004

004

Brianna Pounds

One would've thought it was all over now. That my husband had just watched his mistress, or rather collaborated with his mistress to murder me, his pregnant wife, and that was it. But no.

I didn't know what cruel games the universe was playing with me, because I was standing over my own dead body, watching the three of them. I shouted, but nobody could hear or see me. I was truly dead.

“Check, you should see it now,” Nico told the doctor.

The doctor pulled his phone from his back pocket and focused on the screen.

Kariana sat cross legged in a chair. I hadn't known if it had been there the whole time or if they'd just set it up in the few moments since I gave up the ghost to celebrate their mighty achievement.

She poured an expensive wine into her glass, stretched the rim to her cherry lips. I watched her throat bob as she swallowed a gulp.

“Payment confirmed.” The doctor's voice brought my focus back to the two of them.

Nicodemo had just paid the very money we'd worked to build together to a whack doctor for my own death. His own wife's death.

“It was a pleasure doing business with you.” The doctor reached out for a handshake and Nico took it with a pleasant smile.

I, Brianna Pounds, was now just a business deal that'd been closed.

Nico turned on his heel towards Kariana, who beamed at him, and my eyes stayed on the doctor’s movement.

There was a wrapped item in a small bag which the doctor was reaching for.

“No, don't take my baby!” I rushed to him to stop him from taking my baby, only to pass right through him to the other side.

Heck, I was a spirit. But I wouldn't just give up. Trying again, I repeated the same action to snatch my baby, wrapped in a bag, from him, but my touch just went through the air.

Kariana and Nico’s laughter snagged me back to them. Nico had Kariana in his lap, both now giggling over wine. “I'm glad we finally got to do this,” Nico sighed, and I watched his eyes look over at my dead body.

“Me too.” They were both looking at my corpse now, and I was looking at them.

They appeared almost sad, regretful even.

“Do you regret it?” Kariana asked slowly.

“No.” He took a gulp of wine, and that witch chuckled.

“You had me there. I almost thought you did.”

“The only thing I regret is not doing it sooner,” he informed her, looking the smiling witch in the eye. The air between them had suddenly gone from bizarre to tender, almost loving.

Nicodemo maintained eye contact like she was everything he’d ever wanted, which made Kariana, as I could see, nervous.

“I wish we did it sooner too,” Kariana soothed, and Nico leaned in dangerously and took her lips with his.

I pinned my eyes shut, wishing and praying that I'd known earlier what a monster I’d married.

“I'm glad we did this,” I heard Kariana say, and my godforsaken husband nodded to her.

“We just have to set the whole plan in motion, now that the bigger fish is out of the picture.”

God, I should've known. I freaking should've known better. If only I’d paid more attention. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

“Are you nervous?”

“No. Are you?” Nico laughed.

“No,” his witch responded firmly.

They both drank from their wine at the same time, their focus now in the direction of my body. This drew my own attention to the spot, only for me to realize the doctor had managed to fit my body into another bag, and two men were now dragging it away.

“No, no, no!” I screamed, rushing after them. I shouldn't let them take my body away. I still had hope lingering that maybe I could manage to get back into my body and be alive. If I allowed my body too much distance from my spirit, there wouldn't be any hope of jumping back in.

While I was alive, I always believed one could come back after death. I mean, my babies did, even if I had no evidence that it was the same baby coming back to me, I just could feel it. I just knew.

They slammed the warehouse door right in my face, and I flinched, only to run right through it. That was the kind of power I now possessed as the dead; I could be anywhere I wanted and watch everyone.

Outside it was pouring rain, and I shuddered. It was night, as I already knew. I would have thought spirits didn't feel a thing, but I was shivering, goosebumps covering my skin.

The men put my body into the truck. “No, no, no!” I protested.

They shut the truck right on me, but I came out, following one of them, trying to talk to him, to at least get him to hear me. That I was here, and maybe he could take my body to the hospital and with the help of the doctors I could come back to life.

The whack doctor exited from the very warehouse I'd run out of, with Nico and Kariana following behind him separately.

Nico stopped, and Kariana stood beside him. He dialed his phone and reached the person almost immediately.

Through the speaker of his phone, I heard my mom's voice. “Nico? I got your text. Is anything the matter?”

My mother. I should go to her. Run to her. Maybe she'd be able to see me, to hear me, to help me.

“Brianna ran away,” Nico lied.

“What?” Mom shouted. “What do you mean?”

“Brianna ran away, Mom.” He cackled a fake cry that, if I wasn't watching him right now, if I was in his arms right now like before, even I would have believed him.

What a psychopathic monster the man I fell in love with was. Lying to my mom. Right. To. My. Fucking. Face.