Before I Wake
Page 51
My hands were shaking again, and my heart was pounding like it hadnt since the night I died. Youre not coming with me?
Madeline shook her head. Since youre new, under normal circumstances, Id go to observe and help out where I can. However, I have a meeting with the head of my old district in five minutes, wherein I plan to beg for some emergency manpower.
I nodded slowly, and a cold numbness blossomed in my stomach, then began to spread. On my own. I was going to be on my own. If I died, thered be no witness to tell my friends and family what happened to me.
Kaylee, listen to me, Madeline said, and I forced my eyes to bring her back into focus. If this goes badly, run. We need the thief, but we need you worse. Do you understand?
Yeah. Tod had said the same thing the night before. I turned to Luca and could hardly hear the words coming from my own mouth. Where am I going?
Second floor of the mall. East end. He shrugged, and I was relieved to realize he looked as stunned by all of this as I was. Thats where the body is, anyway, though someone may have found it by now.
I nodded. Then I concentrated on the mall and blinked out of the quad before I could lose my nerve.
Three miles was too far for me to go in one shot, at least without more practice, so I had to stop twice on the way, but I still arrived at the east end of the mall just seconds after Id left school.
The mall was pretty quiet in the middle of a weekday, when most people were still at work and school, but the indoor playground was crowded with toddlers and their mothers, the gossip and giggles floating up to me from the floor below. Two elderly ladies race-walked past without seeing me, their arms pumping, sneakers squeaking on the floor. Other than that, I saw only a handful of shoppers carrying bags, most of them women in their thirties, and the occasional man in a suit, whod stopped at the mall for lunch.
None of them looked like a murderer, which forced me to admit that I had no idea what a murderer looked like. The police had thought Nash looked like a killer, but he was innocent. Tod killed people for a livingonly those whose time was upand no one would ever know, just from looking at him. If they couldve seen him. Mr. Beck could have been a movie star, but he was guilty as hell. And if we were being really nitpicky about the definition, I was a killer, too.
So the only thing I could be certain of as I scanned the faces around me, glad I was incorporeal so no one could see me clutching the heart-shaped amphora hanging from a chain around my neck, was that no one had found the body yet. There wasnt a security guard or an EMT in sight.
As I walked, heading toward the department store at the very end of the mall, I let a thin ribbon of my bean sidhe wail leak from my lips, satisfied that no one else could hear it when a Sears employee walked right past me with a large fountain drink inhand. Any disembodied soul should have been pulled toward the sound, and I, in return, should have been pulled toward the soul. But I felt nothing.
Was I too late? Had the thief already taken his stolen soul and fled?
Frustrated, I stopped at the end of the mall, in front of the cornerstone department store, and crossed both arms over my chest, scanning the few shoppers for somethinganythingthat stood out. I was just about to admit defeat and return to Madeline empty-handedsecretly relieved at not having found the monster that would most likely have stolen my soul and ended my afterlifewhen someone stepped out of the back hall that housed restrooms, storage, and the malls security office.
My gaze probably wouldnt have snagged on the girl for very long, if hers hadnt already snagged on me. She shouldnt have been able to see me, yet she was looking right at me. And she looked familiar. Eerily, thoroughly familiarevery single part of her, including her short, sparkly dress, sequined sandals, and her long, reddish blond hair.
Familiarity bled into recognition, and chills shot through me, settling into my fingers and toes, reverberating the length of my spine. Id never actually met her, and Id only seen her once, but I would have recognized her anytime, anywhere, even if she werent still wearing the clothes shed had on the night I saw her. The night I predicted her death. The night she died on the floor of the bathroom at Taboo, the eighteen-and-over dance club where Emmas sister worked.
Heidi Anderson. Her death was the very first prediction Id ever been able to verify, and that led to my discovery of my bean sidhe heritage, which threw me and Nash together as a couple and brought my father home from Ireland. Heidis death had changed my life and set into motion the events that had led to my death. Which was how I knew for a fact that I couldnt possibly be seeing what I was seeing.
Heidi was dead, yet there she stood. Then she started walking. Toward me. She could clearly see me, even though I was sure Id done the invisibility thing right this time.
I backed up, eyes wide, still clenching the heart around my neck, and still she came, smiling that creepy dead-girl smile, long hair swishing behind her with every step. I retreated until my spine hit the wall and there was nowhere left to go unless I blinked out of the mall. But I couldnt do that. Someone was dead, and a soul had been stolen, and Heidis presence couldnt be a coincidence.
Was she a ghost? Was there any such thing? I made a mental note to ask Tod or Luca when this was over and I wasnt staring into the eyes of a dead girl. It takes one to know one, right? So was she like me? Was she undead? If so, where had she been for the past seven months? She wasnt a reaper. Not a local one, anywayTod would have told me if she were. And she definitely didnt work for reclamation.
Madeline shook her head. Since youre new, under normal circumstances, Id go to observe and help out where I can. However, I have a meeting with the head of my old district in five minutes, wherein I plan to beg for some emergency manpower.
I nodded slowly, and a cold numbness blossomed in my stomach, then began to spread. On my own. I was going to be on my own. If I died, thered be no witness to tell my friends and family what happened to me.
Kaylee, listen to me, Madeline said, and I forced my eyes to bring her back into focus. If this goes badly, run. We need the thief, but we need you worse. Do you understand?
Yeah. Tod had said the same thing the night before. I turned to Luca and could hardly hear the words coming from my own mouth. Where am I going?
Second floor of the mall. East end. He shrugged, and I was relieved to realize he looked as stunned by all of this as I was. Thats where the body is, anyway, though someone may have found it by now.
I nodded. Then I concentrated on the mall and blinked out of the quad before I could lose my nerve.
Three miles was too far for me to go in one shot, at least without more practice, so I had to stop twice on the way, but I still arrived at the east end of the mall just seconds after Id left school.
The mall was pretty quiet in the middle of a weekday, when most people were still at work and school, but the indoor playground was crowded with toddlers and their mothers, the gossip and giggles floating up to me from the floor below. Two elderly ladies race-walked past without seeing me, their arms pumping, sneakers squeaking on the floor. Other than that, I saw only a handful of shoppers carrying bags, most of them women in their thirties, and the occasional man in a suit, whod stopped at the mall for lunch.
None of them looked like a murderer, which forced me to admit that I had no idea what a murderer looked like. The police had thought Nash looked like a killer, but he was innocent. Tod killed people for a livingonly those whose time was upand no one would ever know, just from looking at him. If they couldve seen him. Mr. Beck could have been a movie star, but he was guilty as hell. And if we were being really nitpicky about the definition, I was a killer, too.
So the only thing I could be certain of as I scanned the faces around me, glad I was incorporeal so no one could see me clutching the heart-shaped amphora hanging from a chain around my neck, was that no one had found the body yet. There wasnt a security guard or an EMT in sight.
As I walked, heading toward the department store at the very end of the mall, I let a thin ribbon of my bean sidhe wail leak from my lips, satisfied that no one else could hear it when a Sears employee walked right past me with a large fountain drink inhand. Any disembodied soul should have been pulled toward the sound, and I, in return, should have been pulled toward the soul. But I felt nothing.
Was I too late? Had the thief already taken his stolen soul and fled?
Frustrated, I stopped at the end of the mall, in front of the cornerstone department store, and crossed both arms over my chest, scanning the few shoppers for somethinganythingthat stood out. I was just about to admit defeat and return to Madeline empty-handedsecretly relieved at not having found the monster that would most likely have stolen my soul and ended my afterlifewhen someone stepped out of the back hall that housed restrooms, storage, and the malls security office.
My gaze probably wouldnt have snagged on the girl for very long, if hers hadnt already snagged on me. She shouldnt have been able to see me, yet she was looking right at me. And she looked familiar. Eerily, thoroughly familiarevery single part of her, including her short, sparkly dress, sequined sandals, and her long, reddish blond hair.
Familiarity bled into recognition, and chills shot through me, settling into my fingers and toes, reverberating the length of my spine. Id never actually met her, and Id only seen her once, but I would have recognized her anytime, anywhere, even if she werent still wearing the clothes shed had on the night I saw her. The night I predicted her death. The night she died on the floor of the bathroom at Taboo, the eighteen-and-over dance club where Emmas sister worked.
Heidi Anderson. Her death was the very first prediction Id ever been able to verify, and that led to my discovery of my bean sidhe heritage, which threw me and Nash together as a couple and brought my father home from Ireland. Heidis death had changed my life and set into motion the events that had led to my death. Which was how I knew for a fact that I couldnt possibly be seeing what I was seeing.
Heidi was dead, yet there she stood. Then she started walking. Toward me. She could clearly see me, even though I was sure Id done the invisibility thing right this time.
I backed up, eyes wide, still clenching the heart around my neck, and still she came, smiling that creepy dead-girl smile, long hair swishing behind her with every step. I retreated until my spine hit the wall and there was nowhere left to go unless I blinked out of the mall. But I couldnt do that. Someone was dead, and a soul had been stolen, and Heidis presence couldnt be a coincidence.
Was she a ghost? Was there any such thing? I made a mental note to ask Tod or Luca when this was over and I wasnt staring into the eyes of a dead girl. It takes one to know one, right? So was she like me? Was she undead? If so, where had she been for the past seven months? She wasnt a reaper. Not a local one, anywayTod would have told me if she were. And she definitely didnt work for reclamation.
