Vitality (Vitality Series #1)

Chapter 60 Flicker

Ava remembered the boat ride home from the island again, a memory too painful to let her rest. On and on it went, even into her dreams she felt the rocking, and in the bed as she woke.

But it wasn't the bed either; she was moving. Streetlights passing by blurred her vision in the dark. Ava was in a car.

"Layton?" She had gotten so used to calling for him. He wouldn't be there. "Dahlila," she corrected.

"Who's Layton? Dahlila?"

Ava whipped her head to the side to see Jason next to her, his hand wrapped around the steering wheel. "Jason?" She sat up from the fogginess. "What's happening? What are you doing? How'd I get in here?"

"I'm driving us home."

"Us home?" She squinted her eyes to the road to see where they were. "Massachusetts?"

"Massachusetts? No. And who is Layton?"

"Layton?" Ava shook her head. "No. I'm not going back. I'm going home to Massachusetts. Stop the car."

"Ava, you've never been to Massachusetts. You don't know what you're talking about. You inhaled a lot of smoke from the fire and passed out. You're confused. Relax." Jason was driving very fast.

"Fire?" She looked down at the bandages on her hand. "Layton... Dahlila... No — No! Stop the car." Her voice rose, rattling out her throat.

"I'm not stopping the car. You need to cool it." His hands clutched the wheel. "And stop saying that Goddamn name."

"I have to go back. I said stop the car!" Ava hollered, grabbing the steering wheel, her eyes as wild as a caged forest animal. "Stop the car!"

"You're going to get us into an accident!" Jason grabbed her bandaged hand and pushed her back with it while trying to keep control of the wheel with his other. "Do you feel that? That is real! Forget the other shit!"

"No," she clenched her teeth, sinking under the pain as he pushed her into the seat. "I have to leave. I need to..." She started feeling drowsy, and her head ached. Her thoughts from one to the next were hard to find suddenly.

There were tears welling in his eyes when he looked at her hyperventilating. "You need to what?"

"I... I don't know... I just know I have to go back."

"Go back to where! Why do you need to go back so bad? We gotta get you home before the police catch up."

She was seeing it all as the pain seared through her. It was being torn away from her. "No!" Her mouth swelled, drowning her words. "Let me out!" Ava brought her arm back and whipped it around to connect with Jason's nose.

"Motherfucker!" He grabbed his nose and swerved the car into the streetlight on the side of the road. Ava hit her head against the dashboard.

Memories flashed as everything fell away into blurs. The streetlight flickering overhead burned the sensitivity in her eyes. Then it transformed into a single flame...

"Layton is not here," a voice, low and chilling, called back as Ava's eyes focused into a candlelight next to her, candlelight away from the car, away from Jason.

The smell of death crept over her, and the light flickered over her body lying on a bed, stiff and painful again. She felt her hand on the sheets when they stuck against her body, making a gushing sound when she shifted. Her hand was covered in blood. Ava was lying in a pool of blood.

The voice spoke again from the shadows that was not Jason's, or Layton's, nor anyone she'd ever heard. "What dreams lay beneath those lids?" it crooned without any kind of life inside of it.