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“She’s awake,” he mutters. “Ask her whatever you want.” His tone is different now that Mama’s put the pieces together. He’s more resigned and surlier. This must be hard for him. He’d been so annoyingly happy for the last few weeks. I can only imagine how he feels.
“Ask her who she is,” I tell him.
He does, then answers. “Her name was Juliana Fontes,” he says darkly. “She claims we’re all crazy and she isn’t dead.”
I’m surprised to hear this. I assumed the whole point of being a poltergeist was to exact revenge on the living. Then again, it would hardly be the first time a spirit didn’t realize they’d died. Hex has told me hundreds of stories over the years.
“What does she have to do with us?” I ask him. “Why has she been targeting us?”
He sighs heavily and looks at me hesitantly. “She says she doesn’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, and we’re going to rot in hell for kidnapping her.”
For some reason, I laugh. She sounds feisty, which is probably why Hex fell for her in the first place. Still, I can’t help but wonder. “Hex, how could you not tell she was dead?”
He shakes his head and stares at the room, a murderous look on his face. I’ve clearly hit a nerve.
“We’re getting nowhere.” I sigh. “The poltergeist is trapped. I suppose that matters the most. We’ll finally be able to sleep in peace.”
Something tells me, though, that this is the beginning of Hex’s problems.
When I can finally move my body, I scream bloody murder, but the man with Hex stares into the room blankly. These men are psychopaths, playing a sick, twisted game with me. Things are not what they seem.
How could I have fallen for someone so insane? Hex told me I’m dead, but that’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve heard. He’s using his friend to gaslight me into believing this stupid lie. They’re good actors, I’ll give them that.
Then there’s the woman. She’s an elderly black woman with a strong Caribbean accent, and she looks at me with pity. How can she allow these men to go along with this? There’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help other women. I hope she rots there for letting them do this to me.
The tall, thin man asks Hex to communicate with me, keeping up the ridiculous charade. I go to the doorframe and scream in his face, but he doesn’t flinch. He’s a better actor than I would’ve guessed. He pretends he doesn’t hear me, laughing when Hex tells him I’ve told them both to rot in hell.
The tall man leaves, and the woman follows behind, leaving me alone with Hex who glares at me. He has no right to be angry. He drugged me and brought me to this hellhole. They’ll torture me and murder me, most likely. I won’t go down without a fight, though.
“There’s no use screaming,” Hex tells me coldly, his eyes vacant. “No one can hear you. No one else can see you. There’s just me, and I won’t let you get away with this.”
“You fucking idiot,” I scream at him. “I’m not dead. You and your psychotic friends won’t convince me otherwise.” I try to run at him through the open door, but the second I hit the entrance, I’m thrown back by an invisible force. What the fuck?
“The room has been fortified,” he tells me, making my head swim. “You’re never leaving. At least not until Mama can exorcise you. Then you’re going straight to hell where you belong. I hope all the souls you tortured are there to greet you.”
Nothing he says makes any sense. He’s the one who belongs in hell, not me.
“Leave me the fuck alone, you monster,” I tell him in a soft, dangerous tone. Screaming has no effect on him.
He turns to go, shutting off the light and leaving me alone in deep, pitch blackness. I grope in the dark for a solid wall and slide to the floor, curling into a ball. I haven’t had a drink in hours, and the hangover gets to me. I want to close my eyes and sleep, but I’m so terrified of what they’ll do to me.
I wait for hours in agony, but no one returns. In the dark, I have nothing but memories to keep me sane. I think about my parents and their smiling faces. I remember how proud they were when I got my college acceptance letter. I can hear my mother telling me how excited she was for me to be the first in my family to attend university.
I think about the endless hours in the kitchen we spent making brigadeiros, carefully rolling the chocolate into balls and setting them on a pan before popping them in the refrigerator. Mom loved cooking, and Dad loved eating. Our lives were so full of joy. Then one day it was all taken away.
I close my eyes and lay my head against the wall. Mixed in with all the memories is a vivid image of headlights. I’m in the backseat of my parents’ car. We’re just leaving a celebratory dinner for my father, who’s just retired from his job. We’re driving through the city, blasting our favorite samba music, when my mother screams.
The headlights are clearer. They’re approaching the car, and I can see my parents’ horrified looks as my father tries to swerve to miss the car. He isn’t fast enough, and then there’s the loud sound of metal scraping against metal and we roll over and over. I feel sick to my stomach and cough up blood. I scream for my parents, but they can’t hear me. They’re gone already.
I wake with a start and realize it isn’t a nightmare. This happened. I’m remembering the car accident as if I was there. I was there. How could I have been there? The wall behind me is solid, the floor cold. How can I be dead if I can feel things?
I stand up quickly and pace the room. My footsteps make no sound, but how could they? I was in the car when my parents died. I died. The horrible realization washes over me, and I sink back to the floor in a heap, sobs ripping through me. I. Died.
Someone pulled me out of the car, though. I remember now. My parents didn’t answer me, and I knew they were gone already. The pain in my head was so sharp, and there was a bright light. I wanted to run toward it and find my parents there, but before I could, someone pulled me from the car. A dark figure stood over me and…
That’s all I remember. That’s the last memory I have before showing up in a bar three weeks ago, grabbing a pink cocktail, and drinking it down quickly. The bar was too crowded and I was uncomfortable, so I left. The next morning, I saw on a newsstand that there’d been a shooting.
Was Hex right? Had I caused all these bad things to happen? That was impossible. I would know. I would know!
