Part 5 (1/2)
Chapter Six.
”You can't just leave her to die, Riley. You can't just leave her to die.”
When Riley heard the voice, spoken from somewhere in the darkness right ahead of him, he felt his muscles slacken and his stomach turn. The hairs on the back of his neck stood right up. The main reason they stood up was because he knew who spoke them. And he knew where this was leading, just like it always led.
He tried to struggle free of the darkness that surrounded him, but he was trapped, like he was locked in a cell of his own making.
”You can't fail us.”
He tried to speak, to protest, but his lips wouldn't open. In fact, it felt like he didn't even have any lips at all, which was the cruellest thing, because there was so much he wanted to say, so many things he wanted to get off his chest.
”You've failed us, Riley. Just like you always fail.”
”No,” Riley said. And this time, the words came out. ”I-”
”You failed us. Unless you do what you have to do.”
It was at that point that a light burst through the total darkness.
It was then that the figures speaking to him emerged from the blackness and into the light.
Jordanna was standing opposite him. Her dark hair hung down onto her shoulders. It looked greasy. Her skin looked pale. Much paler than Riley remembered.
But as she edged closer, Riley realised why she looked so pale.
There was a blade wedged right through her torso.
Blood was still dripping down into the unknown blackness below.
”Jordanna, please-”
”You made a promise. A promise to me. A promise to Chlo. A promise to yourself.”
”I want to get Kesha back-”
”Then why aren't you doing anything about it?”
Riley lowered his head and felt the throes of guilt and the gnawing l.u.s.t for vengeance suffocating him once more. ”I'm trying. It's just-”
”These things take time?”
The second voice came from Jordanna's left. And it didn't take a genius for Riley to figure out who it was.
Chlo.
Chlo was in a different state to Jordanna. She had both of her arms, and her head was fully intact. But there was a shadow to her, as well. A memory sparked in Riley's mind of how she had looked back at him when it'd been impaled on that stake.
A memory that made Riley want to vomit.
”Chlo,” Riley said. ”I'm sorry.”
”Don't say sorry,” she said, walking closer towards him. ”I told you to keep Kesha safe.”
”I tried. I-”
”You haven't tried hard enough.”
”What the f.u.c.k do you want from me?”
Riley regretted shouting right away. He regretted it because the angrier he got, the more the memories and the guilt of his past resurfaced to the forefront of his consciousness.
He saw Ted dying in front of him.
He saw Anna dying.
He saw Pedro dying.
He saw everyone he'd cared about, dying.
He felt something on his arm then. A light touch.
When he looked up, he saw that Jordanna was opposite him, completely fresh-faced, completely intact, completely alive.
”We're your family,” she said, moving her soft hand up Riley's arm in a way that he longed for so much.
She looked to her side at Chlo, and Chlo smiled up at Riley, too.
”We just want you to find Kesha. We want you to make Mattius suffer. For what he did.”
It was when Chlo said those final three words that Riley saw it happening all over again.
The slicing off of Chlo's arm.
The slamming of the machete into her skull.
The stabbing of Jordanna.
”Okay,” he stuttered. ”I'll do it. I'll-”
”You owe it to all of us, Riley. Not just to them.”
That voice. It was so familiar, yet so distant. Riley hadn't heard it in a long time. Not in his visions, not at all.
But he knew who it belonged to.
He saw her stepping forward, closer towards him.