Wish I May, Wish I Might

Chapter 21

When I awoke, it was to bright sunlight and a puddle of blood surrounding my head.

I yelled, which was just a whisper, and bolted upright. My head swam with the action and I needed to clench my eyes shut and take a few seconds to let the black spots dancing in front of me disappear. Then what happened the night before came back. Something gently nuzzled my shoulder, and I forced my eyes open. Annie was sitting right next to me like she had been the night before.

Oh, I thought. I looked around the room. I was still in the rose-covered house, on the floor by the door. The storm was long gone, and the usual desert sun scorching the world.

The house was silent. I slowly got to my feet, trying to avoid thinking about the blood where my head had been. I felt okay, beyond feeling achy, but I didn't know if that was a good thing or a bad thing. I balanced myself using a wall.

Where's Annabelle? I thought.

I hobbled into the kitchen and around the lower level of the house, Annie close to my legs the entire time. Annabelle was nowhere to be seen. I couldn't help but feel a twinge of anxiety in my gut. Annabelle and I were kind of pissed at each other, yeah, but there was no way Annabelle would just leave me lying there on the floor with my head bleeding out. I'd been injured enough times in the weeks we had known each other to know that. Annabelle had her faults, but she was still one of the most caring people I had ever met. No matter how this ended for me, if the thing haunting us decided that it didn't want to forgive me or my sins and killed me however it wanted, I was fine, as long as Annabelle had a good life.

I slowly began to make my way up the stairs. If that demon makes her life suck when I'm dead, I will crawl out of hell just to fuck up him up, I swore as I ascended the creaking wooden boards. I smiled, though I'm sure it looked more like a grimace. The feeling of being able to have some sort of power over this insane, life-changing force was comforting.

"A'n'elle?" I croaked as I got to the top of the stairs. I cringed. Being strangled felt like having the worst sore throat ever. When there was no response I tried repeating myself but the only sound I managed to make was a breathy wheeze.

Annabelle's room was empty. As was the bathroom, along with my room. The feeling of anxiety in my stomach turned to a looming feeling of dread. A gentle breeze went through the window, rustling the lace curtain. Forgetting about my pain, I stumbled to the window.

The truck was gone.

"Shit."

I tripped and stumbled down the stairs as I tried to get my voice back. No matter what I said, no recognizable words came out. Which meant no wishes. And if I didn't have any wishes, then I didn't have a car, and I didn't have any way of finding Annabelle.

"Where did she go?" I silently asked Annie. "Why did she leave?"

I thought over everything that had happened during the storm. Tucker - or the freaking Ghost-of-Wishes-Past, whatever - had come to the door. But he didn't try to come in or hurt me. Annabelle had been moving upstairs, meaning she was probably running to see what was happening. Then Tucker had spoken, but it had been a girl's voice. The same girl's voice I had heard before when I had been frightened. And I didn't know how I knew, but something told it was Shay, the girl who had been Annabelle's best friend and also Annabelle's only accidental kill. Who else could it have been? I had never killed anyone else. And I knew Annabelle. She wasn't lying about hurting someone. She may have been scared of telling me, of admitting to her mistake and her fatal flaw, but she was honest about it. The girl who had spoken was Shay.

The ghost had come for me already, and I was only still alive because of Annabelle's quick thinking, the thing I hadn't been able to do when Tucker had died. Now the ghost had come for Annabelle too. I finally got out of the house and looked everywhere I could. Maybe Annabelle is okay and in Valleytown. Still. And for some reason ignored my body on the ground. Even my optimistic thinking didn't sound optimistic. She was gone.

"Where are you?" I asked, yanking on my hair.

And then it became immensely clear. Annabelle's friend had died by falling off a ledge. I had heard the voice when I was on the balcony of the warehouse.

The voices hadn't been to frighten me. They had been to warn me.

I tried again to wish for anything I could take to get there faster, but I couldn't muster up the voice. I couldn't say any sort of wish - I wish for Annabelle to be okay, I wish for you to just kill me instead, I wish for all of this to stop.

Remember the fight or flight reactions we had been talking about before, and how I usually always did the wrong one? I'd finally learned. I began running, ignoring everything including the pain, and ran. But this time I wasn't running away from my problem, I was running to fix it, and you'd better believe I was ready for a fight.

I just hoped I could get there in time.