The Six: Genesis | A Reverse Harem Novel

Eighty-Seven

I don't believe in ghosts.

There aren't people walking around in translucent form hoping to get a scare out of their family and friends. They don't wish they could talk to you and hope for the future. Those are the wishes of those saddened about being left behind.

My mother and father are gone. Dead. And they aren't coming back wearing white bedsheets to tell me they're proud of me.

Ryker says otherwise.

He believes they're somewhere in a faraway land, where I cannot reach or see, patiently waiting for me to join them when my time is up. At least, that's what he told me when I was young. But that was a fairytale for my youth and as I aged, his hopeful candor about their death changed to a physical representation of what my future should be. Do all you can in this life, and hope the next is more kind.

I've always been so sure he was wrong. I never thought about the chance he could be right.

I'd give anything to have them back. Anything to hear my mother's father and my father's voice scolding me to be and do better. Anything to swim a lap in my family's pool free from care and fear.

The last week is a twisted memory borne from too much vodka and not enough Lewis. It's not his fault. Classes are ramping up for the semester's end and it means lots and lots of exams.

I know he'll be spectacular and needs to focus, but I miss him. It clings to me like morning dew on the green grass. Every day, it's fresh and smells heavenly.

Last night, I spent half the time curled into his arms. The soft caress of his fingertips prodding the bags under my eyes won't leave me be. He asks, but I can't get the words out of my mouth.

It's nearly the anniversary of their murders and the man who murdered them, one I thought was long dead, is alive. He's alive and well, casually sauntering along the well-kept streets of Memphis. I've reviewed the footage a million times.

I know which way he will look before he does it. I know where he'll pause on Dryphis street, and how many steps he takes to come near a small bakery with cherry chalk paint covering the windows. As he steps inside, the gold and white sign hanging over the sidewalk sways in a breeze I can't feel.

He spends half an hour in there and then darts back onto the street with two coffees and a large bag filled with sweets: four donuts, two croissants, and this new twist on danishes. I track him for three more city blocks before he simply vanishes.

I don't believe in ghosts, but I am haunted.

Every breath he takes sends a crackling thorn of rage through my chest. Why does he get to live while my parents die? Why does his life continue when my entire world cracked open that day?

Groaning, I lift my coffee cup to my lips but pause. It's empty. When did I...?

When I turn, the coffee pot is empty, too. How long has it been? I blink blurry eyes at the darkening horizon.

It's been hours.

The longer I stand near the window, unseeing eyes glaring into the distance, the closer the frigid fingers of the past come. I can't fight them when they wrap around my memories and bring them forward. It's as if it all happened yesterday.

Snow. Flurries. The early darkness of the winter months.

Heat from the fireplaces. Laughter from my parent's snooker room. And the whimsical glow of snowflakes as they land on the windowpanes and gather.

I remember...

The dots of black scurry along the valley, dipping between the tall, hedged labyrinth-style garden and across the flattened lawn toward the front doors. Men dressed in fatigues, carrying guns and clubs and knives. The fury of movement and confusion as my father ordered us upstairs and into the panic room.