Graveyard, Backyard

Chapter 43 - How It Ends

Will is dead.

He's been dead since a year. His body is in the backyard of my house. The guy who I thought was Will was just his ghost. THAT SOUNDS CRAZY.

Kasie is lying. Will can't be dead. "You're kidding." I laughed.

Kasie shook her head, "I certainly wouldn't joke about my own brother's death. Would you ever joke about yours?" A tear ran down Kasie's cheek as she grabbed my hand and guided me towards another room. She opened the door and motioned me to go in. I entered into the dark room and she illuminated it.

A window faced my room. There were two beds on the opposite wall. One neat while the other one was messy. A shelf and a desk against the wall beside beds. There were few picture frames on the desk which caught my attention.

Kasie asked as I walked over to take a look at those pictures, "Why were you asking about Will? You knew him?" Her voice was sad and low.

I asked myself the same thing. Did I know him? I know nothing.

'Can you see me?'

'I'm not a threat to him.'

'I'm going away from here. I'll miss Havendell. I'll miss you.'

All of his words boomeranged. He was not kidding the first time I saw him. I wasn't supposed to see him! Will was really dead? The person I was falling for was not even alive? Why didn't I realize this earlier?

I stood before the desk without answering Kasie's questions. I didn't know what to say. There were photographs of family gatherings and outings. The twin sisters were always joined by the hip in each one of them. When they were toddlers, when they grew taller and older. There was a picture of Mr and Mrs Monroe, laughing. There was a boy too, in most of the pictures. A blond boy with geeky glasses and goofy teeth, grinning.

"Who is he?" I asked Kasie, pointing towards a picture which looked like it was clicked just a year before. Kasie looked like the way she was looking right now, just her hairs were just shorter in that pic. Both of the twin stood on each side of the blond guy who was around my age.

"That's my brother, Will." I stared at the picture, not actually understanding what Kasie said.

And then it hit me.

"HE'S your brother?" I asked loudly. "He's Will?"

I turned back to Kasie who looked confused and clueless about my tone. "Yeah."

The guy was exactly how Theodora described. But he wasn't the Will I knew. My Will had brown hairs, brown eyes and muscular tall body. Nothing like the guy in the picture. Kasie's brother wasn't my Will?

"When was this picture taken?"

"Last summer."

My stomach felt sick. I felt like throwing up. What was happening? The woman I thought as my mother was actually my mother's evil twin. The guy who said he was Will is not the Will he was supposed to be.

But then, who was he?

"Agapi mou," a familiar voice whispered in my ear from behind. "I'll regret that you found out the truth." My heart thumped in my throat and my lips quivered as I held back my scream.

I looked at Kasie whose eyes were wide, staring something behind me. "Kasie," my shaky voice said, "Run." Kasie's legs didn't move. She was stunned. "RUN!" I shouted. She blinked at me as if she woke up from sleep and then she ran out of the room without looking back.

I hope she lives.
I hope she sees tomorrow.
I hope she forgets what she saw.

"Stubborn, Stubborn Claire." the same voice laughed. "Oh, Claire."

My death circled me like I was his prey - which I was. But I didn't had the courage to look at his face. The faced I saw in most of my pleasant dreams. The face I wished to ogle forever. He walked around me in his own swaggering style. My breath chocked in my throat, sniffing my sob.

"Let's not go to 'I told you so' because you clearly know you should've listened to me. I tried, my love. I tried." Ander Booth said. Ander Booth, real identity of the 'Will' I loved.

He stood before me, his cold hands clenching my upper arm. I whimpered in pain. "I am left with no other option." his voice was low but taunting. His voice was void of all the care he once had. I forced my neck to look up at him. He smiled without any emotions. His brown eyes screamed 'death'.

Reality came crashing down on me when Ander Booth stood there with his real self, in his real appearance. Will was Ander Booth all along. He was never Katie's brother because he himself killed the real Will.

The guy I was falling for was cursed. The guy I was falling for killed so many people. The guy I was falling for is the reason my mom is dead, my brother is missing, and my dad is paralyzed.

The guy I was falling for is destined to kill me.

I pressed my lips tight and blink my eyes to stop the tears from raining. It didn't help.

"I warned you. I tried." he struggled to speak those words.

"It's too late now, isn't it?" I muttered as I began sobbing.

"It is." he replied.

And then a fire shoot up in my chest. My breath chocked as if someone cut off the oxygen supply. My ribs and lungs all were screaming in pain. My heart felt like it was tearing up from the veins and arteries. It gagged me up as I tried to inhale through my mouth. I wanted to scream for help but Ander just stood there, feet away. My vision was zooming out as I struggled for life. I dropped on the floor, whimpering, quivering, struggling. But it was all in vain.

Ander was stripping my soul out of my body like all of his previous victims.

"..I don't deserve it.. forgive me." I couldn't exactly make out what he was telling. But I heard him falling on the floor with a thud and something sharp and cold was shoved in my hand.

And then, darkness enveloped me in its arms.