State of Decay (Omnibus (Parts 1-4)) (23 page)

Read on for a Sneak Peek of the first part of an all new novella serial,
Unnatural Occurrence
, by Peggy Martinez. Coming to a kindle near you very soon.

I normally ignore
the recently deceased. I definitely don’t stare at them openly or watch in awe and horror as the colors of their leftover aura meld into and out of them until they slowly fade away, leaving nothing behind but the slightest wisps of energy to indicate that they ever even existed. The dead can’t tell their side of a story. The living can’t see the dead like I can. Of course, I’m not normal. Never have been and never will be. Maybe I
could
have had a normal childhood. If it weren’t for the accident that killed my dad when I was three, if the very life hadn’t been snatched from my body for over seven minutes before I “came back” … maybe I could have lived a happy and ordinary life.

But I knew … I knew it was just a matter of time before they came to lock me up in a padded room and threw away the key. I spent my entire childhood trying
to avoid that fate, but it was just a matter of time before I could no longer hide the fact that I was different.
Just a matter of time
.

On the day of my high school graduation I finally realized a simple truth. No amount of pretending and no amount of ignoring could change the fact that I was different. And it was high time I sucked it up and accepted it as the truth. It was actually a lot easier than I imagined it would be, but I guess that could have had something to do with fact that my momma’s ghost was hovering near her body with her aura already fading to the palest shades of gray as police and other officials walked around. They were taking notes and examining the body as I sat at the kitchen table, not hearing whatever it was they said or didn’t say.

My eyes were riveted on my momma’s face, for the first time not hiding the fact that I was staring at something no one else could see, at something unexplainable. In that moment, I didn’t care what people thought of me. I didn’t care if they would question why I was staring at nothing. I only cared what it was my momma wanted to tell me, what it was she needed to let me know before she moved on from this world.

“She didn’t kill herself,” I whispered through my tears.

“Excuse me?” A young detective named Patterson, with dark brown hair, green eyes, and a dimple in his cheek stepped closer to the table, his eyes sharp and his voice low. He couldn’t have been more than twenty-four or twenty-five. Waves of blue aura poured off of him. Sympathy.

“I said she didn’t kill herself. She wouldn’t have.” I didn’t let my eyes drift away from my momma’s ghost,
afraid she’d disappear as soon as I let her out of my sight. After a moment, Detective Patterson’s eyes slipped away from my profile and glanced over at the spot above the body, where I was staring before turning them back to me with a frown between his eyebrows.

“How do you know that, Anna?” he asked gently.

“I know because I can …” Momma’s ghost shook her head sadly and placed a blurry finger near her lips. I clenched my jaw as more tears poured down my already wet cheeks. The detective’s eyes glanced between me and where momma’s ghost stood, the frown on his face deepening. “I just know,” I said softly. He sighed deeply before crouching down next to me.

“I know this is extremely difficult for you, so I won’t tell you how it will all eventually get easier, because the truth is it
never
gets easier. But I will tell you that I’ll make sure your mom’s death is thoroughly investigated to the best of the city’s ability. To the best of
my
ability.” I sucked in a sharp breath, my head buzzing with a new realization—his ability would never be good enough. No matter how thorough he was, no matter how deeply he dug into everything he knew about her death, he would never come to the correct conclusion. He’d never be able to really know what happened to my momma, because the only person who had the ability to see past the normal, to look past the everyday explanation was … me. My momma’s eyes closed gently and a small smile graced her lips. Her form immediately began to disintegrate.

As she disappeared before my eyes, I began making plans. I knew right then that if I wanted justice, if I wanted to know what had happened, I’d have to figure it out all on my own. There was no other way. There was
no one else. I blinked back my left over tears and looked over to where Detective Patterson was still kneeling beside me. Still watching me. I met his gaze and gave him a small, tight smile.

“I know you will, Detective. And I’ll do whatever
I
have to do too.” I stood up from the table and glanced down at my momma’s empty shell on the kitchen floor. I allowed myself full access to my special abilities like I had never dared to before. I opened my eyes wide, and …
saw
.

I saw the tiniest flickers of my mother’s life force, her energy, her aura, floating about her body. But more importantly, I saw the strands that I knew would be there. Strands of black aura danced around my mother’s corpse. Death had been here and not the grayness that enveloped all of the newly dead, no, this was an inky darkness that coated my mother’s body, clung to it, reluctant to leave its prize. I heard the Detective calling my name, but I blocked out the sound of his voice as I pushed my ebony hair out of my face and exposed my “bad” eye, focusing it intently on the crime scene. Ah, yes. Something evil had been in my kitchen, something evil and not quite …
human
.

In the back of my skull a tingling sensation crept across my scalp, prickling the hair on the nap of my neck. How could I know that? How could that even be possible? My head swam with the implications and I staggered from the awareness that it wasn’t really all
that
much of a surprise to me. Images, colors, and scents all flashed across my memory, all from the first few years after the accident. All those years I worked to suppress the things I saw with my “extra” consciousness to keep my mother from worrying, to keep my teachers from noticing, and to keep myself sane. The room spun.

“Whoa there. Let’s get you out of here.” Detective Patterson murmured as he led me out of the kitchen and into our tiny living room with his arm around my shoulders. I sat down on the sofa and stared at the carpet. I knew I had other abilities, but I’d never realized that
other
things could have been a possibility. “Anna?” The Detective’s voice seemed more strained than before and I realized that he must have called my name several times. I put a hand out and looked up from the carpet to meet his gaze. His eyes widened slightly as he saw all of me. My eye wasn’t hideous … just surprising. His aura was glowing so brightly that I had to stop myself from shielding my eyes. His aura, light golden in color with a small smudge of black marring its perfection, was intertwining with blue waves of sympathy and helplessness. His feelings beat upon me mercilessly. I winced and looked away from him. I wasn’t used to opening myself so entirely to my “gifts”.

“Thank you, Detective, I appreciate your kindness. I’ll be okay, don’t worry,” I assured him. He looked at me, watching my face and trying not to stare too long at my eye. I could tell he was concerned about me and just the smallest bit … intrigued. I’m not sure why I did it, but, I stood, raised a hand, and ran my palm lightly over his aura, hovering an inch from his face and then down and around the spot over his heart. I watched, fascinated, as his aura danced around the palm of my hand. “You are a good man, Detective.” He stood in front of me with his eyes wide and barely breathing. The tendrils of his aura caressed my wrist and
intertwined with my fingers. I ran my palm back in front of his heart.

“You’ve been touched by darkness,” I said sadly. He sucked a breath in through his clenched teeth. “That darkness will always be there, it has become a part of you now.” I held his stare and placed my palm flat on his chest. My hand vibrated from the contact. “But, it doesn’t have to be who you are and it doesn’t have to eat away at you as it does now. Search inside yourself and you’ll find the strength you need to move past your fears—past your doubts.” I stepped back from the Detective, suddenly so tired I could barely keep my eyes opened.

I laid down on the sofa and listened as one-by-one everyone finished their jobs and left me alone in the house. Even though Detective Patterson was hesitant, he too eventually left me. I didn’t have any other family and I was already eighteen, so there really was nothing anyone could do for me. Besides, I knew that my life had already been altered the moment my mother had been killed. And the moment I decided to open myself to
see
without restraint since I was a child, I knew I could never go back to the way things were before.

To go back would be bliss, but not without a cost. To go back would be serenity in darkness, but what kind of life could I lead without the illumination of the truth? To go back would be to
choose
ignorance over my new reality. No. I wouldn’t never go back … even if that meant moving forward into the unknown all alone.

###

YA/NA Time
Warper Series

Contingency (Book #1, Now available)

Relativity (Book #2,
Now available)

Brevity (Novelette #2.2,
Now available)

Eventuality (Book #3, Coming Spring 2014)

New Adult Contemporary Sweet Romance

Sweet Contradiction (Now available)

Perfect Contradiction (Coming Spring 2014)

Adult Fantasy Novella Serial

Unnatural Occurrence (Part #1, Coming February 2014)