Sight Chapter 21: Secret’s Out

– EIGHT HOURS EARLIER –

9:00 p.m. | ???
Aislyn opens her eyes, feeling slightly dazed and confused. She feels her skin, cold against the slightly damp floor, making her wonder where she is. It takes her a few seconds to remember the last thing that had happened, and the sight of Kimberly lying in front of her quickly jogs her memory.

Aislyn tries to move but realizes she can’t. “Kimberly?…” She calls out.

“Well, what perfect timing, brother; she’s awake.” A voice says. Aislyn is startled as she hadn’t taken her surroundings in yet.

She looks up and sees their assailants standing outside of what appears to be a rusting cell they were in.

“Now, now, don’t be afraid.” One of the men says as he unlocks the door with a key and enters. He places one hand under Aislyn’s cheek to make her look at him, and his other uncomfortably on her chest. Without thinking she smacks his hands off. “Ouch.” He says jokingly, “Well it appears you prefer to make things difficult…” He adds as he begins untying Aislyn’s hands much to her confusion. The other man flashes a gun under his jacket as if to say ‘Don’t try anything else.’ And it takes all of her strength to sit there as he reties her hands behind her back, annoyingly tight.

“There, that’s better.” He says as he pats her head. Aislyn flinches in disgust, but doesn’t make any more drastic moves. “Now, why don’t you tell us your name? We ID’d your friend there, but you don’t have your license on you.” That’s because I don’t have one. Aislyn thinks.

She’s about to make one up when she feels a chill and the ghost from earlier appears. “Don’t lie!” He warns, probably sensing that she had planned to do just that. “They are tapped into the Oldmerrow Police System here. If you give them a fake name and they don’t find you, you are as good as dead.”

“Hard of hearing?” The man asks, grabbing her cheeks hard. “I asked for your name.” “It’s Aislyn. Aislyn Persefoni.” She says reluctantly.

“For both of your sakes, it better be.” The man says as he releases his tight grip on her face and tilts her chin up to meet his gaze. He and his partner, or brother if she’d heard correctly, turn to leave, locking the cell behind them and Aislyn lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding.

The ghost from earlier drops down to her once they leave. “Look… I’m sorry I went off on you earlier. I didn’t know they’d actually come after you and your friend. I know there’s not much I can do but–” “Actually there is.” Aislyn says, cutting him off. “Mr?…” “Call me, Jacob.” He says. “Alright Jacob, I’m assuming you’ve seen what goes down here before.” She says; He gives a stiff nod. “What happens after they check if I’m lying or not?”

“Well once they know who both of you are, they do some digging and see if you’re valuable… Come from rich families, are wealthy, etcetera…”

“And then?” Aislyn asks. “And then they see if they can get a ransom off of you guys. If not…” Jacob doesn’t finish his sentence but Aislyn gets the gist. “I need you to get someone for me while they do all of that.” She says.

“But I’m–”

“I know. He’s a ghost too, his name is J.D. and you’ll find him at 212 Peace Lane.” Jacob nods and disappears.

Aislyn was already regretting having slapped one of the masked men as she would’ve preferred to have her arms in front of her. She tries to return to her previous position, and gets her arms under her thighs when Kimberly stirs.

“What’s going on?…” She asks groggily.

“Don’t freak out, but we’re kind of in some abandoned cell somewhere I don’t know.”

“What?!” Kimberly exclaims as she attempts to get up and realizes she’s bound. She rolls over and manages to make it to the cell bars. “Oh no…” She groans. She tries to shake the handle. “It’s no use, you need a key… I saw it.”

“Great.” Kimberly says sarcastically. “Ah, I have a terrible headache.” She adds, placing her hands to her temple. “Same here.” Aislyn says. “How did you know those guys would be there?” Kimberly asks.

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you…” Aislyn says, surprised at how calm Kimberly was. Their chances of getting out of here were much greater if she wasn’t frantic, and Aislyn had no intention of either of them dying here… That determination was the only thing keeping her guilt at ignoring Jacob at bay for the moment. “Look, I think I can figure out a way for us to get out of here, but you’re going to have to trust me… I know we haven’t really gotten along, but–”

“Stop right there, I’ll do whatever it is you need me to, but only if you tell me how you knew.”

Aislyn figures she has nothing to lose, especially since she was planning on talking to Jacob and J.D. when they arrived, and would have to explain to Kimberly eventually to avoid her looking at her like a loon. “Fine.” She says with a sigh. “But lets help each other slip out of these first…”

The ropes were extremely firm, but after a few minutes of struggling, they’d managed to loosen them enough to help one another free one hand and leg out of the bindings. “I don’t get it, why can we just take them off completely?” Kimberly asks when Aislyn stops her from freeing her other hand.

“Because we don’t know when those guys will be back, and if we hear them approaching, it’d be better to slip back in and make it seem like we aren’t doing anything. They are armed and I have a feeling they aren’t opposed to getting their hands dirty.”

Kimberly swallows at this and nods. “So… are you going to tell me now?”

Aislyn hesitates, not quite sure how to phrase what she needs to say… “I know it’s going to sound crazy… but I can see things that others can’t.” To her credit, Kimberly’s expression doesn’t change. “Like?” She asks.

“Like… people who aren’t around anymore.”

“So you mean dead people?”

Aislyn nods. “That’s not possible…” Kimberly says. Aislyn shrugs. “It’s the truth.” She’d never told any living person that before, and the fact that of all people it was Kimberly to discover her secret would’ve been laughable if their lives weren’t in danger.

“No way…” Kimberly says. “My friend and I… We kind of used to talk about you behind your back… She told me she’d seen you talking to yourself sometimes and some of the other townsfolk would gossip, but we thought it was just because you were…” “Crazy? Sorry to break it to you, but I’m not.” Aislyn says. “I’m guessing your friend is Amber?” Aislyn asks, thinking back to what she’d said when they had spoken in the library…

“We’ve been working together here for quite some time, and I’ve noticed some odd things about you. How you seemingly talk to yourself sometimes when you think you’re alone in the break room or when you’re stacking books away… Long story short, I may have said some unkind things about you behind your back to my friends… and for that I’m sorry.” Amber had said.

Kimberly nods. “Is that why you hate me?” Aislyn asks.

“I don’t hate you.” Kimberly says with a sigh as she lies back. Aislyn raises an eyebrow. “I was jealous, alright?” She continues. “I like Gus, I’ve liked him for ages… since we were in high school, but he’s so dense sometimes. Most boys are.” Aislyn gives a soft smile, surprised that this was the reason for Kimberly’s hostility; she hadn’t picked up on it at all…

Kimberly figures now is as good a time as ever to come clean. “I never cared when he used to date around because I knew that those girls were just flings he had when he couldn’t deal with whatever was stressing him out… but you came along and were different somehow. He didn’t treat you the same way at all. And I didn’t know what you had that I didn’t.” Kimberly says knowing she sounds nothing like her normal self. “When he first expressed interest in you, I joked around and painted you in a negative light for no reason other than to hopefully prevent him from being with yet another stranger when I was right there.”

“They say she spends most of her time at the graveyard. And she’s often talking to herself like a loon. She works part-time at the library with my friend Amber; apparently they call her Loose-screw Lyn.”

“I’m sorry.” Kimberly says. “It wasn’t fair for me to channel my frustrations with Gus’s obliviousness onto you.”

“I’d always try to get close to him and he’d shut me down saying he was fine…”

“But I tried again recently and something about him changed. He started opening up. I’m guessing that’s because of you somehow. And I know it’s not right for me to do that since you guys are dating and all… but when you like someone for so long–”

“It’s okay.” Aislyn says, interrupting Kimberly as she takes this all in. “No it’s not.” Kimberly says, preparing to say more, but Aislyn had heard more than enough, and could feel J.D. and Jacob approaching as the air was changing. “We broke up.” Aislyn says, wanting to halt Kimberly’s flow of explanations and apologies.

“What?” She exclaims rising up rather quickly. “But I saw–” “Whatever it is you feel for Gus, it’s more than okay for you to keep on feeling it, but right now it’s time to make our move to get out of here.” Aislyn says rising to pat Kimberly on her shoulder.

Kimberly had done a great job of not losing her cool so far but for some reason this tidbit of information about she and Gus’s relationship rattled her more than their current predicament did. Aislyn left her sitting open mouthed and rises to speak with J.D. She had no idea how he was going to react.

“What the hell, Aislyn.” He says as more of a declaration than a question. “We don’t have much time. I’m assuming Jacob kind of filled you in.” Aislyn says, J.D. nods. “Are you alright?” He asks. “For now, yeah. And I’m hoping we remain that way.”

“Since it has been a while and you’re more familiar with this place Jacob, can you go see what’s going on upstairs?”

“And J.D. can you tell me what’s on the other side of that vent on the wall.” Aislyn adds noticing it now for the first time. Both of the men nod and disappear.

Aislyn’s voice snaps Kimberly back from whatever she was thinking about and she gets up off of the floor. “I know you weren’t kidding but…”

“I know.” Aislyn says, understanding how odd this must seem to Kimberly.

She feels both Jacob and J.D. return. “One of the assailants is sleeping while the other one is gone. You guys are in an abandoned military outpost that used to be used in war times that these guys turned into a home of some sort. You’re about an hour away from the city, so if he’s gone to get something it’ll be a while before he returns.” Jacob states. “And on the other side of that vent is an empty open cell.” J.D. adds. “That’s perfect.” Aislyn says.

Kimberly knew Aislyn was being dead serious when she said she could see things that others couldn’t, but looking at her stare and speak to something invisible was still very chilling.

Aislyn turns around and catches her staring, and Kim feels rather sheepish. “Alright, we’re in the clear for now so we can ditch these.” Aislyn says as she steps out of and drops the ropes still tied to her. “Right.” Kim says, following suit.

Aislyn leads her to the vent on the wall. “My friend tells me there is an open cell on the other side of that.” She says pointing to it. “I’ll hoist you up there.” “And then what?” Kim asks. “I’ll tell you once we cross that bridge.” Kim stares at the vent and then back to Aislyn. “No offense, but with my chest I doubt I’ll fit through that.”

“But you’ll probably be able to.” Kimberly adds. Aislyn knew she was making an observation, but she felt that it still came across with a hint of maliciousness. “Fine. Then you give me a boost, and hopefully we can make it out of here without encountering either of those two again… ”

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What is this? A relatively decent sized chapter? *gasp* Haha, I actually had double the amount of screenshots taken for this chapter but I kind of burned out while writing it so I’ve decided to split it into two chapters XD Considering not much happened here except for that chat between Aislyn and Kim (as the next chapter is where all the action is at, haha) I don’t know if I’ll post it tomorrow, later in the week or next weekend per usual. It depends on whether or not I have time and energy, both of which I’m lacking nowadays. Feel free to let me know what you thought~
Take care!
xoxo Amy