Soul Screamers, Volume One by Rachel Vincent

Author:Rachel Vincent
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 2011-07-06T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 19

“What?” My hand fisted around a cube of cheese, and it squished between my fingers. My pulse pounded so hard in my throat I thought it would explode. “You mean the night Mom died.”

My father nodded. “She died that night too. But you went first.”

“Whoa…” Nash leaned forward on his stool, glancing back and forth between me and my father. “Kaylee died?”

My dad sighed, settling in for a long story. “It was February, the year you were three. The roads were icy. We don’t get much winter weather in Texas, so when it does come, no one quite knows how to handle it. Including me.”

“Wait, I’ve heard all this before.” I dumped the pasta into the now-boiling water, and a puff of steam wafted into my face, coating my skin in a layer of instant dampness and warmth. “You were driving, and we were broadsided by another car on an icy road. I broke my right arm and leg, and Mom died.”

My father nodded miserably, then swallowed thickly and continued. “We were on our way here, for Sophie’s birthday party. Your mother thought the weather was too bad, but I said we’d be fine. It was a short trip, and your cousin adored you. The whole thing was my fault.”

“What happened?” I asked, my cheesy hand forgotten.

My father blinked slowly, as if warding off tears. “There was a deer in the road. I wasn’t going that fast, but the road was icy, and the deer was huge. I swerved to avoid it, and the car slid on the ice. We wound up sideways in the road. An oncoming car smashed into us. Near the rear on the passenger’s side. Your car seat was crushed.”

I closed my eyes and gripped the countertop as a wave of vertigo threatened to knock me over. No. My mother had died in that accident, not me. I’d been pretty banged up, but I’d lived.

I was living proof of that!

My eyes opened, focusing on my father instantly. “Dad, I remember parts of that. I was in the hospital for weeks. I had two casts. We still have pictures. But I’m alive. See?” I spread my arms across the countertop to demonstrate my point. “So what happened? The paramedics brought me back?”

The truth was looming, a great, dark cloud on my mind’s horizon. I could almost see it, but I refused to bring it into focus. Refused to acknowledge the coming storm until it broke over my head, drenching me with a cold, cruel wash of the answers I’d thought I wanted.

I no longer wanted them.

But my father only shook his head. “They didn’t get there in time. The man driving the other car was a doctor, but his wife hit her head on something, and he was trying to wake her up. By the time he came to help us, it was all over.”

“No.” I stirred the pasta so hard boiling water slopped onto the stovetop, hissing on the flat burner.

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