like dust before vanishing completely.
Hands touched my shoulders. “Are you okay?”
Our faces were only inches apart—a guy about my age, wearing a black nylon flight jacket.
I scrambled backward. “Who are you?”
“My name is Lukas Lockhart, and that’s my brother, Jared.” He looked over at a guy standing by the door in a green army jacket with the name LOCKHART on a patch sewn above the pocket. A pale scar cut across the skin above his eyebrow.
They were both tall and broad-shouldered, with the same messy brown hair and blue eyes.
Identical twins.
The one in the army jacket walked over to Elvis’ body, a gun wrapped in silver duct tape still in his hand.
My stomach lurched, and I bolted off the bed.
“Wait!” one of them shouted, his footsteps practically on top of mine.
The staircase at the end of the hall was too far and he was too close. I’d never make it. But the bathroom was only a few feet away.
I slammed the door behind me and locked it.
The knob rattled a second later. “It’s Lukas. We just want to help.”
I couldn’t think straight. Something that looked like a dead girl had just exploded in my bedroom, and now I was alone in the house with two guys I didn’t know. They had definitely saved my life.…
“You killed my cat.”
“It’s not dead. It took off out the window.” His voice sounded soothing and gentle, which only made me more anxious. “Those were liquid-salt rounds.”
I gasped, remembering the sticky mist in my bedroom. “So he’s okay?”
“Your cat’s probably freaked out,” he said. “But he was alive the last time I saw him.”
Tears of relief ran down my cheeks. “What was that thing inside him?”
Thinking about the girl’s tormented expression and the dark bruises around her neck made my skin crawl. Something horrible must have happened to her—whatever she was.
There was a long pause, followed by whispering on the other side of the door.
“She was a vengeance spirit,” Lukas said. “They manifest when a person suffers a violent or traumatic death.”
I thought about the night in the cemetery and the walk home, when I’d tried to convince myself that I hadn’t seen a girl floating in the graveyard. “A spirit? You mean, like a ghost?”
“Yeah. A really pissed off one.” Another voice passed through the door. It was harder, like the kindness had been hammered out of it. Lukas’ brother—what was his name? Jared.
“I think I’ve seen it before—the ghost.”
“When?” Jared sounded worried.
“A month ago, in the cemetery a few blocks from here.” More whispering. “What did it want with me?”
They were silent for a moment before Lukas answered, “She was using the cat to steal your breath. Vengeance spirits are angry or confused about their deaths, so they attack the living.”
The image of Elvis crouched on my mom’s chest flashed through my mind, and a wave of nausea racked my body. She didn’t die of a heart attack.
I barely made it to the toilet before my stomach lurched.
Someone knocked softly. “You okay?”
My mom was dead, and according to two strangers, an angry spirit had killed her—the same one that had just tried to kill me.
“How did the spirit get inside my cat?” It sounded ridiculous. But I could still feel the unbearable pressure on my chest.
“Most likely by grave jumping. An animal walks over a fresh grave and the spirit hitches a ride.” It was Jared, the one with the gun.
I pictured Elvis walking over the girl’s grave and her ghostly hand shooting up from the ground and grabbing his furry leg. They couldn’t be serious. “Sounds like a crazy superstition.”
“That superstition almost killed you,” Jared said.
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. “Well, I’m fine now. You can go.”
“It’s not safe, Kennedy. You should come with us.”
Regardless of what happened in my room, two guys had broken into my house and they were standing in the hallway, armed. I glanced at the window. The last streaks of darkness were fading from the sky, but the sidewalks remained empty.
“I have my cell,” I bluffed. “Leave, or I’m calling the police.”
“Will you—”
“I’m dialing.”
Eventually, I heard the stairs creak.
I didn’t come out until the front door slammed. I leaned against the wall, staring at my bedroom door, as a question fought its way from the back of my mind.
5. DEAD ENDS
The girl’s tortured expression and the handprints around her neck kept coming back to me, no matter how loud I blasted Velvet Revolver. Even worse, when it wasn’t her face, it was my mother’s empty stare.
My mom was dead because of that girl—or something like her.
The thought had sent me tearing out of the house as soon as the guys left. I had spent hours looking for Elvis, but there was no sign of him. I doubted he would come back to the house. At least he was alive.
Now I was driving around aimlessly on a Saturday morning with nowhere to go.
I almost called Elle, but what could I say? Two guys broke into my house and shot a ghost that tried to kill me? I’m too scared to go home and—oh, did I mention that I’ve lost all touch with reality?
Elle checked our horoscopes every morning, and she’d stayed inside for two days after a palm reader told her that her “future was uncertain,” but a ghost possessing my cat was pushing it. Convincing her that I didn’t need therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder after my mom died had been hard enough.
The light turned red, and I closed my eyes for a second. With the adrenaline rush over, my head pounded. I took a deep breath and tried to relax, when a horn blared behind me.
My eyes flew open to a green light.
I was too exhausted to keep driving around like this.
I pulled into the nearest driveway. At nine thirty in the morning, the lot at the public library was practically empty. Maybe I could sleep for a little while. I locked the doors, unable to shake the feeling that someone, or something, was following me.
I tried to piece together the scene in my bedroom, but the ghost and the gun and the voices were all tangled up in my mind like a pile of broken necklaces. I only remembered snippets of the conversation with Jared and Lukas.
Two girls walked past my window carrying armloads of grad school prep books. I climbed out of the car and followed them into the library. I needed answers, and this was a good place to start.
I found an empty computer station and typed
