Chapter 14 - THE LAST HALLUCINATION
“Elena!”
Marcus ran to her.
Victoria stood frozen.
The gun dropped from her hand.
Detective Cole kicked it away and slammed Victoria against the altar.
Elena looked down at herself.
Blood.
Too much blood.
Marcus dropped to his knees.
“Where are you hit?”
“I don’t…”
He tore open the front of her coat.
No bullet wound.
Marcus stared.
The blood was coming from between Elena’s legs.
“Oh God.”
Elena’s stomach clenched.
A contraction ripped through her.
She screamed.
Marcus grabbed her.
“The baby.”
Her water had broken.
Cole handcuffed Victoria.
Elena looked up.
Victoria was laughing.
Not loudly.
Softly.
Almost peacefully.
“You won’t make it to the hospital.”
Marcus lunged toward her.
Cole blocked him.
“Marcus!”
Victoria smiled at Elena.
“You think this ends because they put me in cuffs?”
Elena breathed through another contraction.
“It ends because you lose.”
Victoria’s smile disappeared.
“You will always wonder.”
“Wonder what?”
“What you really saw.”
The words slid inside Elena’s mind like poison.
Victoria leaned closer.
“How much was the drug, Elena?”
Cole pulled her back.
Victoria kept talking.
“How much was you?”
“Shut up,” Marcus said.
Victoria laughed.
“Every shadow. Every voice. Every terrible little thought.”
Elena squeezed her eyes shut.
She saw the red dress.
The dining room.
Glass exploding.
Hands around her throat.
Her own hand holding the shard.
What if Victoria was right?
What if the drugs had only opened a door?
What if the monster had been inside Elena all along?
Then she felt Marcus’s hand.
Real.
Warm.
Steady.
“Elena.”
She opened her eyes.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“You’re here,” he said.
Another contraction came.
She cried out.
“I’m scared.”
“I know.”
“What if I’m still seeing things?”
“Then we deal with what’s real one second at a time.”
Elena breathed.
One second.
Then another.
Sirens approached.
Victoria shouted from behind Cole.
“You need me!”
Elena turned toward her.
“No.”
“You have no idea what your mind can do!”
Elena managed to stand with Marcus’s help.
She looked at the woman who had spent months teaching her to fear herself.
“You know what my mind can do?”
Victoria stared.
Elena smiled through tears.
“It can survive you.”
Police poured into the chapel.
Victoria was dragged away.
She screamed for Marcus.
He never turned around.
Paramedics rushed Elena outside.
As they loaded her into the ambulance, Detective Cole approached carrying a small black hard drive.
“We got it.”
Elena stared.
“The archive?”
Cole nodded.
“Everything.”
Marcus kissed Elena’s forehead.
“It’s over.”
Elena wanted to believe him.
Then, inside the ambulance, she saw Victoria standing beyond the police cars.
No handcuffs.
No officers.
Crimson dress.
Smiling.
Elena stopped breathing.
“Marcus.”
“What?”
She pointed.
Victoria vanished.
Elena began to shake.
Marcus followed her gaze.
“What did you see?”
Elena looked at him.
She could lie.
She could pretend.
Instead, she whispered:
May you like
“Her.”
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