Ch. 4, Dreadmoor
I turned, doing a full circle around the station and looking back inside, but there certainly wasn't anyone else school aged. Beyond us, the abandoned train yard was lit but the unflattering light of morning. Beyond the closest track, were train cars littered with graffiti. It wasn't exactly the kind of place you should leave your things unattended. And yet he had. It seemed like too much to hope that he'd simply decided he no longer wanted a spot at Trestlewood, and had run off, leaving all the more room for me and my sister.
A cold wind whispered across the train yard, and when I looked up, I saw her.
A girl in a white dress soaking wet...
Blood stained the front of the dress.
No. No, she's not real. I blinked, closing my eyes and opening them again...
But still she stood there, in a white dress, looking like she'd just emerged from a lake...
Or drowned in one.
Mallory...the voice came on the breeze, and I shivered. Not real. She wasn't real. Except when I looked up, she was still there. Mallory, find me. Help me.
I didn't want this. None of it. Not the disturbing dreams that had plagued me since my parents died, not the horrible visions, but I was no coward. I fought, I didn't run.
So I steeled my spine, threw back my shoulders and decided to face whatever horror this was. Now, I know what you're thinking, reader, this is how every female character dies, but I already told you, I'm not the hero. And If she wouldn't leave me alone, then I would prove to her she wasn't the one she wanted.
I was broken. And I already had my sister to protect. I couldn't help her too.
I strode forward, making my way to the end of the platform and then climbed down, right onto the tracks, moving past all the signs that warned not to enter the trainyard. I had time before the train got here. And I needed to prove that ghosts weren't real.
Whatever I'd been dreaming, it was just some sort of PTSD from my parents death.
But the song, that awful whisper, was growing now, so much that I nearly doubled over on the train tracks. Mallory, Mallory where are you? When are you coming? It's almost too late now. Beneath me, I could feel the ground shuddering, but the world had narrowed now. Because when I looked up, I saw her.
Dead ahead of me.
A thousand times more terrifying that I'd imagined. Blood had stained her entire front, and she looked at me with deep, sad eyes. But worse that all of that was the blueish-white tinge her skin had taken... as if she'd already drowned.
Her lips moved. She was trying to say something, trying to communicate with me. But I couldn't hear her... A roaring noise filled my ears, the ground shaking and I wanted to scream to her to leave me alone. That I wasn't what she needed. That my world had already ended, I wasn't the hero, I couldn't take anymore--
I closed my eyes, the roar, the shaking, about to overwhelm me.
She's not real. This is because you haven't been sleeping.
When I opened my eyes, she was gone.
But the roaring had grown into a crescendo. Because it wasn't a roaring.
It was the train about to flatten me.
A force hit me, but not from the side I expected. Strong arms wrapped around me, and I rolled over and under a solid body. The rush of metal and wind screamed passed us--the train mere inches from killing me. When we stopped rolling, I stared at the metal of the train and then finally up at the body suspended over me.
The person who'd just saved my life... and now looked like he wanted to kill me.
Blond hair, with pale grey eyes that were somehow both lived and cold. For a moment I felt the press of a strong male body, the arms that had protected me.
Then he shoved away from me, leaving me sprawled on the ground.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" He snarled, glaring down at me, not offering a hand for me to stand. "Were you trying to get hit?"
The train continued to roll into the station past us, so much steel and shrieking metal that I could barely hear him. My heart stuttered, so much adrenaline pulsing through me I couldn't move. All I could do was stare up at the young man standing over me. Pale blonde hair and strange light grey eyes, with a black suit that looked far too expensive to have rolled on the ground. In fact, he was trying to brush it clean right now, to very little avial.
His eyes came back up to mine, and he glared down at me, a cruelty in his grey eyes, "Well, do you speak?"
"Cillain Dreadmoor?" I climbed to my feet, wanting to claw for any advantage I could.
His eyes narrowed, a wary, accessing look coming over him. "How do you know my name?"
He hadn't asked for my name, but I gave it anyway. "I'm Mallory Foxglove... we're both going to interview at Trestlewood. I saw your nametag."
He gave a cold, cruel laugh, his gaze looking up and down like I was something no better than dirt. "You're going to interview at Trestlewood? No wonder you wanted the train to hit you."
My eyes blazed, and I suddenly hated how torn and tattered my clothes were, how I probably looked like shit. And how he, despite the fact he'd just rolled over in gravel, looked close to perfect. In a suit no less. What an asshole.
"I wasn't trying to get hit. I saw someone," I said defensively only to wish I hadn't.
His laughter stopped. And he stared at me like I was a ghost. But he didn't get to respond, because suddenly a voice called out from the front of the train, which was finally slowing to a stop.
"HEY! YOU TWO! YOU AREN"T ALLOWED BACK HERE! GET OVER HERE! NOW!"
We both turned to see an older man in overalls yelling at us and jumping from the train, running towards us. The train now stood between us and the platform, but that didn't seem to both Cillian. He had already turned, climbing up the train and over. I did the same, trying to blend into the crowd now forcing it's way forward. At the very least, I immidiately lost Cillian in the flood of people. I forced my way through people, not caring at the annoyed looks I got. I needed to get to Lainey. But now that I was safe, all I could think about was what had almost just happened.
God, that was so stupid. The dreams, the visions, I needed to find a way to silence it all. To forget about it all.
Nothing mattered but a fresh start, and getting Lainey and I somewhere safe.
And pushing down the bad feelings is always a good idea, right reader?
Lainey was sitting motionless exactly where I'd left her. At least the man chasing us had stopped—there was too much going on for him to bother about the two teenagers who'd been on the wrong side of the tracks. He was probably just thankful neither of us had gotten flattened so he hadn't had to do extra paperwork. Each step I took closer to her, I felt a deeper and deeper sense of stupidity.
What the hell had I been thinking? Why I had indulged the vision?
What if Cillian hadn't been there and I'd been flattened?
What would have happened to Lainey?
Maybe I wasn't the hero or the villain of this story. Maybe I was just the stupid character who followed the creepy shadow into the basement and died in the first act.
No. I decided right then and there I would be more careful. I would do whatever I had too—but I would be smart about it. And the smartest thing I could do right now was avoid Cillian Dreadmoor.
"Come on, Lainey, we need to hurry." I grabbed her hand, but when I pulled her up I spun—and nearly ran smack into the person I'd decided to avoid.
"Ahh, Ms. Foxglove. I worried we'd meet again." Cillian smiled coldly down at me.
(Thanks for reading! Let me know what you think of Cillian, and what you think of the chapter. Any predictions for what the vision could mean? ;) -H.J. Nelson)
Bạn đang đọc truyện trên: Truyen3h.Co