Art is the Lie (A Vanderbie Novel) by Courtney Cook Hopp Page A

neck.
    Please, not tonight, I thought.
    For weeks I’d waited, prepared myself for the onslaught, almost convinced myself I’d imagined the entire thing. But tonight, I let down my guard and now my mind would pay the consequence.
    I heard Quentin’s voice somewhere behind me, but with every step, the penetrating needles grew stronger. Forcing me to focus. Preparing me for what was about to unleash. And unleash it did. Slow at first, like a freight train picking up speed, until my entire mind was coated in color. Blues of every shade, bending into red.
    I knew enough not to be fooled by the beauty, because it was always followed by horror.
    “CeeCee, where are you going?”
    I wanted to turn to him, but the colors blew out like a candle, and my mind was ravished by exploding images.
    The outline of a man.
    The silhouette of a couple.
    The flash of a gun.
    Faster and faster they shuffled, casting me into depths of darkness as the silent movie came to life. A shadowy man next to a dumpster. A couple. The flash of a gun. Spinning blue lights throbbing hues of gray over the entire scene.
    On they went. Fear booming inside of me, adding the only soundtrack to the scene.
    The shadowy man by the dumpster.
    The backs of the couple.
    The gun.
    The blue lights.
    I stood at the mouth of the alley. My eyes open, unseeing, my body shaking uncontrollably. I felt Quentin’s arm wrap firmly around my back. I wanted to spin into him, to force my eyes from the unfolding scene.
    “CeeCee?” A whisper, a lifeline, in the storm of silence, in the nightmare playing out in front of me. The images continued to march forward. One after the other.
    The man.
    The couple.
    The flash of a gun muzzle.
    Until one image burst forward and hovered. It dangled over me, crushing me under its weight. A single silhouette, crumpled on the ground, bathed in blue light, begging me to understand.
    “Stop!” I screamed. I grabbed the sides of my head, tears streaming down my cheeks. “No more! Please, no more!”
    And like a T.V. unplugged from the wall, they immediately vanished, leaving only a heavy gray fog over my mind.
    My body fell under the pressure of their hasty retreat, but not before Quentin’s arms wrapped protectively around my waist, safely holding my feet to solid ground. My eyes darted in panic, looking for the couple. For the man. But all that remained was a cold, dark alley, just as it was when I first noticed it, trails of dumpsters as far as the eye could see.
    “CeeCee?” Quentin probed again. He grabbed my shoulders and spun me to him, away from the trail of darkness. His hands clasped over my cheeks, rubbing life back into them with his fingers, forcing me to look in his eyes, which I feared could see clearly into my slipping mind. “You have to tell me what’s going on.”
    “I don’t know.” My skin prickled in a sweaty chill. “My mind . . .um . . . I saw . . .”
    I looked back over my shoulder at the alley, but nothing was amiss. There was no one but us. I felt the dam behind my eyes threatening to break as I turned back to Quentin. To his eyes. The concern floating in them was my undoing, unleashing a torrent of tears. My chin dropped as my shoulders burst up and down with every jagged breath I sucked in. Quentin pulled me to him.
    This can’t be happening, this can’t be happening, spun over and over in my mind like a broken record, holding back all irrational explanations. I sunk deeper into the warmth of his arms, which kept me from splitting in two.
    Time marched forward and slowed my breath into small hiccups.
    “Did you see something? Like at the dock?”
    I nodded into his chest, unable to trust my voice. Unable to trust that the lingering tingles wouldn’t return with a vengeance.
    “Let’s get out of here,” he whispered calmly, as if what was happening to me was an every day occurrence.
    I pushed him away, fear roaring in me like a bear. “Why are you so calm? Why aren’t you freaking out? I’m