Almost Dead (Dead, #1) (18 page)

I honestly don’t know whether I should laugh or cry.
Well, I can’t really do either at the moment—I need to focus on what’s at stake—but if I make it out of this chaos alive, both are in the near future.

Flora
interrupts my brief moment of reflection by asking, “Do you think they’re…you know…?”

“Shut up!
” I retort, cutting her off. I don’t want to hear whatever’s on her mind. God, I can’t think with her asking me stupid questions that are none of her business. Why isn’t she still at my house, convincing Mia that our bodies lay at the bottom of Death’s Cliff? She needs to make herself useful.
Ugh
. I can’t be m { ca2em" ad at her, though; she’s only voicing the same idea aloud as what was in my head. Wait—am I playing the devil’s advocate? Apparently, I’m in need of a major intervention.

The argument between Hilary and Chase stops wh
en he pulls out his cell phone and begins talking to someone on the other end. He better not be calling more chicks to join in, so he can use his submarine in the hot tub or something. Oh, my God, I want to vomit.

As soon as Chase hangs up, Hilary moves in for
a hug. I guess after having a mini fight she wants to be reassured there’s still affection between them. Chase takes a step back, throwing his hands up and signaling for her to stop. In return, she gives him a brief, wide-eyed look but is able to keep her emotions under control, if her fake smile counts for anything. He points toward the front of the house, like he’s ordering her to leave. Hilary doesn’t protest. She silently walks through the side gate, gets in her car, and backs out of the driveway.

After
Hilary’s departure from his property, Chase’s lips puff out as he scratches the back of his head. Glancing around, he latches the gate shut and strides inside, one of the French doors closing behind him.

“That was weird,” says Flora.

I grit my teeth. “Not as weird as you following me here and not staying at my house to convince Mia we’re still alive. We would’ve had a better chance at being rescued if we were split up.”

“Yeah, well, I tried that with
my crystal-smashing party. Didn’t work. Your sister was too busy trying to sleep with my ex-boyfriend. I then punched a hole through a painting which symbolically represented our friendship, and that didn’t work, either.”

My head snaps in her direction. “You guys are, like, the definition of best friends. That doesn’t make
any sense.” Does some part of me actually, dare I say it,
pity
her? What’s wrong with me?

“Apparently, all it takes is her
best friend
”—she grimaces at the words—“disappearing for a few days for her to run straight into his arms. It’s not like it happened overnight. She has his number, so it was probably transpiring before the accident.”

“Sorry.”

“At least I know so when I return—” Wincing, she doesn’t finish.

“
You all right?”

“I used too much energy back at your place, but I’ll be fine.”

She’s a horrible liar.

“We need a plan, and we need one fast.
I could admire Chase’s good looks all day, but that doesn’t help me if I ever want to see him again.”

Flora
stands, slowly but surely. “We need to find a piece of p { a h="2em"aper, so you can write a note to Chase.” She reaches into her jeans pocket and pulls out a pen. “I’ve been using my energy to hold on to it.”

I wave my hand
back and forth between the pen and her pocket. “Then we need find something to write on. Like,
pronto
.”

“Here, you take it,”
she says, gripping the pen. “I can’t anymore. I’ve used too much energy.”

Oh, hell no. She is not doing this to me. She is
not
giving up when we’ve come this far.

“Where
’s Flora Mackey, and what have you done with her?”

“
Laney, I can’t go on much further. So whatever plan it is we come up with better be a good one. I’m fading…
fast
.”

“Quit being a baby. God, you’re worse than Mia.”
I won’t tell her that she’s scaring the shit out of me. To be completely honest, I can’t do this without her. Yeah, I tell her all the time she’s worthless and stupid, but she’s the one who’s the fighter, who acts like she has it all figured out. I sure as hell don’t.

She pins me with a glare. “Don’t
say your sister’s name.”

“Fine, I won’t.
In the meantime, you can come up with a brilliant scheme to get us out of this place.”

A light flashes against mine and Flor
a’s cheeks, dims, then returns—over and over again. Peering through a crack in the side fence, I see police cars parked in the driveway. I might actually screech from excitement.

“Is that who he called earlier?”
Flora questions.

I shrug. “Probably. I was on my wa
y to his house when we crashed, and I’m not exactly the type to leave town.”

“Maybe Hilary was worried, too, and that’s why she was here.”

But I doubt it. “You know how you don’t want me to say my sister’s name in your presence? It’d be great if you could do the same with
her
. ’Kay? Thanks.”

Flora chuckles. I give her the stink eye, so she
tells me, “A missing-person report can’t be filed for the first forty-eight hours. I bet Chase has been waiting all this time, and since you didn’t show up here, or any of your friends’ houses, he called the police. Your boyfriend might be our redemption. I wouldn’t be so quick to crucify him just yet.”

I hate it when she has a point.

Flora continues, “I thought my parents or Derek wou { orlight flald’ve been our heroes. They were searching for me, I’m sure of it. Why else would they have been riding around town in separate vehicles?”

“Are you sure they didn’t find you?”

She gives me a
Duh, Laney
look. “We’d be lying in hospital beds by now if they had, not roaming around the Shadowlands.”

“True.
So, if you saw them earlier, what happened? Why aren’t we rescued yet?”

Flora rolls her eyes. “I might’ve scared the shit out of Derek. It was fun, at first, but then he fled, and I couldn’t catch up. I don’t know about my parents. After I ran after him, I saw Mia, and the rest is history.”

I sigh. “This sucks. And don’t think this will happen often—because it won’t—but I think you’re right about Chase. I think he’ll be the one to find us. Unless your parents somehow beat him to it.”

“I won’t hold my breath,” she coolly states.

Traveling through the French doors, I note Chase talking to the police on the foyer, which is where I advance to. I can’t exactly know what they might be talking about if I’m not close enough to read their lips. One of the officers pulls a ballpoint out of his shirt pocket and begins scribbling information onto the pad in his hand. This is the best thing I’ve witnessed since I arrived in the Shadowlands (it certainly wasn’t landing in a garbage bin or seeing my living room wrecked, that’s for sure).

“Think they’ll start searching for us right away?” Flora asks as she creeps up beside me.

Having no freaking clue what they’re saying, I answer, “Don’t know. Maybe. Maybe not.”

Flora
and I stand side by side until the police leave. Even then, I don’t know what to do. Just being in the same room as Chase without him seeing me is like a swift kick to the ovaries—it hurts. Pacing the living room, he drops to his knees, planting his forehead and fists against the hardwood floor. His back heaves up and down in what might be a serious case of gut-wrenching cries.

Oh, Chase. My poor baby.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper, dropping down beside him, wishing there’s a way to let him know I’m here, even if it’s only in spirit.

The Shadowlands
isn’t my favorite place in the world, and it definitely doesn’t offer much help for lost souls. This would’ve been ten times easier had I been able to hear what Chase was saying, or if I could write a simple note to let him know I’m present and accounted for, without using energy.

The more I think about it, the more I realize
the laws of the universe don’t apply here; this place is far from the normal I know. But maybe that’s just it. Maybe what’s normal to everybody on earth isn’t standard anywhere else. We’re, like, in our own little, separate universes.

Whoa. Okay, no more deep thinking for me.

Tilting my head and angling it so Flora can hear, I remark, “I can’t concentrate right now, not with him like this.” God, I just want to run my fingers through his light-brown hair, or have him wrap me in his arms, telling me everything’s going to be okay. “We need a plan. So, I need to know where we begin before our time runs out. If that means putting aside our differences to save my life, then whatever, I’ll do it.”

“
Well, in that case, I have an idea of where we can start.”

P
atting my jeans pocket where the pen is stuck, I say, “You’re going to need this and some paper. Where would Chase keep a notebook or a notepad?”

Laney
frowns from over her shoulder. “Probably in his backpack, but it’s not like he ever does his homework, so it’s probably still in his locker at school.”

Well, that’s just dandy. “Dude, we don’t have time to
search for the high school, locate Chase’s locker, grab a notebook, and then return to his house. Where
else
would he keep paper lying around?”

“The kitchen?”
she asks, her pitch increasing. “I don’t freaking know, Flora. It’s not like I spend my time digging through every drawer and seat cushion while I’m here.”

“Listen,” I hiss. “I may come up with the plan, but you’re going to follow it through. I just don’t have the energy.”

Laney stands at a turtle’s pace, then turns, facing me. Her eyes are wild,
furious
. If I wasn’t nearly dead, she’d probably kill me.

“What?” she as
ks under her breath.

I stutter, trying to find the
right words, but it’s no use. She’s freaking me out. I hope she doesn’t waste her energy on some mischievous-spirit bullshit.

She
carries on. “You said you had an idea, and I believed you.”

Pointing my finger at her, I
exclaim, “Uh, no. I said I had an idea of where to start. I didn’t say it was a full-blown military operation in which the President, the CIA, and the FBI are involved. All you have to do is find a piece of paper and doodle a damn message. That’s it.”

Her eyelids resume their normalcy instead of being nonexistent, and her shoulders relax. “Fine. Give me the stupid pen.” She extends her hand, palm up.

I snatch the pen out of my front jeans pocket and place it in Laney’s hand. She tucks it inside her bra. Gross.

< ~ al
“Help me look,” Laney says on her way
to the kitchen.

We pass through
the dining room. The crystal gems on the chandelier, shaped like teardrops, reflect daylight from outside. Wait—daylight? It can’t be daylight. I backtrack to the large window and peer out, my hands pressing against the glass. For just a heartbeat, the lines blur between this world and ours. Color returns. Bright orange and pink hues stretch across the clouded sky, the two shades mingling with each other.