Phantom Touch by Jessica Hawke

Author:Jessica Hawke
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mighty Fine Books, LLC
Published: 2017-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

COLIN HAD BOOK CLUB after school on Mondays, so I had the house to myself. I walked in and headed straight to the fridge for a bottle of water. I tentatively said, “Hello?” just to make sure I was really alone in the house. When I got no response, I bellowed, “Come out, you bitchy-ass ghost.”

Natalie met me halfway up the stairs. I shoved my finger in her spectral face. “What the hell is wrong with you, beyond the obvious?” A cold chill ran down my back as I walked right through her and into my bedroom. “Yeah, ice me again and you’ll find out what a holy water enema feels like.”

She was already talking as I opened the laptop for her. “—do it to someone else.”

“Start over,” I said as I sat down as angrily as I could manage on a pillow-top mattress. The salt circle was still intact, although I was going to have some explaining to do if Mom came in here. I took a long drink of water and then pressed the cold bottle to my feverish cheek.

“That was my death,” Natalie said. “And he's going to do it to someone else in three days, and you're just carrying on like nothing’s wrong.”

“I told you last night it was dark and late and—”

“I don't care!” she said, and the room went chilly. The bottle in my hand grew painfully cold, but I refused to put it down even as the water froze and crackled. “You think that's scary? Try being kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. You're worried about your fucking reputation, and I'm dead. I would literally kill to have your problems, Bridget.”

Then it really sunk in for me. I'd figured out as soon as I woke up from my “nightmare” that those had been Natalie's final memories, but it hadn't really registered for me what that meant. She'd experienced God only knew what over the course of days, maybe even weeks. He'd cut her free, giving her one tiny spark of hope, only to snatch it away. Her final moments had been filled with terror, panic, and the absolute certainty that she was about to die.

“I'm sorry,” I finally said. “I really am.”

“You're the only one who can do anything,” Natalie said. “You can’t ignore this.”

“I'm just a kid,” I said.

“So was I.”

I didn't have a good response for her, so I just stared down at my hands for a long time. This wasn’t fair, not for Natalie or me.

Yeah, and…?

Pity party adjourned. I set the frozen water bottle aside, reached for the rolled up map by my bed, and spread it out. “Then let's get back to work.”

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