Chapter Thirty-Five

Willow

Willow: Can you come over later and help me out again?

He doesn’t reply. I really pushed him too soon. Fuck. If I’d bided my time and been patient, I’d be able to hang out with them and seduce him that way. Maybe then he’d see how good we are for each other. If I’d given him more time he might have fallen for me too.

He should be mine. Not hers. She’s got a lifetime to find someone like Nokosi. I only have a few months.

Willow: I’m really sorry for what I did. I feel terrible. If there’s any way I can make it up to you, let me know.

Nokosi: Stop texting me. This has gone too far.

Willow: Can you blame me for it though? Really? You’ve seen you right? No girl in her right mind could spend all that time alone with you and not fall for you.

Nokosi: I love your sister. You’re sick for wanting what she has.

Willow: You’re right. I’m sick. I have a tumor in my brain. I’m dying. Try to see this from my side. All I wanted was one night. What’s wrong with that?

Nokosi: I’m not texting anymore. I’m done with you, Willow. Leave me alone.

Willow: You’re losing the best thing that has ever happened to you. I’m everything you need. I can make you happy. Just give me a chance.

Now I know how loyal he is… I want him until I physically can’t have him anymore. He’s one in a million. He’s loyal, fun, sweet, kind, gently, loving, sexy, yet stable… he’s all the qualities in a man that I never knew I wanted. And now that I’ve found him, I can’t let him go.



***



Lilith

“What’s troubling you?” Willow asks.

“I had a fight with Mom this morning,” I answer, throwing the bouncy ball at the wall and catching it when it comes back. Willow lies next me, our heads on my pillow. I throw and she catches. I’ve been playing with a lot of balls recently.

“I heard some of it, sounded gnarly.”

I nod. “It was.”

“Want to talk about it?”

I shake my head, no.

“Please? Let me unload your burden.”

“She thinks I’m being selfish,” I whisper, thinking back to the past few months of my life where I have sacrificed everything to be with my family. How am I selfish? “She called me selfish because… well… it doesn’t matter why.”

I’m not telling her yet that I’m moving out. She’s not ready to hear it. I’m not ready to say it. Especially not after the mom thing. I don’t know why she can’t stay and take care of Willow. I’ll still be here all the time. I’ll just be living with Nok. It’s what I want. I’ve never wanted anything more.

“You’re not selfish,” Willow breathes, sounding confounded. “You’re anything but. You deserve the world. Mom is a cunt.”

“Agreed.” I sit up and slip my feet into my shoes. “I have to go and meet Nokosi.”

That and I have to get away from her until I can talk about everything. I feel terrible sitting so close to her and lying to her face.

She pulls a face, it’s a curious one that I can’t read. It looked like anguish, or something similar… I don’t know.

“Say hi to him for me,” she breathes as I leave her room.

“Sure,” I mutter back, frowning with confusion. Suddenly she’s acknowledging he exists? Last I checked she despised him. Although come to think of it, she hasn’t really mentioned him at all recently, not even in ire.

She usually blames him and thinks he’s stealing me away. Maybe she’s finally calming down and seeing reason.

***

I wake, covered in sweat, the lingering images of my nightmare still flashing in my eyes.

It’s pitch-black and I don’t like that. I feel like the nightmare creatures are still lurking, staring down at me with their blank gazes. Dead… Dead because of…

“Nokosi?” I whisper, reaching beside me in bed. “Why’s it so dark?”

I feel a cold hand. It doesn’t belong to him.

It doesn’t belong to him.

My heartbeat rises as I realize I haven’t yet left the land of nightmares. I daren’t look. Whoever it is is dead, I can tell. Their skin is waxy and holds no warmth and there’s a funny smell emanating from them. Not yet putrid but something bad with an overflow of a scent that is almost sweet.

I sit up, holding the bedsheet tight to my chest. Light finally glows from the moon through the windows. I’m not in Nokosi’s room… nor am I in mine. I don’t know where I am.

The coldness of the body beside me seeps into my bones and soul. I feel a chill. I feel nauseous.

Turning my head, I look, my breathing staggered and harsh. I’ve never felt so much dread and terror.

I don’t want to look at the face.

“Nokosi,” I whimper, begging for him to come to me. “I need you. Where are you?”

I gather the courage, too scared to move in case the body reanimates and grabs me, but still I manage it. I look up and up and up, dragging my eyes the smallest fraction at a time until her face comes into focus.

“No,” I breathe, sobbing now. My chest twists with agony, my heart burns a hole in my chest. “No… please… no. Not yet. My sister. Noooo.” I pull her limp, lifeless body into my arms, holding her to my chest. “I’m not ready to let you go. I need you. Please. Don’t die.”

Her head flops, her body a deadweight against mine.

“Not yet,” I beg, trembling and crying. Feeling a grief so overwhelming I can’t breathe.

“You did this,” a voice whispers in my ear. A croaky, whispered voice that echoes from somewhere not in this room. “You did this to me.”

“No,” I sob, holding her away from me so that I can tell her that she’s wrong. “I didn’t. I love you. You know I do.”

She sits upright suddenly, bones clicking and cracking, her jaw hanging open, maggots feasting on her tongue, eyes rotting, hair falling from her scalp. A scream gets stuck in my throat when her hands wrap around my neck and squeeze.

I kick, thrash, and claw at her face, fighting for a breath so I can scream.

“You did this!” she shrieks, showing black teeth only an inch from my face.

I dig my nails into the flesh of her cheek and her skin melts over my nails. She laughs in my face, a demonic sound that hurts my ears.

“WAKE UP!” she yells, different to before. “WAKE THE FUCK UP, LILITH!”

A new light reaches my eyes and my sister’s demon fades from existence, bringing Nokosi into view. But not just Nokosi, his father and Nash too.

Nokosi’s handsome cheek has nail-deep gouges in it, blood trickles from his jaw.

“Did I do that?” I whisper, feeling tears spring to my eyes.

“It’s okay, you didn’t know what you were doing,” he says gently. “Are you okay? You were screaming.”

I look at Dasan and Nash. I shouldn’t even be here. Nokosi snuck me in. Dasan is going to be so angry.

“Is it just me or is the room spinning?” I ask, trying to climb from the bed. “I need a water or something.” As soon as my foot hits the floor and I try to put weight on it my body buckles. I hit the deck, smacking my head on the side of the floor.

My body seizes with pain, every muscle cramps and freezes.

“She’s having a seizure!” Nash yells.

It’s the last thing I hear before that dreaded darkness takes me again.



***



I’ve never felt so groggy in my entire life. My head is pounding so hard I daren’t open my eyes. My mouth is so dry, and oxygen is being pumped into my nose.

“Nok?” I whisper, feeling the sunlight on my eyes. I’m not in the darkness anymore. Thank God.

“I’m here,” he replies, squeezing my hand.

Opening my eyes, I finally see him, his front a shadow, the sunlight casting a warming glow on his back giving him such an angelic aura.

“Hey,” I say, reaching up to cup his cheek. There’s a canula sticking out of my wrist. He has white gauze on his face and I have blood under my fingernails. I let my hand drop. “I’m so sorry, baby. I swear I didn’t know it was you.”

“I know,” he whispers, bringing my hand to his mouth and kissing it. “I know you didn’t.” He rests his forehead against the space he just kissed. “I thought you were dying, Lilith.”

“What happened?”

“You had a seizure,” he replies, looking up at me again with tears in his eyes. “You collapsed and just started bleeding from your nose, your eyes, your mouth… it was fucking horrific.”

I touch my upper lip but find nothing there. “Why?”

“That’s for me to explain.” It’s the kind doctor that gave me the CT scan after my accident in Nok’s truck. He looks at Nokosi. “You should step outside now.”

I grab Nok’s hand, I don’t want him to leave.

“We need to talk, in private, Lilith.”

I sigh and nod. “Go on.”

Nokosi grumbles his way out of the room, muttering about getting a coffee.

“I’ve been trying to contact you for weeks,” the doctor states gently. “You haven’t answered your phone. I even called the schools in the area, but you’ve hardly been attending.”

“I’m sorry, I’ve been busy looking after my sister and getting laid,” I jest despite the fact this is not a time to be joking. “What’s wrong with me, Doc?”

He sits on the side of my bed as I pull myself further up, feeling sick and dizzy.

He places his hand on my knee as his calming blue eyes make me feel at ease. “When we gave you the scan before, it showed something alarming. A mass on your frontal lobe and deeper into your brain, as though your brain had simply grown around it.”

My lips part and my already dry mouth becomes lead. “That can’t be right.”

“I know, I checked, I thought maybe there was something wrong with the machine because I can’t fathom how you’re still alive with something so huge and dominating beyond your skull.” He gives my knee a squeeze and wets his lips before reaching for something on the table beside the bed. I sip water that he offers, trying to wrap my head around this… no pun intended. “I didn’t want to take any chances that I could be wrong so the moment you arrived I did some more tests. A more in-depth scan of your brain.”

“This has to be wrong,” I breathe, feeling my chest constrict with pain and panic. “My twin is the sick one. She has the tumor.”

“Your identical twin?”

“Yeah, Willow,” I reply.

“We’ve been trying to contact her and your mother since you arrived five hours ago. I have the police locating them both now. Your friend out there said your mom works for LEG Energy? The police will track her down I’m sure.”

“Thank you,” I whisper, needing my sister beside me, though in all honesty, I’m craving Nokosi more. “How does this happen? How do I have the same thing as my twin?”

“It could be that you were both born with a tiny seed of mass in your head and it has just grown with you over time. It has been known to happen with identical twins but nothing like this from what I know of.”

Fuck. This isn’t happening.

“So… am I the same as her? What does this mean?” Tears fall down my cheeks and my lower lip trembles. “Am I dying?”

He looks as devastated as I feel. And then he nods. “Yes. I’m afraid there’s nothing we can do. Removing the mass will kill you for sure. What we can focus on now is keeping you comfortable in your final weeks, until your brain just shuts down and your body with it.”

“Weeks?” I choke, suddenly feeling dry again. “No chemotherapy? No radiation?”

“At this point it’s already too big. They’ll stop its growth, but the side effects will kill you. You don’t look it, or feel it, for whatever reason, but you’re very weak. Your blood pressure, heart rate, nothing is quite as it should be.”

The door swings open, the same one Nokosi left through. Tears are falling from his eyes, leaving shining trails down his dark cheeks. “So you’re just going to give up on her?”

“Nok,” I say, reaching for him as he glares angrily at the doctor.

“You’re going to do nothing and just what? Watch her die?”

“Nokosi,” I snap, trying to keep myself composed. “Please, stop shouting.”

He looks at me, his eyes distraught. “What about the cabin? The money you gave me today to pay for it for our future.” His voice cracks and he wipes his eyes with the heels of his palms. “What fucking future?”

I hold out my hand to him but he doesn’t take it. “Please.”

He doesn’t meet my eyes, as though he’s incapable of looking at me.

“I have sent your scans to colleagues of mine who are going to give a second, third, twentieth opinion,” the doctor assures me, standing and putting his hand on my shoulder. He looks at Nokosi. “She needs support right now. Not this. I know it’s hard—”

“Hard is running sixteen miles without a break, not saying goodbye to the love of your fucking life at age eighteen,” Nokosi grits bitterly. “That’s not hard, it’s impossible. I can’t watch this.”

“Nok,” I whisper, pleading for him to come to me. “Please. Not now. Don’t do this now.”

He rips a hand through his hair that has fallen out of its tie. “I can’t be here. I need to leave.”

“No,” I beg. If he’d just hold me, tell me that it’s going to be okay. “I need you to be my rock right now.”

“AND I NEED YOU TO BE MINE FOREVER!” he bellows, his nostrils flaring, spit flying from his mouth. “I need you forever… not for a handful of fucking weeks.”

With that parting gift he turns and walks away, slamming the door behind him and yelling a roar of anguish as he goes. My heart is breaking.

“I don’t want to die,” I admit quietly. “But I probably deserve it.”

The moment the doctor leaves after filling my broken head with more shit than I can handle about waiting on blood results and responses from neurosurgeons and whatever the fuck else, I yank out my canula and exit the hospital, stealing somebody’s jacket on the way out.

I need my sister. I need my mom.