Lucian couldn’t help wondering why Molly was screaming. He wanted to tell her it was all right but for some reason he couldn’t seem to make his mouth form the words.
Molly tightened her hold on his waist and used her shoulder to keep him upright. He was dead weight.
“Lucian!” She was freaking out. His head listed to the side and his eyes rolled back in his head. Was he having some kind of seizure?
Reaching around with her right hand, she grabbed her phone out of her back pocket and punched the key code with her thumb. She kept hitting the wrong numbers.
“SHIT!”
He slumped against her, making her lose her hold on her phone; it clattered to the floor at her feet. “No! No! NO!”
Using all her strength she propped him back against the counter while extending out her foot to drag her phone back. She knew if she let him go he would surely fall and crack his head open. With another burst of exertion, she pushed him upright.
Giving up on her phone, she turned towards him and patted his face gently. “Come on,” she urged. “Wake up.”
Lucian jolted and his eyes opened.
“Oh my God, Lucian. Are you all right?” She pressed her hand against his chest.
He got a strange look in his eyes. It was as though he was seeing someone else, standing in front of him and not Molly. She didn’t know why she was thinking that. But that is the way she felt. “Lucian,” she repeated. “Are you all right?”
Shaking his head, Lucian cleared his vision and the image of Rebecca disappeared and was transposed by Molly’s—her face ashen, worried. “You okay?”
“Am I okay?” Molly looked at him like he had three heads. “What is wrong with you?”
Lucian shirked her off, feeling clammy and cold suddenly. “I don’t know.” And he didn’t. It was like his brain took a vacation from his body and he had no idea where it went.
“We are leaving.” Molly turned to go.
He grabbed her arm, freaking out. “No!”
“Lucian,” she said in a calm voice, looking him in the eyes. “I want to take you to the hospital. I think you had a seizure or something.”
“I didn’t, I mean, I don’t know. But I can’t leave, not yet.”
“Why?” Her brow creased in concern.
“I have to do something.”
“What?”
He rubbed his forehead, trying to alleviate the pain gathering behind his eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Well,” she snapped, not meaning to. “If you don’t, we are definitely leaving.” She was already planning to leave anyway but wanted to know what the hell had just happened.
“I saw Rebecca.”
“Who?” She frowned more severely.
“The girl from the picture,” he muttered, barely audible.
“What pic…” Molly trailed off as the realization of what he was saying hit her. “You mean…” she swallowed hard, “the, Rebecca?”
He nodded.
Her mouth opened and closed like a fish. “When?” she finally managed.
“Just now, I mean, not right now but before when …”
“When you almost passed out?” She gaped at him.
“Yeah, I guess.” He shrugged and shoved his hands into his pockets.
“We should get you to the hospital…”
“You said yourself this place is haunted,” he defended.
“Yeah, but I wasn’t serious. That’s just what we’re told to tell the tourists.”
“But it has to be based on some truth, right?”
“How the hell am I supposed to know? I just repeat the stories, to make this place sound more interesting.”
He gave her a look of disbelief. “I thought you said you believed…that you watched the shows…”
“Well, I did watch the shows, that is. But that doesn’t mean I believe…” She saw his expression and took a breath. “Fine…” She exhaled trying to keep it together. “If what you say is true…”
“I saw her,” he was adamant.
“Okay,” she said. “Okay,” she repeated. “If I am to believe that you saw Rebecca…”
“I did see her and I have seen her more than once.”
“When did this start?”
“Since I saw the picture.”
“How many times?”
“Four but with this last time it is five.”
Molly braced herself on the glass display case and took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding and her hands were shaking. She felt like if she didn’t hold on she would surely fall on her face. What the hell is going on? She exhaled, getting herself back under some semblance of control. “Where did you see her exactly?”
“At the hotel and here.”
Molly remembered how he looked in the parking lot. “What is she doing when you see her?”
“Mostly she just stands there and sometimes she gives me a sad smile, but this time she came through the door right past you.”
Molly reflexively took a step back and looked at the chalk like substance on the floor and not surprisingly, there was still only one set of prints leading to the door—her own.