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A force bigger and stronger than me rips Aaron away. In the darkness I can’t see where he went, but I can hear the impact of his body on the carpet. I feel it through the floorboards.
Scrambling, I throw my arms out in the black, flailing for any kind of light switch. The moonlight isn’t enough. I swing my arms to the side, and I strike something solid.
Solid and warm.
Solid and warm and—scented?
Cologne?
A fist crashes into the side of my head, and the world turns upside down. I slide along the floor, the carpet burning my cheek.
Do ghosts wear cologne?
There’s screaming still. Wordless shouts of rage and panic filling the spinning hallway, only interrupted by the sound of Aaron’s grunting as he struggles against the darkness.
“Aaron!” I claw the carpet to pull myself up, and something hard smashes into my stomach. A boot? My diaphragm seizes, and my breath cuts off with a choking gasp.
My voice lodges in my throat as I clutch my aching ribs and chest and desperately try to breathe.
The light in the room flares to life again, blinding in its intensity. I squeak in surprise and pain and choke, hands raising to protect my eyes and face as another blow lands in my stomach, a shadowed figure looming over me.
Not a ghost.
A person.
A real person.
His boot cracks against my hip this time.
What is he? A can-can dancer?
I can’t see details. Everything’s blurry. But I can see when he rears back to kick me again.
His boot strikes me, but as he’s pulling back, I seize the fabric of his pants and climb his leg like a squirrel intent on shredding him to pieces. He yelps in surprise, flailing, and then his hands are in my hair, ripping and tearing it out by the roots as he pries me off.
I can’t stop a shriek as he yanks. My eyes tear up, and he peels me off his leg like the rind of an orange and flings me into the wall. If I were a wet noodle, I’d stick.
A punch comes next, in the stomach.
Is he going to kill me?
Who is he? Why?
Aaron.
Where is Aaron?
Oh, God, where is Aaron?
I can’t hear him. Have they killed him? What if they’ve killed him?
I collapse on the carpet gasping for breath between panicked sobs, and the murmur of conversation above me is tangled in my ears. I don’t care what they’re saying. I want Aaron’s voice. Where is Aaron’s voice? What have they done to him?
Two shadows hover over me now.
Backlit from the bedroom, I still can’t make out details. They’re just—big. Between their legs, I can see into the room where another figure I can’t make out is dumping small baggies of white powder into boxes.
More drugs?
Is that what this about?
How? How can that be?
What is going on?
Where’s Aaron?
The two figures over me turn away. Slowly, I press my hands into the carpet and push myself up. Everything hurts. I can hardly see for the pain, and my lungs aren’t working.
A sharp laugh.
Another blow to my lower back knocks me down again, and my nose strikes the floor.
But I still don’t hear Aaron.
My lips form his name, but no sound comes out.
The second figure walks away from where I’m balled up on the floor, and the first one—Kicky McKicks-a-Lot—kneels down to pat my head. He’s saying something, but I can’t make it out. My ears are ringing and full of painful cotton.
Behind him, three shadowed figures file out of the room, each one carrying boxes and bags. I think. It’s hard to see. They walk down the hallway to the stairwell door and disappear into the darkness.
With another laugh, Kicky stands and leaves me on the floor. He steps into the room.
This is my chance.
It’s the only chance I’ll have.
I’ve seen them. Maybe not their faces, but I’ve seen them. And they’ve probably already killed Aaron, so they’re going to kill me too.
No.
I get the carpet under my fingers again and struggle to my knees. I can’t breathe. I can’t see. But I crawl anyway, one tuft of stained carpet at a time, until I can see the stairwell door, the stairs disappearing into darkness below.
A bark of laughter behind me.
Kicky’s back.
So much for a quick escape.
I scramble for the steps—like that will do any good—but he’s too fast, and he has me by the hair again. I’m flying. That’s what it feels like for a split second before the side of my head crashes into the glass of the hallway window, sending a spiderweb of breaks through it.
Now the room is really spinning.
Like it hadn’t already been going like the Tilt-a-Whirl at Joyland.
He’s laughing again, picking up the bag he dropped so he could throw me like a frisbee, and he starts for the steps.
I’m not thinking.
Because this is a bad idea.
I know it even before I do it, but I don’t care.
They’ve killed Aaron. I know they have.
Oh, this is going to hurt.
I lunge for Kicky’s leg just as he steps down on the stairs. He yelps in surprise and tilts forward, balance gone, and then the floor is gone too. He roars in pain as he pitches headfirst down the stairs, dragging me with him in a tangle of arms and legs and dime-bags of cocaine.
Somersaulting out of control, we crash into the dining room floor, and I land on top of him in an unseemly pile of crazy hair and aching limbs. I hear a loud pop. Kicky thrashes once under me, choking, gurgling, and going limp.
Then more screams. More shouts. More hands, grabbing me, throwing me into the wall, kicking me. Another fist strikes my face, and my eye begins to swell. A hand pins me to the wall. I can only see a tuft of brown hair that belongs to the hand clasped over my eyes.
Voices.
Overlapping voices.
A growl of rage.
The next blow is harder than all the others. My head bounces off the wood floor like a basketball.
Dragging. Rustling. The shadowed figures in my swimming vision haul Kicky’s heavy body out of the room by his arms because he’s not moving anymore.
The lights shut off.
The front door slams shut.
They’re gone.
No Aaron in sight.
I let the darkness take me.
