Ash and Darkness (Translucent #3) Read Online Free

DARK .
    My pulse rang in my ears, and a dry pressure built at the base of my throat. It was talking to me again—the creature, dark matter—like it had through my cell phone.
    But this was different.
    This time it had acted directly on the physical world, it had moved an actual object.
    Something was wrong with my left arm, I realized belatedly. It felt wrong. Numb. Like it had been in a funky position for too long and the nerves had stopped responding. Perplexed, I lifted it up . . . and felt my hand lift up from the planchette.
    The planchette.
    Where it had been resting the entire time.
    In a moment of sickening clarity, I understood.
    My own invisible hand had moved the planchette, not something else. Dark matter had acted through me.
    I was becoming its puppet.
    As I faded, its presence grew stronger. Soon, all of me would be gone, and the only thing left would be . . . it .
    How much time did I have left?
    Emory.
    My heart seized up. I needed to tell him. Now.
    Before it was too late. I shoved off the floor and hurled myself straight through the walls into sunlight.
    Since I couldn’t drive a car, couldn’t even hold a key, I ran to his house at a near sprint. The pavement battered my heels, the blocks crept by—along with all the oblivious people enjoying their Saturday afternoons.
    I cut through backyards and ran right through them, hoping for something.
    It felt like running through light, flashes of warmth here and there, but otherwise nothing.
    They were holograms, projections.
    A reddish sun seeped across the sky, giving the afternoon the depressing sepia hue of an old photograph.
    Like I was seeing the world through tinted glass.
    I staggered up to Emory’s curb and keeled over, wincing from the stitch in my side.
    I could still feel that .
    As I hobbled up to his porch, a nervous twinge tightened in my chest. I killed her. What if those were my last words to him? Ever?
    I found Emory in his bedroom, asleep shirtless on his side, one big arm slung off the bed. Seriously? It was four in the afternoon. How late was he going to sleep in? God, how I wanted to curl up under that arm and never, ever tell him.
    But I had to do this. He had to know.
    If dark matter doomed me to wander the Earth as a ghost, I needed the Ashley affair off my chest or it would eat away at me forever. I had to set this straight.
    “Emory,” I hissed, then louder. “Emory!”
    He didn’t stir.
    My eyes darted around his room for something like a Ouija board, a planchette, something to communicate with, wake him up.
    Hanging crookedly on the wall, a painting—probably Ashley’s—showed a boy and girl lost in the woods. Not heavy enough.
    A laser crystal paperweight on his desk caught my eye, a ghostly football floating inside a glass prism.
    Focusing, I pressed my finger against the edge. It nudged a centimeter before my finger went through. I tried again, brow tight. The cube scraped another inch and tipped off the desk, landing with a loud thump.
    He startled awake, instantly alert eyes scanning the room until they settled on the paperweight. He flung off the covers and stalked over to it, lifted it, turned it over.
    I went to work on a pencil, made it jiggle.
    His eyes flicked to the movement, and he reached out to stop it, eyebrows knotted. His hand brushed mine.
    We both froze, fingers touching.
    We were touching. He can touch me!
    “Emory, can you . . . can you hear me?” A knot tightened in my throat.
    “ Leona? ” He traced my hand back to my wrist, his gaze searching the air where I’d spoken.
    He could .
    “Uh . . . Emory,” I gulped. “There’s . . . there’s something I need to tell you.”
    “This is fantastic.” His hand reached my shoulder and moved to my face, my hair. “I thought you were exaggerating, but this . . . what are you . . . how is this . . . ?” His fingers brushed my cheek and lingered on the tears, and he frowned.
    “I’m invisible,” I moaned, explaining