Vitality (Vitality Series #1)

Chapter 29 Don't Fear the Reaper pt.3

Ava emerged from her room the next day at two in the afternoon, almost sleep walking, her head pounding from the harsh white light filling the kitchen, and her left fingers wrapped in bandages. Dahlila, who was at the counter going through her briefcase and sorting out business folders for school, paused briefly to look at Ava before returning to her organizing.

"Let me guess? You slept the day away?"

"Like the dead." Ava rubbed her head, not paying much mind before pouring herself a much-needed drink of water.

"If that's what the dead get up to in the afterlife, sign me up."

Ava's gaze stilled on Dahlila over the rim of the glass.

"I mean, with the way the walls in this house seem like they're going to come down on us every night, I was guessing it was the apocalypse in there. Surely, the dead were going to come walking out in the morning." Dahlila snorted and Ava cocked a surprised brow.

She was making a light-hearted joke. Was she starting to come around?

Ava stood there, waiting, until finally Dahlila looked up with a piece of her old, sweet smile and winked. This made Ava smile. Dahlila's attention quickly went back to finishing up what she was doing.

She looked remarkable in a sharp white and cream suit, sunshine hair slicked back in a low, straightened ponytail. She almost seemed to be prepared for a meeting of some sorts, a world that Ava would never come to know. The different directions they were headed in hadn't ever been more clear. Dahlila was ready to make her mark on the world, and Ava was stuck in limbo, chasing her heart to no end like some tortured shade.

Ava looked down at her own messy self, the torn muscle shirt and shorts, the bruises, scrapes, and bandages, her sluggish posture.

"You lost a few pounds," Dahlila said.

"Hey, Dahlila..." Ava began hesitantly. She'd already planned to ask her this question, but now she didn't want to spoil the mood between them. Unfortunately, she couldn't put this off. "You remember the things you told me about what your dad used to say?"

Dahlila slapped her case closed and stuffed it under her arm. "No." She gave Ava a sharp glare and then went flying out the front door.

"Well, that went how I thought it would." Ava slammed the glass on the counter and went straight to Dahlila's dad's old study.

The study was dingy, uninviting, and to Ava's dismay, empty of the boxes she'd left in there of the old photographs and diaries she had found when cleaning out her room. She thought that maybe some of those diaries were his. Dahlila had probably thrown them out.

There was a suit jacket hung on an elegant coat rack, still in pristine shape other than the dust settled over it, more than anything else in the room. Then on the back of the desk chair was a jacket in a completely different shape: worn, holey, and very unappealing in style for someone who preferred decadence. There were two pictures on his desk, of him in each jacket, and it was clear it was the perfect idea of the man that had changed so drastically in Dahlila's life.

Next to a gold plate engraved with his name, Kyle Thompson, was the first picture of him with a woman who was plainly Dahlila's mother, and a young Dahlila. Kyle stood, dirty-blond and dashing in a suit and tie, with his arm wrapped around his wife. She was dressed in a fancy sequin dress, its short length showing toned legs and diamond-flecked heels. Dahlila's mom, Ava gathered from bits of conversation, was a very popular socialite, while her father consulted for a wide assortment of companies from all over and was very much sought after for his advice. Next to Mrs. Thompson was Dahlila, almost an exact replica, even down to the sunshine hair, dress, and pose.

But today, Dahlila seemed more like her father than anything. Maybe she was chasing after the ghost of what was taken from her... Maybe she wanted to succeed in what had failed.

The second picture was of only two people, Kyle and Dahlila, looking unhappy and standing awkwardly feet apart. He was wearing the worn jacket, looking very rundown himself.

Ava began threading through the entire room, looking for anything; analyzing what books were left on the miserable shelves for anything of interest and shaking them to see if any notes were left behind; scanning the top and back of the shelves with her hand for hiding places; going through the desk and the scraps that had been left behind. It was all barren and useless.

Until she came across a paper-thin drawer, concealed from sight in one of the lower cabinets. But it was locked. Her heart thumped in hope.

With her knife, she hacked away at the craggy wood holding the lock until finally the crib came away and the drawer opened. Lying there was a thick folder scribbled all over with half elegant writing and half mad gibberish. It was hard to make out, it was so convoluted.

Except this, which was clear and traced over and over: They own the town.

Inside the folder were posters of missing people throughout the decades. And quite a few that she recognized. The woman-girls were there, as children, Ash — as Ashland, with his brother, Blake — he was the one who had been on Carla's neck, and Hazel, who was on the couch with them. The dates didn't make sense though... it said Ash and Blake were born in the sixties... They didn't look a day above their twenties.

Next, there were printed pictures of people who she had seen at Lithium in passing as well. It felt like the whole of Lithium was spinning around her in that instant. Her lip was going raw from gnawing at it. She turned to a paper that was not a poster or a printed picture but a drawing that attempted to catch Layton's likeness... and her stomach turned inward.

Clearly Kyle Thompson was obsessed with them, but why? And at some point in her haze last night, Layton had said he didn't want her to go to Lithium anymore. She'd gave him a hard time, but in the end, he was pleading for her to just listen to him... he said Lithium was dangerous. Her stomach turned another degree.

Her mind flickered to the night before, the fire, Layton's hand... Had it been real or was it her? It was hard to ignore that she wasn't the only one in this town thinking things weren't right.

Ava hid the folder in her room and set off to prepare things for when Layton arrived — booby traps.