Almost unbidden, I glanced back down. The key was hanging on the chain around my neck, golden and shining as if it had been newly made.
There was something in my hand.
My knife, I realized, and the blade was stained red to the handle.
I stumbled back, my knees hitting something, and I fell.
My office chair slid back as I landed, tilting backward, and I flung a hand out to the desk to save myself from falling to the floor. My ears were ringing with the ghosts of the screams.
A shiver rocked through me as I blinked myself back to my study, my eyes focusing first on the papers with their messy scrawls, then across the dull cherry wood of the desk, and finally landing on my hand that was still clenching the key.
I opened my fingers, no longer stained with blood. That itch between my shoulder blades grew stronger, and the horrible vision that had flashed through me burned in my mind as I stared at the ancient relic.
That memory… That vision of murder…
It had felt like my own.
Chapter 5
My footsteps were relentless across the study, my gaze flicking to the key on the desk each time I passed it. I had been trying for a good twenty minutes to wrap my head around what had happened. Things like that didn’t happen to me. Perhaps I had caught some sort of sickness while in the rainforest and it was messing with my head?
I pressed my hand to my forehead. No fever. Besides, I’d had all required vaccinations. Getting sick was unlikely.
Dropping my gaze to the broken glass on the floor, I tried to come up with the excuse that I had perhaps drank too much, but that feeble reasoning didn’t take root. After only a sip or two, my mind was completely lucid.
Stopping my constant pacing across the floor, I crossed my arms and stared at the key. A prickling sensation shivered through me, some instinct deep within telling me something was wrong with the key. I had to drag up the heavy weight of logic that told me that was ridiculous. It was an object . Objects didn’t cause visions.
Still, as I stared at the key, I couldn’t help but sense there was something off about it. Impossibly, it seemed like I should know why it felt strange .
My stomach growled loudly, wanting something to fill it besides a writhing mass of nerves. I grimaced and rubbed at my tired eyes. Despite the exhaustion from my return trip home, I needed to get to the grocery store.
I started out of the study but paused in the doorway. Glancing back over my shoulder, I stared at the key. Surely it would be fine. Right?
I scoffed. Why wouldn’t it be fine? I highly doubted anyone would break into my house, let alone go for the key first thing. Nearly a minute went by before I crossed the room and snatched the key. Just in case.
Thankfully, there was a small grocery store not too far from my house. I would just pop in for something quick and easy to fix, then hurry back home.
The old man behind one of the registers who had worked there for years greeted me, and I gave him a wave before yanking a cart out of the line-up. A quick meal of pasta would be perfect.
I pushed the cart down the aisle, one of the wheels jiggling spastically, and kept an eye out for a nice sauce to go with the box of pasta I had already grabbed. My purse was slung over my shoulder, and I fought the urge to check on the key, again. I’d already looked at it twice. What did I think it was going to do, jump out?
I shook my head and turned back to the rows of assorted sauces. Finally deciding on a large jar of sauce that boasted the savory flavor of basil, garlic, and organic Roma tomatoes, I took it from the shelf.
The jar slipped from my hand and hit the speckled vinyl tile of the floor with an unmistakable crack. I groaned, already seeing the sauce leaking out from the jar, and squatted down. Picking it up, my eyebrows scrunched together. The sauce dripping from the cracked jar was much darker and thicker. The pace of the drips quickened, and I realized—as I stared at the growing puddle on the floor—it was losing much more sauce than it should, given the size of the jar.
A metallic scent filled my nostrils as the warm, red liquid ran over my hand.
Warm?
I brought it up closer to my nose and inhaled.
“Ugh.” I dropped the jar, and it shattered. Blood. There was no mistaking it. Why would there be blood in it?
I wiped my blood-slicked hand on my jeans until I realized what I was doing. Now there was a dark spot on my jeans. My throat tightened as the stain grew, spreading up my thigh and down over my knee.
“What?” I wiped at it with my other hand, as if I could stop it, but the blood just kept spreading, this time up my other hand.
I shook my hand, trying to get to my feet and losing my balance. My right hand went to the floor to brace myself, and I gasped as the floor gave beneath it. I lurched away from the puddle of crimson.
“Ma’am?”
The elderly man from behind the register was standing in front of me. He held out a hand, a smile on his face. Didn’t he see the blood? It was still on my hands, my clothes, the floor. The toes of his shoes were in the puddle. I held up a hand, and he grabbed it.
Before he could pull me up, the smile faded from his face. At first, he squinted at me, then dropped his gaze to our grasp. His eyes widened, and he let out a cry as slick and dripping blood crawled up his hand.
He tried to wipe it off, but it was no use. His forearm turned red, then his elbow. When the blood started to stain his sleeve, he screamed, tugging at his shirt then pawing at his chest .
It felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice-cold water over me. I was frozen even as he turned his wild, tear-filled eyes toward me.
“What did you do?” he shrieked, still yanking at his shirt. The blood was drifting up his neck now. His knees hit the floor so we were eye-level. “What did you do?”
The man before me being overtaken in blood was terrifying to behold, but what frightened me more was the alien sense of satisfaction that ran through me.
Suddenly, the man’s eyes went calm. “Ma’am.” The words didn’t come from his mouth. They came from somewhere else. “Ma’am.”
I blinked. The fluorescent lights above me seemed brighter, and the floor beneath me more stable. The elderly man stood in front of me, a smile on his face, but his eyebrows drawn together.
He reached a hand out toward me. “Ma’am, are you all right?”
Retreating back a step, I bumped into something. The cart. A gallon of milk and a box of pasta sat inside. I glanced at the jar of sauce in my hand, then at the floor. There was no sauce on the tiles, no blood. The jar was in my hand, unbroken.
“Yeah.” My voice was tight with the panic and confusion I was trying to shove down. I cleared my throat, nodding. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you. Just thinking of something.”
The man didn’t seem convinced as he walked away. I waited until he was out of sight, then swapped the jar for a different kind of sauce and headed quickly toward the check-out.
The cashier kept up a string of chatter I barely paid attention to, something about a new club in New Haven that was all the rage. I remembered to smile and say thank you, barely, before I grabbed my receipt and hurried to my car.
When I returned home, I didn’t even bother to return my car to the garage. I snatched my groceries with one hand and climbed out of the car, slammed the door shut, and went inside.
That strange sensation, a foreign weight, clung to me as I locked the door behind me. I set the bags on the counter and reached into my purse. Grabbing the key, I tossed it none-too-gently beside the bag holding the milk.