Shadow Lake Vampire Society - Wendi Wilson Page 0,40
after I’d returned to Saka’am, convinced True and the girls I was fine, and climbed into my bunk that I remembered the images that had flashed through my mind after I hit my head.
The hard floor, the dark laugh, the pain.
My hand slapped against my neck, my fingers probing the delicate skin for where I had felt the bite. There was no wound. No pain. Nothing. And yet, my heart was pounding double-time as fear gripped me in its icy talons. It had seemed so… real.
But it couldn’t have been. I hit my head. I had the bump to prove it. I’d imagined the whole thing. I was alive, for Christ’s sake, and I’d definitely been dead or close to it in that dream, or whatever it was.
So why was every nerve in my body screaming with terror? Why were my muscles locked up, keeping me immobile?
Remembering Levi’s nifty trick, I forced my hands into fists and took a deep breath. I held it for five seconds, then slowly released it as I relaxed my hands. It helped. I felt better, and I could move my limbs again.
I rolled over onto my side and tried to clear my mind, but the images kept returning. The blurry, distorted face. The ripping sensation at my neck before I floated up and out of my body. The feeling that it was a memory, not a dream, even though I was positive it hadn’t actually happened.
Was I going crazy?
I’d been so sure Chloe and Sarah were hurting little Johnny, but he was fine. I was sure I was dead and floating up in the air while some… one ripped my freaking throat out, yet here I was, whole and unharmed—other than the goose egg on the back of my head and my inability to sleep.
I thought Levi might like me, a little, but he was determined to see me gone from this place.
Yep. Definitely going crazy.
“Piper?”
True materialized beside my bed, waving me out of it and pointing toward the door to the cabin. I extricated myself from the tangled blanket and slipped out, careful not to shake the bed and wake the camper sleeping on the top bunk.
I joined True on the porch, and she motioned for me to sit next to her on the steps. Cool air caressed my skin as I stared into the darkness. I didn’t want to admit it to myself, but I was looking for a certain dark-haired boy who seemed to show up whenever I needed him.
“Talk,” True hissed, her voice pulling my attention from the woods.
“What? I told you everything.”
“You told me you fell and hit your head, and Levi found you and took you to the nurse.” She paused, giving me time to nod. “We both know that was bullshit, Piper. It worked to calm the girls, but I know you better than that. And you’re a terrible liar. So spill.”
I looked into her eyes for a moment, knowing my decision was already made. I trusted True, and I really wanted her input on everything that had happened since I left her at the dinner table with the lie that I was going to the bathroom.
So I told her all of it. Seeing Chef Chloe approach Sarah, and how their leaving together made me suspicious. Spying through the window and fearing for Johnny’s life. Falling and cracking my head. The dream. Waking in the bunker. Levi. His argument to the dean that I should be sent home after they showed me Johnny was unharmed.
True remained quiet through the whole story, which was, in itself, a miracle. My skin tingled with anticipation as I waited for her to speak. Did she think I was insane? Would she turn her back on me like most of my friends back home after my dad died? Maybe I shouldn’t have told her.
“Did I ever tell you I had relatives in New Orleans?” she asked.
The random question threw me off-kilter, and my face screwed up with confusion as I answered. “Uh… no.”
True nodded, her dark eyes glazing over as a faraway look crossed her face.
“My mom is from Orleans Parish, and her two, much-older sisters used to live on the outskirts of the city.”
“Okay,” I said, drawing the word out into a question.
“They’re gone now, but when they were alive, they believed in… stuff. Like, supernatural stuff.”
“Like ghosts and spirits?” I asked, still unsure where this was going and what it had to do with my crazy night.