Page 37 of Dima's Vision
Chapter 15
Dima
Iexit the car, hurrying to get Kristie’s door but she’s already on the sidewalk, checking her weapons. She gives me a wink and then brazenly walks through the front gate, up the path. She pastes a brilliant smile on her face, the last beams of the day’s sun highlighting her huge eyes. There is mischief in them as she moves to make her way to the front door, not bothering to hide from cameras or any type of security. In fact, she stops, turns to a camera and winks at it before coming to a stop at the front door.
Instead of knocking she stills, head tilted to the side. “Stay here, watch the front,” she murmurs, her back melting into the wall, edging her way around the corner of the house.
With every step she takes away from me my head throbs. “No, no, no, no,” I chant. Not now.
My vision turns hazy and there is Kristie,myKristie, gasping for air, pinned to the ground by something or someone. I rush to move toward her, the unfinished vision playing in my mind but I’m slammed back into something hard, pinned in place by a force that is so strong it feels like it’s crushing my chest. I fight not only for breath, but for freedom, needing to get to mywoman. I’ve only just found her, I can’t lose her now. A whimper is torn from my body when Kristie’s lips turn blue, the blood vessels in her eyes burst and the clawing of her hands starts to turn sluggish. She’s dying, killed by a foe I can’t see. My sight is still hazy as my vision continues to play, but I’m no longer paying attention, not when tears fall down my cheeks and my heart feels like it’s been torn from my chest.
The throbbing lessens, my vision clears as much as it can with tears blinding me, and whatever was holding me hostage has broken their hold on me. I’m surrounded by silence. No birds, no sounds of children’s laughter or fake witches in front yards cackling at passers by. Nothing. Until a whisper in the air.Kristiana Ferrone.
Turning, I will my feet to move, I have to find her. I follow her path around the side of the house, eyes darting around the well manicured gardens looking for a sign of her. On quiet feet I drift, my heart still aching from what I’ve seen. What I’ve felt. I know that whoever we are searching for is powerful. Maddigan’s curse was to enhance joy, or in his case, feed off it. Whoever has it has fed off more souls than just his. The power I felt when I was pinned to the pillar, that was the strength of more than one sliver of a soul. That was the power of many.
A white flash at the corner of my eye has me spinning in that direction, back toward the front of the property. Shit. My head says I need to find my woman, help her,save her, but everything in me screams at me to follow. My vision, the one I share with Kristie, she’s there to witness Maddigan and Fake Kristie. I have to trust that the fates haven’t got this wrong and that whatever I saw was an illusion, perhaps a trick of the much more cursed individual. I have to hope that I can save everyone that needs to be saved. Kristie. Gabe. Innocent children who for too long have been used as play things by depraved men.
I take one last look at my surroundings, the pull to follow too strong to ignore. Moving swiftly I drift in the same direction as the flash I saw. I move like the ghost I am, aware that something else is here with me. They can probably feel me as much as I can feel them. Cold. Suffocating. Eerie.
Standing in the shadows my eyes finally land on her. Not La Strega, dressed all in black, scowl on her face, gun in hand. No, this is Kristie. Dressed in white, nipples pebbled in the cool breeze. Eyes wide and wary, but not afraid. She’s steady. Reserved. Shy almost. She turns this way and that, as if looking for something. She keeps clutching at her chest, then her head. She’s confused.
Dead leaves swirl in the breeze and the whisper of voices follows the same path. Not secrets, prayers. My eyelids close, ear tilted to the wind to try and decipher what they’re saying.
“Please don’t go. I need you.”
“Mommy? Daddy?”
“I don’t want to say good bye!”
“Why does everyone leave me?”
“Everyone dies! They keep dying!”
“When will you stop taking people away from me!”
My heart aches when I decipher Kristie’s prayers. The woman dressed in white in front of me, her eyes sad as she watches the realization on my face. Her lips move but I can’t hear a word she’s saying. Her brows pinch and she tries again, desperately trying to tell me something.
“Dima, turn around.” Kristie’s hoarse voice calls out to me from my right, and there, there she stands like my vision. Only this time she has bruises on her throat, eyes bloodshot.
I move to take a step toward her and she shakes her head, eyes over my shoulder.
“Turn around, Dima!” she demands as loud as she can, her voice coming out in a rough whisper.
I do as she asks, slowly turning and coming face to face with a person not much taller than Kristie. Their face isn’t clear though. Instead, there seem to be a series of masks that it flicks between, all different, all evil. It flickers between them, like an old television stuck between two channels, yet the one that seems to stand out the most is the one I suspect is Kristie’s foster brother. The smirk practiced from years of tormenting others.
“Ah, there she is. Exactly what I was looking for.” Maddigan’s voice comes out warped. The lips moving at different times, the words fading in and out of different voices.
“You’ll have to go through me to get to her.”
“Fine. I’ll take your gift just as I will take hers.”
Kristie
I swallow, trying to ease the burning in my throat. I really shouldn’t have called out to Dima, but I needed him to be aware of what was standing directly behind him. Maddigan. Or at least some semblance of him. A thing wearing the face of my brother.
My hand moves to my neck and I massage it a little. I’m still pissed that someone, or somethingmanaged to get the jump on me. It has to be a something. I’m not the best hitwoman the Mancini family has ever seen because I have shit situational awareness. One minute I was pressed to the side of the building, following the sound of familiar voices, the next I was on the ground having the life choked out of me. I know it was the life choked out of me because I saw my parents. My aunt. My uncle who went up in flames at his surprise birthday party. And, clear as day, I saw the part of Maddigan I was meant to havekilled. The part that twisted his gift and turned it into a curse to whoever came into contact with him. I saw them all, and for once, I felt free of my own curse. I felt a lightness flow through me, like I was floating toward something better, something blindingly hopefully. My name whispered on many lips, as if calling me home. All the voices of people I have loved in my life, all but one. The one who appeared in a shitty warehouse out of nowhere. The one who looks at me as if I’m not a curse. The one who treats me like a gift. Dima.
He’s the reason I never went further into the light, into the embrace of my family waiting for me on the other side. He’s the reason I’m here now, with an aching throat ready to send Maddigan’s soul straight to fucking hell. You think you can control men to hurt and maim and abuse children all so you can feed off the misery? Not on my watch.
