I forced myself to pause.

The Voice was wrong. Saving one life didn’t prove anything – it didn’t redeem me for failing to save all those others. But if I did it then I could lie to myself; I could pretend. If I got hurt or died then who would care anyway? 

Rin-chan...

Shut up, Ryo. Get your voice out of my head.

Let’s just go home.

Great, now his face was in there too. Shut up. Go away. You don’t even care—

We can grab some ice cream, watch a movie and forget about all this. Okay?

He smiled awkwardly.

I froze.

Wait, was that how the conversation had gone? All I remembered was being blinded by hurt and anger. At that moment was that moron actually trying to comfort me?

‘He doesn’t believe you. You have to do this alone.’

 He sure as hell didn’t believe me but he’d tagged along with me after the cafe anyway. He knew what I was doing, that it was insane, and he’d come with me nonetheless. If I hadn’t forced him – if this goddamn voice in my head hadn’t pushed me, he probably wouldn’t have voiced any doubts in the first place.

Speaking of which, how did I lose him? Unlike me, that boy was fit. Before he’d entered his rebellious phase and taken up the habit that was going to kill him, his parents had forced him to take part in an after-school basketball team before his piano lessons almost everyday after school. He should’ve been able to catch up to me easily, even in this weather.

I stared at my hand. It hovered, seemingly detached from the rest of my body. Jesus Christ, what the hell was I doing? My entire arm shook as I tried to move it, but the cold that encased it gripped my hand even tighter.

‘Save her,’ whispered the Voice in my ear.

Shut up. Get out of my head.

Frost was forming on my skin.

‘Save her.’

Let me go.

Fuck, it was so cold, it was starting to burn.

‘Save her.’

‘NO.’

The thin layer of ice shattered like glass as I ripped my hand away. In an instant, the world came back into focus; I had control over myself again. Breathing hard, I stepped away from the door. I practically jetéd off the porch as the security light turned back on with a click.

No, Evelyn, it’s fine. You just tripped the motion sensor. Get a hold of yourself.

I waited for a moment, but the Voice remained silent. The only thoughts drifting about in my head were my own. The chill that I’d felt since it had first whispered to me in the rain was gone too. 

Good. Whatever that was, I had no desire to repeat it.

Three hours and eight minutes, said the countdown.

And to think I’d almost let that… thing persuade me to jump headfirst into danger right there and then. If I just focused on keeping her alive, there was plenty of time. 

My recollection of the vision was a bit hazy since it had been a few days since first contact, but from what I could recall, Ai hadn’t suffered any injuries until the moment she’d been killed, so she probably wasn’t hurt. Yet, from the bits and pieces I’d managed to overhear, it was clear that something had happened inside that house. The smart thing to do right now would be to discreetly call the police and let them handle it – preferably not while I was standing on the front lawn. Fortunately, neither Andrew nor Ai seemed to have noticed that the security light had turned on. 

Keeping one eye on the door, I turned to creep away. The moment I did, vibration ran up my leg like an electric shock. It was followed by an obnoxiously loud electronic rendition of one of Ryo’s favourite songs. The tune carried loud and clear through the rain. What little garbled sound I could hear coming from inside the house stopped.

Shit.

The front door opened just as I managed to get my phone out. Andrew stood on the porch, staring at me – or more accurately, at the phone in my hand – his blue eyes wide in an expression torn between rage and horror. The ringtone continued to blare at maximum volume. His eyes met mine. In them I saw panic, fear and – 

He sprang at me.

Fast as I could, I hit the call button, turning away in a futile attempt to evade the incoming blow. Andrew’s fist met my face and my mind was ripped out of my body. His death flashed before my eyes like a movie on fast forward –  

I was back in reality before my brain could process it.

The force of the punch slammed into my jaw and I hit the ground in a heap. Pain shot up from my cast as it bore the brunt of my weight. Too late, I remembered that my phone was in my hand. It slipped out of my grasp and skidded across the muddy grass. 

Ryo’s voice crackled out from the speaker. ‘Evelyn! Evelyn, are you there?’

A sob of relief squeezed its way out from between my lips.

‘Rin, answer me!’

Acting on autopilot, my mouth blurted out the first thing I thought of. ‘14 WINDCHESTER LANE—’

A shout of fury sounded behind me. I looked over my shoulder and choked, bile flooding up from the back of my esophagus as Andrew’s boot slammed into my stomach. The kick winded me – made me retch. Every single one of my limbs was shaking in terror. Not like they had when I’d been standing in front of the door; the terror I was feeling now was on an entirely different level. 

When was the last time someone had hurt me like this? When was the last time I’d been in an actual fight? He was going to kill me. Andrew was going to kill me.

I was going to die.

I was going to die and there was nothing I could do about it.

A blanket of cold air wrapped around me. ‘Scream.’

An ice-cold burning sensation pierced my spine and an ear-splitting screech of pain filled my ears. There was a raw, tearing sensation in my throat. The sound was coming from me. 

Like a passenger in my own body, I watched blankly as the ground receded. In the blink of an eye I was on my feet. My vision spun wildly. My legs broke into a sprint. Half-way towards the street – 

A choked gasp escaped my throat as Andrew seized the back of my sling.

No. No. NO.

‘EVELYN!’

A shadow flickered in my vision. A hand pressed flat against my back and shoved me forward. The crunch of shattered cartilage sounded at my back. With a roar of pain, the tension on my sling vanished.

I dropped to my knees.

Saved.

The tears I’d been trying to hold back began to spill. 

A few seconds later and I… I—

My injured stomach throbbed, threatening me with a wave of nausea. Holding it back, I looked up to face Ryo. He was soaked to the skin. His face was red and sweaty and his chest was heaving with every breath, as if he’d just run a marathon. The look on his face as he stared Andrew down was new to me. I’d never seen him looking so pissed off – 

No, pissed off didn’t even begin to describe it. His hands were clenched so hard that they were trembling and I could see the veins on his neck standing out. 

Ryo looked ready to kill someone.

‘The fuck do you think you’re doing, Riker?’ he demanded, voice low, trembling with barely-held back rage.

Andrew didn’t answer. He was frozen in place, one hand over his nose, the other half-raised as if he didn’t know what he was supposed to do with it. His eyes were darting everywhere, the pupils dilated. He looked… scared. Not in the same way he had when he’d opened the door. This was more a deer-in-the-headlights sort of thing. 

Dashing my tears away, I stood up and followed his gaze. The sight of neighbours standing on lawns, driveways and in open doorways greeted me, their expressions ranging from horror to fear to furious resolve. At least four of them were on their phones, speaking furiously into the receivers. A couple of the more capable-looking men and one very hardy-looking woman started to approach.

Ryo didn’t bother to look at them. Either he already knew they were watching or he just didn’t care. ‘Answer me, Riker,’ he snapped. ‘What the fuck is this?’

Andrew’s eyes flicked back to him, to his front door and then met with mine. He opened his mouth to speak, but a scream from inside the house drowned him out. 

‘Andrew!’ shrieked Ai. ‘Help! He’s – I think he’s – ’ she froze as she stumbled out through the doorway and found herself facing an audience. ‘ – stopped... breathing...’ She backed up several steps, face pale and eyes as wide and terrified as Andrew’s as she surveyed the crowd. There were red stains on the palms of her hands and splashed across her legs and skirt. 

I opened my mouth to call out to her, but Ryo got there before me.

‘Ai! Are you hurt?’

She blinked at the question. ‘Hurt?’ She looked down at the blood on her hands. ‘No, I— this isn’t...’ A whimper escaped her lips.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Andrew flinch at the sound. Dazed, he stared at his own hands. Like Ai, there were bloodstains on his hands and jeans. I’d been too busy trying to not get my head smashed in earlier to notice. Another wave of dizzying nausea rolled up from my gut as realisation hit me. How had I not noticed earlier? That goddamn creepy Voice had even said it in my ear: ‘You can save them’. Them. Plural. It had only changed to ‘save her’ after I’d heard both Ai and Andrew freaking out through the door.

My voice cracked as I looked at her. ‘Ai, what did you do?’

She couldn’t answer me. She just stood there, swaying slightly as she stared at her palms, whimpering.

No. I felt Ryo grab my elbow as I wobbled on my feet. This was a joke right? This was some kind of sick, deranged joke. If I had arrived just two minutes earlier – if I hadn’t been such a goddamned coward this whole week and just told Ai that she was going to die tonight, would someone else still be alive?

A large hand clapped on my shoulder from behind, interrupting my thoughts and scaring the bejeebers out of me. A square-jawed man around his thirties – one of the neighbours, looked down at us. ‘Let the adults take care of it from here, kids,’ he said. Voice calm but firm, he looked from Andrew to Ai and raised his hands in a peaceful gesture. ‘Look, I don’t know what happened in that house, but it’s clear that someone needs medical attention. The police and an ambulance are on their way. How about we all just sit down on the lawn, nice and easy? Nice and easy, yeah? That’s it, nice and – ’

Whatever trance had been holding Andrew in place shattered. He’d been standing listless, staring at his hands like they didn’t belong to him, but as soon as the old guy stepped past me and Ryo, he bolted. Before anyone could react, he’d run up to the porch, grabbed Ai by the arm and gone back into the house.

‘Save her,’ whispered the Voice, almost tauntingly, in my ear.

Suddenly, I felt cold again.