Nearly twenty years ago, her apartment block had once been an old abandoned warehouse. No-one ever tended to live at this particular apartment building for very long. Six months at the latest, before they moved out again. Lindelle had lived there for about that long now.
You know how a building has a certain feeling about it, when you first walk in?
When she walked into her Grandma's house, she saw images in her head of laughing children, dancing through sprinklers on a summer's day, long grass waving in the breeze, fizzy pitchers of lemonade and thickly iced cupcakes eagerly snatched up by grubby little hands.
Her mother's house made her think of coldness...wine stains and bottles full of pills. Sterile rooms, with faded, threadbare blankets. Flickering lights. An uncaring indifference that settled around the house like a bad smell.
And her girlfriend's flat reminded her of warmth and safety. Of flowers pressed between thick scrapbook pages and burning incense, filling up every corner of the house. Of dandelion tea in cracked cups. Something kinda spicy and exotic, something that made her feel so calm and happy and relaxed.
Now her apartment block...
Her few friends and family completely abhorred it, but it was the only place she could afford.
There was something so stifling and heavy in the air, when you entered that building. An intense feeling of the ceilings and walls closing in on you. Of something closing in on you.
"I don't like it here," her girlfriend Rosaria whimpered a little, interlacing her chubby, ring-encrusted fingers with hers when she first walked inside. "It feels like...death or something..."
The other woman didn't say anything back. Rosaria had a particular way of pinpointing feelings that Lindelle could never quite articulate properly.
The apartment...how could she explain?
You walked in and you felt something heavy and sour settle deep inside your gut. Everything became constricted and tight, your skin coiling up and you felt something like...like...
"Paranoia," whispered Rosaria, as she slowly walked down the hallways, brushing her hands across the chipped paint walls. "I feel like there were some...really, really scared people who used to live here."
When she reached Lindelle's room, she moaned a little and pressed her temples hard, chestnut hair falling across her eyes.
"No...no I can't do it..." she gasped, her voice pained and low. "Get me out of here. Get me out of here now."
Outside in the carpark, the curvier woman breathed out hard, resting her head between her knees as Lindelle soothingly rubbed her back.
"Baby, what's wrong?"
Rosaria wrinkled up her nose, staring out the window.
"That room..."
She massaged her eyes with the pads of her fingers.
"Sorry..." she said lightly, as if not wanting to worry her. "It's just...I felt such...grief in that room. And that...death feeling was so strong."
"Creepy shit," Lindelle replied, her voice a little shaky as she looked down at her feet. "You think someone died in my room?"
Rosaria just silently laced their fingers together again and said nothing.
That night, the dreams started up again. She'd had them when she first moved in, but the exhaustion of work had pushed them away.
She dreamt of walking into her bathroom and seeing blood bubbling out from the plughole into the sink. Of her bathtub overflowing with scarlet blood, pouring down between the cracks in the tile. Of it sliding down the walls in thick, dark lines.
She would wake up dripping with a cold sweat, terror gripping her intestines like a vice, tears wet at her cheeks. Trying to breathe, something coppery and metallic lining her throat like cement.
One time when Rosaria had come over, (which was rare, because they were both much more comfortable at her place,) they'd been snuggled up on the couch, watching a movie, when suddenly...
"Ow! Ow!" her face scrunched up all at once with pain and both her hands flew down to her stomach.
"Whatsa matter?" Lindelle demanded immediately, sitting up. Rosaria doubled over, gasping for air. She pounded across the floor and slammed out of the apartment and into the corridor, the other woman close on her heels. Her girlfriend was pushing her forehead into the wall, taking big, gulping breaths. Finally, after a few seconds, she seemed to calm herself down.
She curled up behind her, arms snaking around her waist.
"Doesn't matter," she sent Lindelle a pained little smile. "I had this weird pain in my gut is all."
"C'min, I'll getcha a cup of tea..."
Rosaria rested her head on the other woman's skinny shoulder as they walked back inside the apartment.
I'm sorry...I'm sorry...
I'm so sorry...
Her eyes flew open in the darkness of the bedroom, heart pounding, feeling something harsh and bitter filling up her mouth. There was a sharp ringing noise in her ears...ringing so loud, it almost hurt.
The voice from her dream was high-pitched and ragged, like every breath, every word was torture.
Even when she forgot other bits and pieces from the nightmares later on...that voice always stayed with her.
It haunted her throughout her day, as she worked endlessly on the computer and the phone as a receptionist, pulling her hair back tight to take the evening shift at the restaurant later on. After a rushed meal and a shower, she'd collapse into bed and just sleep, utterly exhausted.
And that voice would come floating back.
I'm sorry...I'm sorry...I'm sorry...
Sometimes when she sat in the dark and stared up at the ceiling, trying to drift back to sleep, she wondered what had happened here, so many years ago.
Who was he saying sorry to?
Why?
And why was there so much...blood?
"Maybe," Rosaria said, because it seemed more like a fun murder-mystery at her place, compared to when they were at Lindelle's apartment and the dark, heavy feeling of death weighed down on them both like iron blocks. "Maybe a husband stabbed his wife in the bathroom and that's why there's all that blood in your nightmares?"
"Ken at work thinks a lady might've had a miscarriage in the bathroom..."
"That's so sad."
Lindelle rested her head on her shoulder and wrapped their arms together.
"I know...but I told him it sounded more like a guy in my dream. And anyway...don't you...don't you get a...get a sense of...uh..."
"Masculinity?" Rosaria added helpfully. "Seriously, you go in there and it doesn't feel the slightest bit feminine..."
"Yeah...I guess so," Lindelle agreed, frowning slightly. There she went again...pinpointing the exact thoughts swirling around her head, that she couldn't make into words.
There was...well...sometimes she felt a hint of heightened testosterone around her apartment block. Down the halls, up the stairs. But her particular apartment was different somehow. There was...something more then just that.
She couldn't really define it.
It was a bit too intense.
A bit too raw.
A bit too tender.
There was a thick, heavy passion in her apartment that she couldn't quite understand.
"It's like...it's like the first time you fall in love with someone. Y'know what I mean?" Rosaria was trying to explain over breakfast, at one of their favorite little café's. It was hard to catch up, what with Lindelle's two jobs, but they tried to have at least a weekly visit. Lindelle sipped her coffee, which was strong enough to melt her teeth and thought about that idea.
"So you think a guy stabbed his lover in the bathroom?"
"Maybe...but you know how kinda masculine that place feels, right? I was thinkin' maybe this guy stabbed his boy lover in the bathroom..."
"Really?"
"Yeah...and then he said sorry..."
"...and died of a broken heart."
"Shit Rosie, that's bleak," Lindelle snorted over the rim of her cup, smirking. Her girlfriend slapped her on the arm, grinning back.
"Don't fuckin' laugh!" she scolded her in mock outrage. "It's a tragic love-story!"
Lindelle rolled her eyes. But then, a tad more seriously, she added; "Next time I've got some free time, I'm looking my apartment up online."
Rosario beamed from ear to ear.
"We can do it at my house! Slumber party!"
Lindelle bit back the disbelieving grin.
"What are you, ten?"
"You'd be a pedophile then, y'know..."
"Oh shut up."
One of the other customers sent them a dirty look as they both burst into loud peals of uncontrollable laughter.
Stabbing, Avenue 59 at Figueroa Street, Highland Park, Los Angeles...
"Nothing comes up."
"Try this..."
Man stabs lover, 5860 N. Figueroa Street, Highland Park, Los Angeles...
"Oh my god's there's nothing."
"Wait..."
The memory of the loud, echoing ringing from her dream suddenly came rushing back to her.
Shooting, 5860 N. Figueroa Street, Highland Park, Los Angeles...
...
...
Robbery at Karina's Wholesale Diamonds Leads To Bloodbath with 12 Dead, More Deaths Suspected.
"Holy fuck..."
"Read the names..."
"It doesn't have all the names, it just says about some guy called Joe Cabot, apparently he was a gangster boss or something...and they all shot each up at the warehouse...where the apartment is now."
They slugged through old archives, and dove into article after article, trying desperately to find out more.
"One survivor out of the crooks...don't say what happened to him."
Rosaria squinted her eyes at the old mugshot with distaste.
"He looks like a rat."
Lindelle wrinkled up her nose.
"The real rat was the cop though...Freddy Newen...Newen...Newendyke."
They both stared at the face on the screen and Lindelle felt something run up and down her spine, like cold icy water.
"How did he die?" she asked, her voice quiet.
It took a bit of a long time to drag up all the different types of death that had occurred that day, years and years before. There were no photos...just neatly typed descriptions. It sounded so...clinical to her.
Her mind was still firmly fixed on that face with the piercing honeyed eyes (too young) and the floppy butterscotch hair.
Please...please...
"What about the undercover dude? What happened to him?"
"Some fucker got shot in the head..."
"Rosie, what about the undercover cop?"
"Delly, Jesus Christ, one of the cops got his ear fucking cut off...that's...that's disgusting..."
She heard herself snapping despite herself; "Rosie, what about the Newendyke guy?"
"I don't know, scroll down..."
...three times.
Three?
Shot three times?
The blood filled the bathtub.
The blood oozed down from the ceilings.
The blood overflowed in congealed clots from the drain-holes.
It made a huge wet gluey pool on the tile floor, and it sloshes in scarlet stains up the walls.
The heavy, throat-lining stench of it fills up her head and her throat and her mouth. Copper and metal, slick and slimy.
"Delly?"
She feels her soft hands slide into hers and squeeze them tight. Something hot and wet dribbles down her cheeks and she turns away to stare at her feet.
Didn't she wake up in the middle of the night and feel that burning, bitter feeling of terror, as the ringing echoed in her ears...and then something else...
Shame?
I'm sorry...
I'm sorry...
I'm so sorry.
The next night she's home, she lies in her bed and stares up at the ceiling. She can't sleep. She knows there's a stain in these apartment walls that nothing will ever scrub out. Too much death and blood.
She thinks she feels a prescence still here.
"Freddy..." she hears herself whisper through the darkness. There's a slow, heavy shifting feeling in the atmosphere, like a sluggishly awakening beast; "what are you sorry for?"
Months fly by.
She looks through so many old archives on the internet whenever she has the time, it's enough to send her girlfriend crazy. But she needs to know. She needs to.
Freddy Newendyke was buried in San Gabriel Cemetery.
So that's where she was driving her next day off.
Rosaria couldn't stand graveyards. They made her too depressed. She would press her hands into her temples and whimper about all the pain and grief she could feel, all of the people who hadn't wanted to go into the next life just yet, of the loved ones who had cried over their graves.
She walked through the sun-baked earth and green grass, past the rows and rows of stone and inscriptions, until she was drenched in a dripping layer of perspiration. It took her a whole hour to find him.
The headstone was small and simple. The inscription was brief; Frederick Newendyke. October 23, 1992. 28 years old. Loved son of Ada. Friend of Randy.
It wasn't a headstone that had been forgotten. The marble was scrubbed down and clean, but there were no flowers adorning it. Stepping closer, she suddenly spotted something. Still wrapped in it's plastic, slightly grubby looking, tucked up against one side of the gravestone...a comic book? Cocking her head, she looked closer.
The Fantastic Four.
He liked The Fantastic Four?
She felt an odd kind've emptiness eating away at the insides of her stomach as she stared down with creased up, thoughtful eyes.
She needed more answers.
Freddy Newendyke - Ada Newendyke.
...
...
December 16, 1998. Ada Newendyke died of sudden heart failure in her home, aged 59.
It didn't say if she left anyone behind...no husband...no nothing.
Was Freddy the only thing she'd ever had?
Freddy Newendyke - Randy.
...
...
Randy Holdaway was a cop too.
Maybe he was the one who keep the gravestone clean, propped that old comic book by its side. Maybe he knew what had happened to him all those years ago. Maybe he'd been there.
She found herself wondering if he had heaps and heaps of friends or only really a few. If he'd been a cocky young cop or more nervous and eager to please. If he thought going undercover was going to make him cool...whether he really knew what kind of shit he was getting himself into.
Rosaria kinda...knew. Knew to just let her do her thing.
"Once I lived in a house where this teenage girl had...well...ended it all...I felt her there with me everyday," she told her quietly, as they curled up underneath the covers of the curvier woman's bed. "The landlord told me what happened...it was so...cleansing to found out...to understand, y'know?"
Lindelle wanted to understand.
It took a long time to connect with Randy Holdaway. He wasn't in the phone-book and she got caught up with work again, pushing her search briefly to the side. During one of her weekends, she went on the LAPD website and then onto the Community Police Station Address Directory. She rang each of them up, until someone recognized the name.
She heard the phone being switched around and someone clearing their throat out scratchily at the other end of the line. Her breath seemed to catch uncomfortably against her voice-box.
"Mr Holdaway?" she said timidly.
"Speaking."
"Uh...my name is Lindelle Alexander. I live at 5860 North Figueroa Street, Highland Park...there used to be a warehouse there, but there's apartment blocks now."
There was silence at the other end of the line. Then a clearing out of his throat again.
"I bet that would be a shit place to live."
"Yeah, most people move out after a few months."
"Smart people."
He was quiet again and she felt the nervousness clench in her lungs, like hot, sticky cement.
"Uh...it sounds stupid...but I think my apartment might be...situated in the spot, where...your friend passed away?"
"Didn't pass anywhere, Miss Alexander. He was shot three times."
"I know...I know that...I don't mean any offense..."
"None taken."
"Okay...cool. Uh...I don't mean to be a hassle but I was...uh...curious? Did you know who uh...put the...last...um...bullet in?"
She felt like an asshole. The guy probably didn't want some random stranger forcing him to remember his old friend being shot nearly twenty years ago. She should just say sorry and leave.
"Uh..." the man's voice seemed flat, like he didn't want to betray a shred of emotion. "That was Lawrence Dimmick."
She'd seen a mugshot of him in the old archives online. He'd been about in his late forties, early fifties, when the robbery and massacre took place.
Her spine tingled slightly and she felt the cold shudder run through her body like a big heavy wave.
Why were you sorry, Freddy?
You were a young cop...he was an old crook.
What happened?
Why did you still feel so guilty?
"Were...were they close?"
"What dya mean?"
"Was your...friend and Dimmick...were they close?"
He didn't say anything for awhile, as though he was thinking about it, taking himself back to that time in his life so long ago.
"I guess...he got along with him the most...bit of a surprise..."
"Why?"
"I dunno, thought he'd click more with the people around his own age."
If they got along the best, why did he shoot him?
"Did he shoot anyone else...Dimmick I mean?"
He seemed to be lost in memories now, voice dark and thoughtful.
"Yeah...we always found that confusing in hindsight. He shot Cabot and his son, even though they'd worked together for years."
And then he turned the gun on the undercover cop. Why kill his old colleagues and then his new friend?
Cabot must've found out that Newendyke was working undercover. He was a hardened criminal after all...he would've put two and two together.
But why not just shoot the cop who'd betrayed his trust? Why shoot Cabot and his son as well?
"Why did he shoot them all?"
"I don't know. I've been trying to work it out myself."
Unless he just went into violent frenzy at the thought of the cops closing in on him. But that didn't make sense, because he was a hardened criminal as well, who should've been able to handle himself.
And why did he shoot his boss? Why?
"I don't think anyone really knows except the people who were there..." he was saying. At those words, a thought suddenly occured to her.
"What was the name of the guy who got out alive?"
"Oh, that was Kerabatsos...I remembered his first name sounded girly, he'd go crazy if someone called him by it. Uh...oh yeah Madison Kerabatsos...that's why Cabot called him Mr Pink apparently, just to fuck with him."
"Mister...Mister what?"
"Oh, they went by code-names, make it harder for the police to track 'em down," he snorted with a bitter kind've laughter. "Lot o' help that was."
"Who was...?"
"Oh...he was Mr Orange and Dimmick was...uh...Mister...Mister...White, yeah Mr White."
"Is Kerabatsos out of jail?"
"Nah...stealing diamonds and shooting a few cops got him in there for a damned long time. He's in Folsom."
"Okay. Thank you, Mr Holdaway."
"It's fine."
There was a slight awkward pause before he cleared his throat for a final time and hung up.
She looked up on google How to send a letter to Folsom state. She clicked on a link that gave her addresses and phone-numbers.
Inmate Name, ID
Folsom State Prison
P.O. Box 715071
Represa, CA 95671
Down at the bottom of the page, it said Do an inmate search in California. She clicked it, "agreed" to the terms and conditions, before moving onwards. She typed his name into the search bar and clicked the final button.
She found him pretty quickly and wrote his name and ID out on the front of her envelope, before she slid the folded paper inside.
She wondered if it sounded stupid or not...
Dear Mr Kerabatsos,
You don't know me. My name is Lindelle Alexander, and I live in an apartment block which used to be a warehouse, where you were caught twenty years ago.
It's a bit of a shithole really. No-one stays for very long. I've stayed the longest.
I think my apartment is situated in the place where Mr Orange died. I have lots of dreams about blood and gunshots. I think I can still feel him there, like he doesn't want to move on.
I talked to a cop that used to work with Mr Orange. Apparently he was very close with Mr White, but what I don't understand is why Mr White shot Joe Cabot and his son and then Mr Orange as well. They'd worked together for years and it doesn't make sense to me that he'd just shoot them all like that. Why not just shoot Mr Orange, because he was a cop?
I thought as you were there, you might know.
I feel like I need to help his spirit move on. That sounds really stupid, I know. But I feel him there with me everyday.
He feels really really, guilty about something and I really need to help him. I'd love it if you replied, if it isn't too much of a hassle for you to remember.
Hope you're well.
Yours sincerely,
Lindelle Alexander.
She sent it off on her way to work the next day.
The dreams were getting worse and worse. It was almost like he knew she was there, trying to talk to him. Trying to help. Trying to reach out.
In the bathroom, she saw...something in the bathtub. Lying in a pool of bright red blood. Sweaty white skin and dank, slick hair. She tried to step closer, tried to look and there was a noise like someone was choking on something, before the figure sunk away once more.
S-shit, I'm gonna to die Larry, I'm gonna die...
And the gunshots suddenly sounded more clearly then ever.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
And a primal, animalistic sobbing filled her head and she woke up with the sickening feeling of shame closing in on her, like black tar filling up her lungs.
She stayed with Rosaria as much as she could to escape it all.
Lindelle Alexander,
First off, I can't swear in these letters cause they check 'em and I want to be out on good behavior.
I don't know why you want to talk about all that airy-fairy crap. (And crap isn't a swear-word by the way.) There all dead and no-one's going Sixth Sense on you, lady. I'd recommend you get some medication for that. I've moved the hell on with my life. (Hell isn't a swear-word either, it's in the bible alright?)
Anyway, if your really that concerned, Mr Brown thought Mr Orange and Mr White were doing each other, but I didn't pay attention to all that idle high-school gossip. I'm not interested in two guys screwing around, I got more important things to worry about. I don't know if they were and I honestly don't care, but White beat me up when I said something mean about Orange, my ribs are still crappy cause of that bastard. White went nuts and shot Cabot and his son cause they said the kid was a cop and Cabot was gonna shoot him. Seriously, White was unhinged. The most unprofessional bastard I've ever met.
Look I'm fifty-one for christ's sake, all that crap happened twenty years ago. They pulled the goddamned warehouse down and everyone died but me and I'm gonna be in jail for a long time, okay? Why do you care?
If a spooky ghost cop is bleeding on your carpet, then move the hell out. It ain't rocket science, lady.
Hope you have a good life and stuff. And thanks for the letter I guess.
M.K.
"I told you! Didn't I tell you?"
"What?"
"Tragic love story, I told you!"
"We don't know if they were together. The only people who really know are them. And they're dead."
"No I bet they were! It's so sad...it's like out of a movie or something..."
Lindelle didn't reply. She thought she had an idea now about what happened in that warehouse all those years ago, but of course...she wasn't ever going to be a hundred per cent sure.
She wished there was a way to help.
Did Dimmick die, hating that kid?
Did he shoot him with rage pulsing through his veins?
Is that why Freddy felt so guilty?
He shouldn't feel so ashamed. He was just doing his job.
"No...no...I bet the older guy wanted to die with him or something...before the cops took them away and they'd never see each other again."
"That's very optimistic. He was probably just pissed off he was lying the whole time..."
"C'mon, your ruining the romance!"
"I'm just being logical. We don't know if there was anything going on between them."
Rosaria fixed her with a sudden steely gaze.
"If one of your oldest friends was going to shoot me, what would you do?"
Lindelle fell quiet. She knew Rosaria had her in check-mate now.
"I'd...I'd kill them."
Rosaria smiled at her.
"My point has been proven correct!"
"Whatever...your crazy."
She didn't know how she could convince whatever part of him was still here, that it wasn't his fault. That he didn't need to feel bad anymore. That he had to move on.
"Hello Mr Holdaway?"
"How are you Miss Alexander?"
"I'm good thank-you...I've got one las question and then I'll leave you alone forever."
"Right."
"Do you know who was on scene after Dimmick and your friend...passed on?"
"Gerald McNamara speaking.
...
...
...
The one kinda unusual thing I thought about it all in hindsight is that...uh...I didn't pay attention when we were there, collecting all the evidence and sectioning everything off. But I realized later...Dimmick? He'd been crying.
...
...
Yeah. And another thing...I heard some of the other cops talking about it. Dimmick got blown away by the police when he shot the kid. But it was so odd...he ended up in this position on the ground, kinda...kinda curled up in his direction. He was reaching his hand out for him. And...
Wait...
The kid was too.
They're fingers were touching. Everyone was whispering about that and the rookie with his ear cut off.
I always just assumed he wanted to protect him, even when they were both passed on to the next life.
...
...
Dimmick? He didn't have no family left or nothing. He was cremated somewhere, I don't know. That shit was ages ago, 'scuse my language...yeah I was young then...all that blood's kinda...kinda never left me, y'know? I just...can't forget it.
...
No thank-you. I hope I helped you find some answers. Have an excellent day, Miss Alexander."
She didn't know what to say. She sat on the cold tiles of her bathroom and whispered to anyone who could hear her, he didn't hate you. It wasn't your fault. He was protecting you even when you both died.
She said it over and over again, but the dreams just got more and more violent.
In her dreams she saw a man with a waxen white face, in a black suit and soggy, red shirt screaming on her bathroom floor, screaming and crying, dripping sweat and blood and tears.
Larry I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so fuckin' sorry...
You don't have to be sorry anymore, you don't have to, it's okay, she begged him and the figure on the ground disappeared into an ocean of congealed scarlet again.
Rosaria slept over once. She wanted to help, but she had to walk out in the middle of the night. She couldn't handle the intensity of the pain, emotional and physical.
She said she could feel the bullet digging into her stomach.
It was growing almost exhausting waking up every morning, her heart a raw ripped open wound, her face and her pillow soaked with tears.
And she wished she knew how to make it all okay for him.
"I think...I think we need to tell him."
But she told him every night. Told him when she woke up. Told him when she got home from work. Told him when she ate her breakfast.
You need to move on.
You don't need to be ashamed.
He loved you.
He protected you.
She got nothing but a horrible aching agony back.
"No...no I think we need to tell him. Really tell him."
You mean...?
Holdaway rang her to tell her the twenty year anniversary of his death was in a couple of days. He was going to visit him at the graveyard and she was welcome to come along as well. Rosaria climbed in the driver's seat beside her and asked if they could stop by at the florist along the way.
They drove through the roads in silence.
It took her a lot quicker to find his headstone this time. Rosaria bit her pink-painted lips, face going pale as they walked past the graves. Her chubby hand was trembling in hers and her dark eyes were wide and damp.
Standing over the simple grave was a tall, hunched over African-American man, his greying hair cut short, stomach bulging slightly over his belt. He nodded slightly as Lindelle sidled up beside him, staring down at the cold marble stone.
No-one said anything. They just stood there in silence for what seemed like forever. At one point, Lindelle walked away to let Holdaway talk to his old friend in privacy.
Lindelle was only a stranger. She didn't even know the guy. But she felt like she did. She felt like she had a connection somehow.
She'd been six in 1992.
Why did she care?
Holdaway nodded at her again as he walked off down the path between the graves, a bottle of water and a rag in his hand. He'd wiped down the headstone again. And now he was going home.
Rosaria took her hand as they walked forward.
The other woman handed their purchase from the florist into her arms.
"D'ya think it's cheesy?" Lindelle asked her quietly. Rosaria eyes were sad and her smile was small and bittersweet.
"No...and I don't care if you do."
She smiled a little back and Rosaria let her go up to the grave on her own. She squatted down to prop the three white roses against the headstone, next to the old battered comic. Licking her lips, she tried to think of what to say, wishing Rosaria was their to do it for her.
"Freddy?" she told the headstone in a tiny voice and she felt the soft breeze brush through the trees and the grass, white petals quivering slightly in the wind. She swallowed down the heavy tightness that was growing heavier and heavier in her throat.
"Freddy...you don't...you don't know me...I live in the place where you died...and - and I know a part of you is still there."
The plastic of the old comic book crinkled in the breeze and she felt it brush her dark hair down over her face.
"I've talked to people about...about Larry... And I don't think you know, but...even when he was dead, he was reaching out for you. Like l-literally on the floor of the warehouse. All these cops saw him trying to hold your hand when you were both already dead. He was trying to protect you even after you were both...both gone. And that meant...that meant he didn't hate you."
That faint breeze seemed to still slightly. The birds chirped around the trees and the branches and the grass threw back gold specks of light into the bright blue sky. She breathed in hard, her chest hard and tight with held back emotion.
"And that means you don't have to feel so...so guilty anymore. You...you never had to feel like that in the first place. You can...move on now..."
And she sat back on her heels, biting into her lip into she felt like the pink flesh would break. The air was calm and steady around her, the birdsong still calling.
What was she expecting? Something out there to whisper out a reply on the breath of the wind? There was nothing. Just a slow silence.
Rosaria's arms were warm and comforting and Lindelle's eyes were damp as she pushed her face into the other woman's neck. They drove themselves back home to Rosaria's place and the other woman tucked her up in warm cozy blankets.
And all she wanted to do was just sleep and sleep forever.
When she was back at her apartment block again, Rosaria walked in with her. She frowned a little, crease appearing between her eyes, before she rubbed at the middle of the chest in vague confusion.
"It feels...different..."
Lindelle didn't say anything. She didn't have to.
She could still...feel him. Just like she felt him at the graveyard. Just like she felt her mother in her old house...her Grandparents at their graves and their homes.
There was something more serene in the air now, something cool and untroubled.
"The...sadness is still here," Rosaria said quietly. "But there isn't so much misery anymore. Or pain..."
"Yeah...I think he understands now..."
Rosaria pulled her into a bone-crushing hug. Her strong strawberry perfume filled up her nose and made her feel safe and warm and just...justwhole.
That night, she dreamt of walking into her tiny living room and looking out towards her doorway. She thought she saw something in the shadows, but she wasn't sure. She smelt smoke and saw the faint glow of the cherry from a cigarette, flickering in the darkness.
And then it disappeared, away into the corridor.
A warm presence passed by her side, drifting forward from the bathroom, the hair prickling at the back of her neck as it floated past her. She felt it move towards the open doorway.
And then it was gone.
She felt strangely empty for a few minutes, standing still and motionless in her living room.
And then she heard it.
Out in the corridor.
A muffled sobbing.
It sounded like everything weighing you down in the world had finally let up after such a very, very long time. The wet sniffling was mixing up with soft little comforting shushing noises.
She swore she saw something warm and golden glow out from inside the hallway, before it returned slowly back to darkness.
And when she woke up in her bed in the early hours of the morning, she swore she heard a faint voice echoing soothingly in her head like a mantra;
It's okay kid...I got you...
I got you...
...your safe now.