, raspy moans, and I don’t understand how she lived through this. Everyone is sure this is some type of flashback, but how? How is this possible? Magic is a complete mystery to me, but if this isn’t the result of her psyche going into overdrive, magic is the only explanation I’ve got. Who’s magic though? Did this sick bastard burn her alive then heal her only so he could torture her some more?
The son of a bitch is so focused on berating Callie that he doesn’t see me coming, and I take full advantage. I swing the bat as hard as I can and imagine cracking his skull wide open like an overripe pumpkin. He drops like a stone, his limbs crumpled beneath him and blood oozes from where I hit him.
My whole body shakes with fine tremors, and I breathe in stifled gasps, unable to get enough air into my lungs. I run an arm across my forehead, a cold sweat breaking out across my skin. It feels like ice is pumping through my veins. Despite knowing this isn’t real, I can’t seem to stop the visceral feelings from taking over. The urge to keep bashing the bastard over the head with the bat is strong, but Callie needs me more.
The bat slips from my fingers with a clang against the concrete floor. Turning to Callie, I rip my shirt off over my head and do my best to put out the flames. I want to be gentle but I can’t or the fire won’t actually go out. Every agonized moan feels like a knife through my chest. By the time the flames are all smothered out, tears are streaming down my face, and I don’t know what to do next. Her skin is cracked and peeling away from her body like charred bark off a tree, and blood is oozing through the gaps and dripping to the floor.
“Let me die,” she whimpers to no one, lost in her pain. “Please, just let me die.” Her words are distorted, the syllables slurred together from her melted lips and swollen tongue.
I don’t want to touch her, afraid of causing more pain, so I do my best to lean into her line of sight. Her eyelids are burned away, but for some frightening reason her eyes seem unaffected, the whites of the eyeballs a horrifying contrast against the blackened skin.
“Callie, this isn’t real,” I weep. “We’re in your mind. You need to wake up.”
Her gaze slowly drifts to me. “Kill me,” she wheezes.
“No, no, no, no… Callie, please listen to me,” I beg, choking on my own tears. “This god awful nightmare isn’t really happening. You’re asleep, and we need you to wake up.”
“I want it to stop,” she pleads. “Please make it stop.”
“Okay. We’ll make it stop. Hold on,” I entreat, wiping at my face.
Kaleb said I had the potential to manipulate her dreams; I just need to figure out how. First things first, I have to get her out of this room.
The ropes tying her hands and feet are melted together and can’t be untied, so I search for something to cut them off with. Hanging on the wall is a horror fest of tools that I can’t think about being used, or I’ll start dry heaving again. I quickly retrieve a small hand saw and get to work. As gently as possible and careful to avoid hurting her more, I cut away the ropes. She only makes a small whimper when some of her flesh peels away with the ropes. I gag, no longer entranced with the ability to smell.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I curse, knowing there’s no easy way to do the next step. “God damn it, I don’t know what I’m doing.” I rub at the back of my neck, doing my best to push down what I’m feeling so I can be what Callie needs, and pray, “Please let this be the right thing to do.”
I lean back over her so she can see me when I speak. “I’m going to get you out of here, but I have to pick you up to do it, okay? It’s probably going to hurt. I’m sorry.”
She stares at me, but she doesn’t respond, which scares the crap out of me. How am I supposed to lead her out of this if she’s unresponsive in her own mind?
With deliberate care, I slide one arm under her shoulders and one under her knees, then lift her off the table. She moans quietly, more of a painful exhale of air. Her body sticks to my naked skin, but thankfully, all her flesh comes with her, only leaving behind a pool of blood and other fluids on the table. I take shallow breaths, desperate to keep my stomach from turning any more than it already has.
As I’m carrying her up the concrete steps, she rasps, “Are you an angel who’s come to take me away? Did I finally die?”
“Don’t let Donovan here you say that,” I joke with tears in my throat. “No, pretty girl, I’m Felix. Remember, we met your first night in Twin Cedar Pass. You’re alive, and you don’t live here anymore. I know this hurts and feels real, but it isn’t. I need you to believe me, so I can get you out of here.”
Elbowing my way through the second door, I do my best to keep her from hitting anything, but her foot bumps the doorframe. She cries out and an awful guilt grips my heart. I look down at her face to apologize and notice she has eyelids again, and underneath the flaking parts of her skin, the raw muscles and splintered bones are slowly knitting back together. I want to believe this is a sign that she’s waking up, but it feels more like the answer to how she survived this torture. The bastard didn’t heal her-- she did.
I walk as fast as I can, desperate to get her out of this house and away from all this. Once we’re out the front door, I collapse on the steps outside and cradle her in my arms. I’ve imagined what it would be like to hold her, but damn, not like this.
She seems more alert now, her grey eyes focusing on my face, but it looks like it’s coming at a cost. As her body is healing, the once burned away nerve endings are coming back too. Tears are leaking down her face, and she’s gasping, “It hurts. It hurts. It hurts.”
“I know which is why I need you to listen to me, so I can make it stop. Can you do that?” I ask, my own tears dripping down my face.
Callie nods, but there’s no recognition in her gaze.
“This is a nightmare. You were at a party, and there was a fire pit. When you saw it, it triggered this memory,” I explain, hoping any of this is sinking in. “To get you out of here, I need you to trust me enough to believe what I’m telling you, even if it sounds fucking insane.”
“More insane than a girl who’s set on fire by her father, only to heal good as new so he can turn around and do it again? Insane is pretty much right up my alley,” she jokes through clenched teeth.
It’s in this moment that I know I love this girl. I don’t care that it’s been only a week, when you know you know. Despite the shit that just happened, she’s laughing through her pain and back to fighting to survive.
“Kaleb told me that I should be able to manipulate your dream, and I guess I sort of already am since I can interact with everything,” I explain, trying to figure out how exactly I’m going to fix this.
“I don’t know who that is, but okay,” she grunts. “What exactly do you need me to do? Fuck, this really hurts.”
“No wonder you couldn’t hear us. You can’t remember who we are,” I mutter, then ask, “Do you remember me at all? Do I look familiar in any way?”
Her whole face is now bunched in pain, her skin shiny and pink, the first stage of healing burns. She does a sharp shake of her head. “I wish I did. You seem really nice,” she swallows a cry of pain, a hissing grunt deep in her throat. “For some reason, I feel like I can trust you. How’s that?”
“That’ll work, pretty girl,” I promise, hoping it’s true.
She snorts. “Not feeling too pretty at the moment. Check back when all of my skin has healed.”
“You’re always pretty to me,” I reply with a small smile, “but remember, this is all in your head, literally. You have to believe that bit if this is going to work.”
“Does that make you a figment of my imagination?” she questions.
“No, I’m real,” I chuckle. “Though you debated me on that point for a while… until I convinced you.”
Silent tears are tracking down her cheeks as she looks up at me, but she still offers up a weak smile. “Okay, Pinocchio, I’m ready to go. Take me anywhere that isn’t here.”
“Casper. You call me Casper,” I tell her gently. “Though Pinocchio is pretty good too.”
“Your nose isn’t growing, so it must be true,” she chuckles then coughs.
“Close your eyes,” I instruct in a soft whisper, and her lids flutter closed.
Pulling her tight against my chest, I close my eyes and imagine being on a beach. I visualize it until I can feel the sun on my skin and sand under my feet, smell the ocean, and hear the seagulls and the crashing of the waves.
When I open my eyes, we’re there sitting in the sand, Callie still cradled in my arms, but now she’s whole and unhurt. I wasn’t really thinking about what we’d be wearing, so I’m grateful to find that I’m wearing red board shorts, and she’s wearing jean shorts and a plain blue tank top. Don’t think she’d appreciate it if one or both of us were naked.
“It’s safe. You can open your eyes now,” I murmur.
She slowly cracks her eyes, then taking in her surroundings, she fully opens them. When she looks up at me, there’s recognition along with her tears.
“Casper!” She exclaims, wrapping her arms tight around my neck. “Oh god… I… thank you for coming for me. Thank you for taking me away.”
That’s all she can get out, before she breaks down in wracking sobs. Her fingers turn to rigid claws that dig into the muscles in my back, and her face is pressed snuggly against my neck. Her cries tremor throughout her whole body, and I hold her as tight as I can against me, my own tears dripping silently down my face.
My chest aches like a vise is squeezing my heart, and I don’t know what to do to help her, so I let her cry, murmuring nonsensical platitudes. This is such a bittersweet moment for me that I can’t help but feel guilty. I finally know what it feels like to hold her in my arms, to smell the fruity floral scent of her soft skin, and feel the heavy weight of her hair through my fingers. I’ve longed for this since the moment I met her, a twisted knife in my gut because I knew it could never happen. Except it is, right now, but shit, not like this. Why did it have to be because of this?
I don’t know how long we sit on the beach and cry together, only that it takes several attempts before Callie can once again speak.
“I’m sorry you had to see that,” she whispers against my neck, her lips soft and warm against my skin.
“No, pretty girl,” I declare, running a hand down her thick hair. I want to kiss the top of her head, but it’s currently tucked under my chin. “Never apologize for what’s been done to you. You didn’t choose to have that sick fuck do those things to you, so don’t apologize for someone witnessing it.”
She nods, and her body shakes as she swallows another sob. “I just… I can imagine how awful it must have looked,” she hiccups.
“Yeah, it was… intense,” I profess, trailing my fingers up and down her back. “When did it happen, and who was that asshole?”
“Which time?” she sneers with disgust. “And the bastard in question is my father.”
“Fuck!” I shout into the wind.
The gentle breeze pulls and dances with tendrils of her wavy blonde hair.
She chuckles. “Yeah, that about sums it up.”
“Fuck, fuck, fuck! I’m… fuck. Sorry isn’t enough,” I grunt. “He did… that… multiple times?”
She nods again and clears her throat. Hot tears drip from her eyes and down my chest. “It was his go to for a while when he noticed my healing accelerated each time he did it. Then he moved on to other things when it looked like I plateaued.”
“Damn, you really are like a superhero. Have Wolverine’s powers and everything,” I joke, because I don’t know if I can take more crying.
She laughs, her hot breath sending tingling chills down my spine. “Excuse you. I’m a girl, so I have X-23’s abilities. She’s a total badass.”
“Hell yeah, she is.” I rock her gently side to side. “All we need to do is get you fitted with your own set of adamantium claws, and you’ll be unstoppable.”
“Don’t forget the spikes in her feet,” she chides. “Those kicks are brutal. I’d also have to learn some type of martial art.”
“I don’t know. Flailing about with claws and spikes that can cut through anything seems like it’d still be pretty effective,” I tease.
She laughs again and wipes at her face.
I don’t want to ask, but I feel like I have to. “Do these flashbacks happen to you often?”
Callie turns her head so she’s resting more comfortably against my shoulder and has one hand pressed against my chest. “Not that often and nothing like this. I’m presuming it’s bad if you had to come rescue me.”
I nod, and a new wave of guilt washes over me. I know the guys must be losing their minds out in the real world, and I should be trying to get us back as soon as possible, but I know once we’re back, I’m a ghost again. Shit, Kaleb’s right. If I didn’t know how much it would hurt Callie, I’d definitely be okay with staying here with her like this forever.
“I get nightmares a lot though,” she confesses, jarring me from my thoughts.
A twisted hope snakes through my blood, and I stutter, “I could come back if you wanted. We could see what else we can do here. Travel the world in your mind.”
She sniffs. “I would like that.”
A warm joy spreads through my chest, but thinking of how seductive it already feels to get lost with Callie in her mind, I put in restrictions for myself. “I probably can’t come every night, but at least a few times a week.”
“A few nights of undisturbed sleep sounds pretty good to me,” she chuckles.
“You got it.” I swallow heavily and do the right thing. “We should get back. Your aunt and the guys are all outside waiting for you to wake up.”
“Oh hell,” she groans, once again burying her face in my neck.
I close my eyes and swallow my own groan. It feels too good. Yeah, we have to go soon, or I’m really going to forget why we have to leave. “Time to go.”
“Casper?” she murmurs, barely audible over the light breeze. “Could you keep what you saw to yourself? I don’t want them to know what it was really like. Not yet.”
Keeping this from the guys feels wrong-- or feels like it should be wrong, but selfishly, I like the idea of something only I know about her. Only something I can help her with. The guys get to touch or hold her anytime they want, so to have this one thing with her-- it makes what we have feel special. It makes me feel special.
It’s not my story to tell, I reason, but it feels hollow since I know it isn’t the real reason I’ll keep her secrets.
“I promise to keep it to myself,” I tell her, breathing her in before we go. “You can tell me or show me anything, and I promise that it’ll stay between us.”
“Thank you.”
She looks up at me with a watery smile, and I can’t help but place a light kiss on her forehead.
“See you on the other side?” I whisper with a smirk.
“I’m right behind you,” she assures.
I close my eyes and reach with my mind for the outside world, and between one breath and the next, I’m back and Callie is awake.