In The Darkest Depths

15. I Don't Know Who I Am

I've always hated the smell of hospitals.

A pungent aroma of cleaning chemicals mixed with medication floods my nostrils as soon as I step through the doors. But beneath that, there's another scent.

Death.

Carter's already here, pacing up and down the pristine white hallway. His hand keeps going to his hair, ruffling through it in agitation. He looks like he came straight from his bed without bothering to change. His white shirt is wrinkled and creased; his sweat pants hang low on his hips. His feet are bare.

He looks up when he hears my footsteps, rushing to me and pulling me into his arms.

"What happened?"

"His car ran off the road. It looks like he swerved, maybe an animal crossing the street or something. Slammed into a tree."

A shiver crawls up my spine. It's exactly like my dream.

"Is he..." I trail off, unsure how to ask the question, "okay?"

"In a coma." His eyes are red-rimmed, his cheeks slightly puffy. "On life support. Probable brain damage. Severe trauma to his skull."

He recites the facts as though he is reading them straight off a medical chart. His voice is oddly emotionless, spoken in a monotone that gives me chills.

"Saige is in there with him now. His parents are with the doctor."

"Can we see him?" I ask hopefully. My dream has put me on edge, Brennan looked dead in it and I want to see for myself that he's okay.

"No. Family only. They let Saige in because his parent's asked for her."

"How's she doing?" I want to kick myself, because the answer is so obvious, I should never have asked the question.

"Not good."

"And you?"

He looks down at me, the answer is written in his eyes but he never says it. The silence stretches for so long that I think he's never going to speak, and when he does, it's not what I had been expecting.

"Did you have a dream about Brennan?"

Panic floods through me at his question, the memory of Brennan's accident still fresh in my mind. I don't want to answer him; I don't want to confirm what he already knows. "Is this the right-,"

"Just answer the question, please. Did you?" His tone tells me that there is no point in arguing with him, or delaying the inevitable.

"Right before Saige phoned." I wait for the fallout. Because my confession is like a hurricane that will destroy everything in its path. There is only one plausible answer for all of this, for why I am seeing these things. Carter knows it too.

"They're not dreams, Audrey. They're premonitions of some kind."

I nod, already having come to that conclusion myself. In fact, I had already mentioned it to him and he had dismissed it as grief. "Do you know what that means?"

"It means that by the time winter comes, Saige and Brennan will be dead."

"Why wasn't I in the dream?" Carter shifts gear, driving slowly on the slick roads. "Does that mean that I'm not going to die?" His voice is so calm, as if talking about his own possible death is an everyday occurrence.

"I don't know." I remember feeling both relieved and slightly concerned that Carter hadn't been there. It was odd for us to go to the lake without him. "Maybe that means you're safe?"

He nods but doesn't agree with me, instead pulling the car off along the side of the road and shifting it into park. "We're here."

Brennan's car has already been removed by a tow truck, but the evidence of the crash is still there. In the pale morning light, you can easily see the shattered glass littering the floor, twinkling up at us like diamonds.

The tree that he had slammed into is large, with a trunk so thick I doubt I would be able to wrap my arms around it. Scratches cover it and the bark is peeling off in places.

Puddles of rain water still cover the tar, almost obscuring the skid marks caused by Brennan's tyres. "It was here. Something white ran across the road. I didn't see what it was. The rain was coming down too hard."

"An animal of some sort?"

"Maybe," I shrug, really not sure. All I had seen was a flash, gone as quickly as it had appeared.

When we left the hospital, Carter had followed me home so I could drop off my mum's car and explain to her what had happened. I hadn't even bothered to change before I jumped back into his truck and we came back to the place where Brennan had run his car off the road, almost halfway between Carter and Saige's house.

We had hoped that by coming here we would be able to piece together what happened. That seeing the accident site would spark some memory from my dream. The only thing we have to go on is the hazy details I can provide from my nightmare.

But, like the millions of fragments of glass on the floor, it will never be whole.

"What are we doing here, Carter? This is never going to work."

"I don't know what else to do Audrey!" He throws his hands in the air, frustration clear on his face. "Rhea's dead, Brennan's in the hospital. Saige could be in trouble. And all we know for sure if that you've been having crazy dreams about them dying."

"Crazy?" I can't help the catch in my voice.

He visibly softens, his shoulders sagging, the frown disappearing from his face. "That's not what I meant. You know that's not what I meant."

"Do you honestly think that I'm not aware how insane all this sounds?" I barely register the fact that I am shouting.

"Audrey, calm down."

His words are like a red flag to a bull and I rear back as though he has physically hurt me. "Calm down? Do you think I enjoy having these dreams? Seeing Rhea everywhere I go? Do you think this is fun for me?"

I break down, fully aware that once again, I am probably overreacting. But I feel like I'm losing my mind. It has literally been the week from hell. I can't continue losing the people I care about, I can't keep having these dreams. I can't see someone else get hurt.

I fall to the floor, gravel embedding itself into my bare knees. I don't even feel the pain as I sob into my hands. For almost a year I have tried to squash down the memories of what happened. I've worked so hard to put Adam's death behind me. And all my progress went to hell the moment I had that nightmare that started this in the first place.

Now I have another death to mourn, another loved one I've lost. Possibly even another two if my dream comes true and Saige and Brennan die. Everything is spiralling and bad things keep happening and I have no way to stop it.

I haven't even had the time to grieve Rhea properly.

"We'll save them Audrey." Carter's comforting voice floats toward me. "I promise."

But I know that he's wrong. Soon, there will be two more deaths to mourn.

It's too late for all of us.