Page 98 of Dead Vengeance

No prelude, nothing. Straight to it.

“No, I haven’t been fired.” I probably will be tomorrow, though, for walking out on the job.

My phone buzzes in my pocket, and I just know it’s either Ted or Archer, so I ignore it, leave it for future-Liam to worry about.

Her tone turns sharp when she asks, “Then why are you home?”

I push through to the kitchen, turn the kettle on just to get away. But now I’m here, all I can think about is that fluorescent light over Jem’s head, those people he was with in that kitchen. How real it all seemed.

“Liam?” She’s right behind me, like a cadaver dog on the scent of a corpse.

“I finished early. The, uh… the job’s done.”

“The man you were seeing?”

The man I was seeing. Christ, if only she knew. “Yeah. Him. Doesn’t need me.”

“He doesn’t? Just like that?”

“Yeah, I guess…” I place a cup down too hard. So hard it makes a loud cracking noise, and I have to check I haven’t chipped it.

She follows every movement with quick eyes. I can feel her scanning me for any sign of drug use, putting every nervous mannerism down to that, her own anxiety building, taking her back five years ago to watching Jem in this kitchen, worrying over every movement of his.

So I still my motions. All of them. Just come to a dead stop. Then I do the only thing I can do and tell her, “I’m not okay, Mum. I had a really bad day. A really, really bad day.”

Her hand lands on my shoulder, and I know, for her sake, this is the only decision I can make. But I’m not ready to tell her a word about it. What am I supposed to say to her? I don’t even know what just happened. I can’t say a thing about Jem, about what I saw, about what Archer is or isn’t, about that room of his, about how I know he’s been lying to me, that he’s involved somehow with all this death, and I don’t understand it. I can’t say a word.

She doesn’t make me. She just draws my head to her shoulder and lets me cry. Cry there against her like a little kid. Someone who’s so exhausted from trying to be the adult, from trying to be the fixer, and who can’t fix a single thing. Someone who’s sick to death of being tossed about by fate and the world, because I don’t have a clue what’s going on. I never have had. Not once ever. I just live this life with no plan and no way out, day to day, and I thought I saw some glimmer of something. Some path out of this. Some hope for the future. But it’s drying up in front of my eyes, and why?

Why did my brother do those things? Why did he go missing? Why can’t my mum cope? Why am I always dragged back into this when I’m trying so hard just to get a foothold? Taking this job, this insane, ridiculous job, pinning all my hopes on it.

But even this, it’s not the actual job that’s the problem. It’s not ghosts at all. It’s this dark thing. These horrible visions. These cruel memories. And it’s Archer. Archer making me breakfast and making me fall for him. Archer being so sweet and so kind. And now Archer, who I should never have trusted, hiding something from me.

My phone vibrates again, and Mum pulls back in response. “Did he…” She takes a moment before she presses on delicately. “Did he pass on?”

I almost laugh at the thought of it. Did Archer pass on? No. Last I saw, he made someone else pass on. Then that person wasn’t dead at all. “No. No, he’s still there. Just he…” I wipe away the tears I’ve already shed, hoping I can hold back the rest of the deluge. “He doesn’t need me anymore.”

“Ah, Liam.” She tsks her tongue sympathetically. “Did you get attached?”

A sad chuckle finds its way out. “Attached. Yeah. Yeah, I think I did.”

“Honey…” She strokes my arm while I pour water over the tea bag. “You always were a bit of a softie.”

That’s me. A bit soft. A bit ineffectual. Here. Always here.

“And they’ve moved you to another job?” she pursues.

“Mmhmm,” I agree, because it’s so much easier.

“And you’ll miss him?”

“Mmm.” A tear drops again, too fast for me to stop it.

“Oh, Liam.”

“I wasn’t ready,” bursts out of me. “I’m not ready. But I can’t go back there. Because that’s done. It’s not… I can’t…”

Her eyes, sad and concerned, find mine. “Are you worried about him? Now he’s all alone again?”