Grace and Glory (The Harbinger #3) - Jennifer L. Armentrout Page 0,48
or that I wasn’t capable. I didn’t want people’s sympathy or pity. I wanted to be seen as me and not the girl who was going blind, but the thing was, I was me—a Trueborn who knew how to fight and was ready to throw down, who loved marathoning old ’90s sitcoms and missed her mom, who knew what lost felt like and who was madly, deeply in love. I was also the girl who was going blind. What was happening to me wasn’t the sum of who I was, but it was a part of who I was.
Why it took some nineteen years to realize that, I had no idea, but I felt way mature. I was smiling when I walked into the school.
The smile didn’t last.
As soon as the door swung shut behind us, the air seemed to thicken and swirl around us. Continuously scanning the empty glass cases and closed locker doors, I walked forward. The goose bumps returned with a vengeance as my ears pricked. My steps slowed as I strained to listen...
“Is it just me or does it feel as if it’s damn near close to freezing in here?” Jordan asked.
I was half expecting to see my breath when I breathed, but that wasn’t what I was focused on. Brows knitting, I tilted my head to the side, listening for a few more moments. “I’m guessing you guys don’t hear that.”
“I hear nothing other than the voice whispering in my head that this place gives me the creeps,” Teller muttered. “And that’s my own voice.”
I cracked a grin. “I hear...chattering.”
“You don’t see anything?” Dez turned to me.
I shook my head. “Not yet.” I glanced up at what appeared to be a normal ceiling. “The cop that got eaten by the ceiling? They didn’t make it any farther than this, right?”
“Right,” Jordan answered.
I turned to my right, entire body tensing. The doors to the gymnasium were closed and the lights were on inside, but I remembered what was beyond the doors last time. A gym full of dead people who weren’t playing basketball.
“The portal is accessed through there, isn’t it?” Jordan asked.
I nodded. “I’m sure you all are eager to see it, but I don’t think it will be wise to go down there unless we have to. That’s where a bulk of the Shadow People were last time. I killed a lot of them, but I bet they’ve been replaced.”
“They’re guarding the portal,” Teller asserted.
“They’re definitely—” A dark shape moved past the windows on the gym doors, and a second later, a face appeared in the window, gray and distorted as the mouth dropped open, letting out a silent scream.
Another ghost appeared, this one hanging upside down. Stringy, dark hair obscured the face. A hand clawed the glass, its skin patchy and an unnatural dark shade.
“Do I want to know what you’re looking at?” Dez asked.
“A whole room full of nope.” I exhaled noisily as I walked toward the gym. The hairs on my arms stood up as my grace pulsed and throbbed. I reached for the handle.
“Shouldn’t we be looking upstairs since the officer was sucked through the ceiling?” Teller wondered.
We could, but I had a feeling we didn’t need to. “Stay out here until I give you the all clear.”
Hoping they listened to me, I opened the doors wide.
And ghosts spilled out into the hall, brushing past me and through me as I stared in. The last time I’d been here, the lights had been turned off. I hadn’t been able to see what was in here, and I’d thought that had been a nightmare come to life.
I’d been wrong.
Seeing was so much worse.
The gym was packed with ghosts. Those milling about randomly looked the most...fresh. Some of them almost looked alive, having passed either naturally or from causes that weren’t visible. They seemed unaware of the others around them, and they didn’t even turn toward the open door. I had a sinking feeling they hadn’t been here the last time. My heart ached upon the sight of them. Somehow they’d been led here and then trapped inside by the angelic wards. They were good people who would most likely never have a chance to move on.
A man in a white shirt with some kind of blue graphic on the chest and blue jeans paced, pulling at his brown hair. “I don’t understand. I don’t understand,” he mumbled over and over.