Page 23 of I Will Break You

She gestures at me to sit on their recently vacated cushion. I cast the brothers an apologetic wince, but they shake their heads as though they’re used to being dismissed.

“Come on, dear.” She beckons me over, making her bracelets clink.

I lower myself onto the brothers’ seat.

Chappy offers me a large hand. “Hey.”

I shake it, noticing the rough calluses. “Nice to meet you.”

“Same, babe,” he says, his voice lowering.

Relaney leans across the table, kisses Ezekiel, and shoots Chappy a sly glance. Chappy brings my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles.

I pull away, not wanting to get caught up in their relationship drama. “You said something about the afterlife?”

“Of course,” Relaney says, her voice returning to the breathy whisper. “Xero Greaves suffered a traumatic death and caused many others. As such, his spirit is trapped between worlds. It’s my duty as a spiritualist to guide him to the correct resting place.”

I bow my head and stare down at the tablecloth. There’s a reason I avoid my neighbor. Spiritualism, souls, and supernatural subjects are bullshit. When we die, our minds die with us and that’s it. Nothing. We cease to exist.

It explains why I don’t remember anything about my childhood. Mom says I was sitting in the backseat of the car when there was a collision. Somehow, I’d unbuckled my seatbelt, and the impact had me flying through the windshield, then I was hit by another vehicle.

The paramedics pronounced me dead, but Mom begged them to perform CPR, which restarted my heart. I don’t have any memory of the coma or my short stay in rehab, and can only recall snippets from the time I spent recovering from my injuries at home.

Listening to Relaney is a long shot, but I have nothing to lose. And I’m in no position to demand that she accommodate me for the night without even attempting to be social. If there’s a chance that part of Xero still lingers here in limbo, then I’ll do what I can to help him move on.

“When you say resting place, do you mean heaven and hell?” I ask.

Chappy takes my hand again. “There’s no such thing, babe. Just different planes of existence.”

I slide my hand out of his grip and tuck both of them in my lap. “What does that mean?”

“Organized religion is how the establishment keeps people under control,” Relaney says. “Follow our orders in the living world so you get rewarded in the next. It’s the ultimate scam.”

Ezekiel and Chappy nod along. When I glance at the walltoward the brothers, Sparrow stuffs his hands in his pockets and shrugs, while Wilder rolls his eyes. It looks like they share my skepticism.

“So, what’s out there when people die?” I ask, just to keep the conversation going.

Relaney lays her hands on the table, palms upward. She closes her eyes, inhales a deep breath, and says, “When we pass from this life, our spirits continue evolving to higher planes of existence. We reflect on the lessons from our past lives and decide if we wish to return for another.”

“Reincarnation?”

“Precisely,” she says with a nod. “Death is simply a transition, and your killer is trapped between realms.”

“I thought they were planes?”

“Shall we begin with a seance?” she asks, ignoring my question.

“Why not?” I mutter, not wanting to be an ungrateful guest.

This pseudoscience about spirits might be bullshit, but at least I’m not stuck at home being watched by a stalker pretending to be Xero. Or being haunted by Xero’s ghost. Or hallucinating JakeRake69’s rotting corpse.

I really don’t know what to think about what’s happening, but one thing is for sure: I’m safer here with Relaney and her acolytes.

She instructs us to lay our hands on the table, palms-down with our fingers spread, so each hand connects with their neighbors’. Chappy twines his pinky around mine and winks. I glance at Relaney, who either hasn’t noticed or is too absorbed in the ritual to care.

After telling us to close our eyes and focus on our breath, she makes a long speech about the universe. I can’t focus on anything she’s saying through Sparrow and Wilder’s mocking laughter.

I’m beginning to understand why she acts like they don’t exist.