She heard footsteps that seemed too far away. Voices that were disjointed and sounded nonsensical to her ears.
Nothing made sense. Nothing was real.
Hands pulled her off Chelsea and she struggled against them, fighting to stay with her, fighting to remain at her friend’s side so she could save her. So she could protect her. To stop whatever was happening.
But when she first saw the smoke coming up from Chelsea, from her hair, her skin, her mouth, as insubstantial and wraithlike as the air itself, she realized . . . she knew . . .
She was too late.
Heat . . . smoke . . .
This was Chelsea’s echo she was witnessing.
“No!” She heard someone screaming. “No, no, no, no . . .” It went on and on and on . . .
She didn’t realize it was her until they were dragging her from the room so the paramedics could work in peace. Behind her she heard the sound of the electrical paddles charging, and then voices and scuffling, followed by more machines. She heard all of those things repeated more than once. More times than she could count.
She huddled on the floor in the hallway unable to catch her breath, unable to do anything but pray, and she wasn’t even sure she was doing that right. After either a minute or forever, she had no idea which, a man’s face appeared in front of her. She had no idea who he was, and frankly, she didn’t care. He asked her question after question, none of which she could answer:
Did she know what her friend had taken?
Did she know how to reach Chelsea’s parents?
Was she injured? Had she taken anything?
She couldn’t talk, she couldn’t think.
Was there anyone else in the house besides the two girls?
Somewhere, in the back of Violet’s mind, something clicked, as if a switch had been flipped. That one—that question—meant something to her.
It took her a minute to work through it, to make the words make sense, but when they did, Violet stared back at him and nodded.
“Someone’s in here? Who?” the man asked, signaling to someone behind him, and she saw his uniform then and realized she was talking to a cop. “Where? Can you tell me where?”
She nodded again, reaching up to wipe her eyes and realizing that’s what was bothering her. There was still another imprint in the house. The colors were still swirling and spinning and blurring her eyesight.
She pointed up.
Another officer joined the first one, and they exchanged a glance. “Upstairs? But we’re on the second floor,” he told her, and she nodded once more.
“He wasn’t alone,” she said at last, her voice rasping as she hoped she made sense. She tried to look past them, to see through the slits in her vision. “An attic, maybe? There.” She pointed now, finding it in the ceiling. “The opening.”
“Someone get her out of here,” one of them called, and then she was being pulled down the stairs. She tried to see into the room, where they were still working on Chelsea, but all she could see were bodies swarming, and all she could hear were the sounds of chaos.
She watched as the officers converged on the attic door, weapons drawn, and she rejoiced in the fact that, as she was pulled away, her vision began to clear.
Outside, she hugged herself as she was ushered toward one of the big red ambulances. She’d been in them before, she knew the drill.
There were so many lights flashing it was nearly as blinding out there as it had been inside the house, where the imprint had been. She had to shield her eyes just to see where she was going.
She felt numb. Cold and numb.
Hysteria began to creep in, and she wondered if this was what it felt like to go mad. This sense of nothingness.
She saw Rafe, already giving his statement. He started to say something to her as she passed, but she ducked her head, not wanting to have to say anything in return.
It was too soon to talk.
She let them lead her into the back of the van and she dazedly accepted the blanket, although she just let it fall from her shoulders, not caring whether she was cold or hot, or anything really. She waved away the water, not even able to say no thanks.
She closed her eyes when she saw Rafe approaching. “That boyfriend of yours is way more badass than I thought. He’s got one helluva right hook.”
“Jay?” she gasped. She hadn’t thought about him since she’d watched him jump out the window.
Rafe nodded. “I saw that guy come flying out that window, and I thought what a dumb mother . . . Well, you know . . .” He shrugged. “And then I saw that dumbass boyfriend of yours come right out after him. When he hit the ground I thought for sure he must’ve busted both his ankles.” He shook his head as he recounted the story for Violet. She struggled to focus on his words. “But then he jumped up and started beatin’ the hell outta that guy. I swear if the police hadn’t gotten there when they did, dude would’a been on his way to the hospital instead’a jail.”
Violet nodded, trying to keep up. “They got him? He didn’t get away?”
Rafe indicated one of the police cars, and Violet looked, seeing that there was a guy sitting in back. He had black hair and a straight nose and skin too smooth to be considered a man just yet. If it wasn’t for the brimstone cross running down the entire length of his neck, Violet would never have realized it was him.
Except that now that Rafe had pointed him out, she could sense those other things too. The water. And the scent.
And one more thing, something she hadn’t been able to make out in the room.