Death and the Girl Next Door by Jones Darynda

Author:Jones, Darynda [Jones, Darynda]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2012-10-02T05:00:00+00:00

VISIONS OF SUGARPLUMS

“Can’t you sleep?”

I raised my head and tried to open my lead-filled lids. I was sleeping just fine, thank you very much.

“I can sleep,” Brooklyn said. “I just prefer listening to music.”

“Really?”

Ah, Cameron. They must have come in after I passed out. I pried my lids open the best I could and looked at them through my mussed hair. Cameron was sitting on the window seat, back straight, alert as always. Did that guy ever rest?

“I have bad dreams,” Brooklyn said, “when it’s too quiet.” She was on her own twin bed that was tucked into the corner by the window seat. Grandma and Grandpa had bought it for her, since she practically lived with us anyway. “Can’t you sleep?”

“Not with him here.” He indicated Jared with a nod of his head.

I couldn’t help but peek over the side of my bed to study the boy sleeping so soundly beside me. He looked almost totally healed already. He had light bruises and scratches where deep cuts and swollen golf balls had been before. I glanced back at Cameron. The same. Healing quickly was definitely part of who they were. It would have taken a normal person days, even weeks to reach that point.

Trying not to be noticed, I raised up and peeked over at Glitch. He was on the floor in a sleeping bag. Pretty much every available inch of floor space had been confiscated.

“Have you slept at all lately?” Brooklyn asked. She had on her favorite pajamas, the ones with tiny turtles all over them, the ones that disturbed Glitch.

“Do you care?” Cameron volleyed.

She sighed and hugged a pillow to her. “Cameron, I know what you were doing, why you were following Lorelei. You saw him, didn’t you? You knew what he was.”

He rested back against the window and looked out of it. “I only felt it at first. Then, about a week ago, I saw it following her.”

“You saw Jared? He’s been here for a week?”

“No. At first, there was simply a fine dark mist. It was so unlike Lorelei, I knew something else was there.”

“What do you mean, so unlike her?”

He rubbed the back of his fingers on the cold glass. “Lorelei’s aura is bright, like fire. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“You can see her aura?” Brooklyn asked, propping her elbows on the pillow.

“I can see everyone’s auras, ever since I was a kid.”

“Wow.” She pondered on that briefly before asking, “So, when you first saw them, when you were a kid, did you know what they were?”

“Not even,” he said, shaking his head. “I used to ask my dad why people didn’t glow in their pictures like they did in real life. That’s when it hit me. Not everyone could see them. My dad made me promise not to tell anyone.”

“That’s pretty amazing.” Pausing thoughtfully, she asked, “So, what color is mine?”

“Oh, no,” he said, turning to her with a wary expression. “Trust me. You do not want to go there.”

She gasped. “Is it bad?”

“Awful.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.