How can any of this be happening?

I'm standing in my living room. I'm in the exact same place I was when my parents told me the news. When I found out that the girls weren't just going missing...they were being murdered.

I stare at my father's recliner and I can still see him sitting there. Like a ghost. He's there in his brown suit jacket, rocking back and forth. The boards creaking beneath the weight.

Back and forth he rocks, fingers steepled below his chin. His glasses low on the bridge of his long nose.

"We've got to tell them." He says and his voice makes me jump backwards.

Only when I turn I yelp. My mother is standing at my side, her eyes glassy, looking right through me. Looking where the sound of the recliner continues to creak creak creak.

I hear her voice calling my name. Calling my brother. I hear the ricochet of voices coming from upstairs. I hear the slamming of the door and the thunder of feet running down the stairs.

I'm both here and not here.

The voices just keep going and I scream and scream, trying to drown it out. Trying not to see myself sitting on that loveseat, my brown eyes staring through me.

"Dead?" I ask, face pale and lifeless.

Dead
Dead
Dead.

I'm screaming still as I push to my feet and run from the room. I slam open the door to my parents bedroom, slamming it behind me again. I push against the door. I kick it and slap my hands against it until something cracks.

I pull my hand back and feel something wet and hot running down from my fist.

"This isn't happening!" I scream, throwing my back into the door and sliding down to the floor. "This isn't real! It's not real."

I wait for the voice inside of me to tell me I'm okay. I wait for something, anything, but the voice doesn't come.

Just the voices in the other room going and going.

I'm not okay.

I just found a fucking body!

A body!

And I had told no one.

How much longer will that girl's body lay beneath that dumpster like trash? How long will she lay there freezing and alone? How much did she beg for life before it slipped away from her?

How much longer will her family have to search for her?

I fall over onto the floor and cry myself dry. I cry like I haven't cried in years. I scream and thrash and choke and vomit and cry. I cry so long and so hard I'm sure it will kill me.

Surely there are no longer tears running from my eyes but blood. All of the blood inside of my body must be pouring out of me right here in the floor.

"I'm sorry." I say to no one...

No, not to no one.

To her.

I plead that she will forgive me for leaving her there.

For leaving her alone again.

"I'm so sorry."

I cry until I feel like she feels.

Cold and alone.

Empty.

Soulless.

Nothing.

Just a body on the ground.

Only there won't be anyone to look for me.

"Misery!"

I wake with a start, head jerking back and hitting the door behind me.

I push myself up on my elbows.

I'm sure I'd heard my name, but there is no one here. Light glows dimly behind the flimsy silk drapes covering the window beside my parent's bed. Whether it's morning light, or the sun is going down, I can't tell.

My skin is covered with goose flesh, the hair on my arms standing up even as sweat pours down the side of my face.

I sit up more, turning to rest my back against the door. I tuck my knees up to my chest, trying not to see where I've thrown up bile all over the carpet to my right.

My hand feels crusty and throbbing and I bring it up to my face to see the dried blood that had run from a gash on the side of my palm. The lines of blood run down my hand and into the sleeve of my coat. The cuff now a dark rusty color.

I incline my head up and see scratches in the door's white paint, and blood splattered below a large crack in the center of the door.

So that was real.

I did that.

I look away, my eyes slowly roaming over the room.

The bed is still here, but the mattress and everything that went with it is gone. Just an empty metal frame with small iron flowers in the headboard.

I stand and walk to it. Remembering how many times I'd have nightmares as a kid and come into this room, stopping at my mother's side of the bed, asking quietly if I could sleep with them.

My hand touches one of the iron flowers, running my fingers over the cool hard petals.

I miss her.

My mother.

It opens up a pit in my stomach to stand here. Feeling just like a child again. Just wishing I could ask my mother if I can climb into bed with her again. Just this one more time. To feel her snuggle me close and whisper it was just a dream.

I need to hear her tell me that.

I need to believe that what I saw yesterday was in fact, just that. Just a scary dream, created by a restless mind, that can be chased away by a mother's love.

But something in me knows it wasn't a dream. Something terrible is happening here again. It's the whole ghastly thing same as before.

Like a memory set on repeat it's all happening again. Just as it had before. When I was just a girl who loved her parents and brother and my life here in this home with them.

Only now it's not a home. It's just a house full of ghosts and secrets and disgusting truths waiting outside just passed the tree line and below the bluff.

I turn from the room and walk out quietly, leaving the room to be at rest once again.

I peek my head into the living room and sigh in relief that it's empty. The recliner isn't rocking, and my mother and father are no longer here.

It's just me, all alone.

Again though, a fire crackles in the hearth of the fireplace and I try to remember lighting it when I'd gotten home last night. I try to remember anything before standing in that room and seeing myself learning of Madison and Trina's untimely deaths.

I can't though.

I remember the alley, and I remember getting into the car, but everything between there and here now is such a mess of memory. It's all as fogged over as my windshield in the winter morning.

I can't make out the shapes in front of me, only bits and pieces of the road ahead.

My hand instinctively goes to my pocket, but then that memory shines right through.

They took the pills.

The ones I've been painstakingly collecting and now I have none. Nothing to drown out the silence I'm enveloped in. Nothing to take away the feel of her dead flesh beneath my palm.

I run into the kitchen and throw up in the sink, my body heaving and convulsing around itself, trying to push out the evil things inside of me. Trying to empty itself entirely, but I only choke and gag.

I run the cold water from the faucet and shove my face underneath the steady stream, letting the ice cold water jolt me out of the fog for only a few seconds.

Just long enough to know I've got to get rid of this coat and my boots.

I can't burn them. If the police come...when the police come, the burn pile would be the first thing they checked.

And I can't just get rid of them.

Faulkner is too small to toss them out of a window and hope no one finds them, and I don't even have a car.

There is only one option.

One that makes my stomach roil all over again.

Slowly, water still dripping from my nose and my cheeks, I go back into my parent's bedroom.

I close the door behind me again and I cross the room to where the old antique dresser stands unassuming against the wall beside the closet.

I push against it, heaving it out of the way and blocking the closet door before I bend down and crouch on the floor.

Deftly my fingers peel up the carpet from the lose spacing where it meets the wall and I keep tugging until it reveals the old covered wooden planks beneath.

I can't do this.

I feel every bit of the guilt I've carried for too long. I stare at the spot on the floor. That one wooden plank with a hole only big enough to slip one finger inside of.

I'd discovered this place once before.

And just like yesterday, I'd told no one.

I slip my index finger into the hole and lift the plank of wood, a large deep space hidden below.

I peer inside, but this time I find it empty.

I slip off my jacket and my boots and I shove and wiggle them down until the space is filled with secrets yet again.

Only this time, the secrets are mine.

I replace the board and fold the carpet back over it, tucking the edges back down against the wall and the shove the dresser back over the top.

I step back and look.

You'd never notice that anything was out of place.

You'd only know it was there if you'd seen someone else open that hiding place before.

My body is shaking but if it's from fear or withdrawal I cannot tell. I feel aches and pains all over my body and every breath I take seems to fill me with splinters instead of oxygen.

I step away from the dresser and my eyes drift unwittingly towards the closet.

My hand stalls in the air, inches from the doorknob, but I can't bring myself to do it. Not again. Not after last time.

Images of my mother's lifeless body bombard their way into my mind, shoving passed my now weakened defenses.

Without those pills, I have no shield.

I'm laid bare to the pain of the past.

To the pain I keep tucked away, like a hiding spot under the carpet inside of the floors of my brain.

A knock on the front door sends me reeling.

They know.

They're here for me.

I can't explain what really happened because no one would believe me.

I pad carefully out of the bedroom and down the hall, sure I'll see flashing lights coming from beneath the door, but I don't.

I creep onto my toes and look through the peep hole.

"I know you're there, so just let me in, it's fucking colder than balls on ice out here."

It's Kelsea.

I let out the breath I hadn't known I was holding and I open the door I'd apparently forgotten to lock at all.

"What are you doing here?" I ask her, not stepping back to let her inside.

"I'm checking on you," she says like it's obvious. "I told you not to drive last night and now look at you, spending the night in a police station and stumbling over bodies."

"B-bodies?" I stammer.

"Yeah they said you found the Linn girl." She says, blowing out a thick white puff of air. "That shit is wild."

So she didn't mean bodies as in both of them.

I sigh. "You don't know the half of it." I tell her, looking passed her to scan the yard behind her. Does anyone know you're here? Did someone follow you?"

"Uh," she scrunches her face. "No." She laughs nervously. "I'm not exactly top priority around here."

"Look." I say, crossing my arms against the chill of the wind. "You can't be here. You can't let anyone know you know me. You need to go home and stay home. Don't go out. In fact, you should go back to New York, at least for a little while."

She doesn't wait any longer for me to invite her in. She just shoulders passed me and closes the door behind us.

"What the hell are you talking about?" she demands. "Are you high?"

"For fucks sake, no!" I throw my hands up. "I'm not high and I'm not gonna be high because the cops took everything I had so I'm really not feeling so good right this moment and I'm freaking the fuck out and I'm trying to protect you, so you need to go. You can't be associated with me. It's dangerous."

Kelsea draws back, tossing her braids over her shoulder, letting them collet in long lines down her back. "Dangerous?" She says. "I'm from New York." She laughs. "This little four mile nothing place isn't dangerous and you sure as hell aren't. You don't look like you could kill a fly at this point. Have you eaten?"

"No!" I scream at her, throwing my hands against the wall and pressing my forehead against it trying to breathe. "I haven't eaten, I've hardly slept, I'm seeing shit and hearing shit."

"Hey, Missy," Kelsea places her hand on my shoulder and tries to draw me back from the wall but I don't budge. "It's ok, you had a hard night, ok? Anyone would be freaked out after what happened last night, especially considering who you are. It's normal to feel-."

"Stop." I turn on her. "Stop trying to help or be nice or whatever."

"I'm just trying to be a-."

"Don't!" I yell. "Don't try to be my friend, ok? You don't want that. I don't want that. If I'm right..." I walk up the hallway and into the living room, feeling her following behind me. "If I'm right about what I am thinking...if I'm not crazy..."

"Are you freaking out because they found that other girl?"

"They found her?" I spin on the heel of my sock.

"Yeah," she nods. "They found her body a few hours ago. That's why I came to check in on you. I figure this is a lot."

"It's not just a lot!" I scream, tears pooling in my eyes. "It's all happening again!"

"What are you talking about?"

"If I'm right, you can't be here." I tell her. "You need to get as far away from Faulkner as you can."

"You're freaking me out."

"You should be freaked out." I tell her. "If I'm right about this, the next victim..." I take a deep breath. "Will be my friend."