Ash and Darkness (Translucent #3) Read Online Free Page B

Leona!” 
    “I’m right here,” I whimpered. “I killed your sister. I did it. I murdered her!”
    “Leona, you just vanished. I don’t know if you can hear me or not, but I’m going to get my dad. We’re going to fix this, okay?”
    I shook my head, horrified.
    I’d missed my one chance.
    “Shit.” He returned to the middle of the room and rubbed the back of his neck, face pained. “Shit, shit, shit.”
    That was the last time ever, Leona , said the voice in my head.
    The room blurred out of focus.
    Emory’s face melted into a fuzzy blob, the windows smudged to the side, the glowing LED on his speakers bled into a splotch of red ink, like I was looking at everything through a steamed up glass. I watched it all fade, too scared to breathe.
    I was going blind, too.
    After a moment, it came into focus again. But not completely, not as colorful as before, not as vivid as before . . . still foggy .
    Emory barged into the hall, shouting, “Dad . . . Dad!”
    I followed him down to the kitchen, still reeling from my failure and furious at myself. My only chance to confess . . . and I’d missed it, possibly forever.
    I couldn’t fathom what that meant.
    I was going to burn in hell, that was what that meant.
    “Dad, Leona’s in trouble.” Emory said, bursting into the breakfast nook.
    John Lacroix set down an iced coffee. “Leona?”
    “In my room, I heard her voice, I could touch her. She was there , Dad.” He planted his palms on the table. “She said dark matter made her invisible— dark matter —and then she just vanished, right out of my arms. Poof. Does that make any sense to you?”
    His dad peered intently at him, and the corner of his lip twitched.
    “My God, that’s a yes .” Emory leaned in. “Look, forget nondisclosure for five seconds. You know I respect all that, but I actually care about this girl, okay?”
    I scooted closer so I wouldn’t miss a word, wedged myself right between them. The table seemed to sever me at mid-thigh.
    Why had I never thought to shadow his dad while invisible? He had answers.
    “Leona . . . Leona Amber Hewitt!” His dad snapped his fingers, breaking out of his trance. “The girl from the San Rafael site. I knew that name was familiar.”
    “She was invisible . . . Dad, she was invisible!”
    John cursed and scrambled for his cell phone. “She touch you, Em? Any contact at all? Anything feel sticky?”
    “Dad, come on—”
    “Emory, did she touch you?”
    “Yes, she touched me. We hugged. Then she was gone.”
    His dad squeezed his jaw. “Dark matter . . . it saturates an object, fuses to it, conducts light through it, eventually it just erases it completely . . .” He bit his fingernails, eyes shifting. “My God, I just realized . . . we had Leona over for dinner . . . she touched our food . . . Ashley —”
    “Dad! Where did she go? How do we bring her back? How does she get it off? I swear to God, she was right here, she was literally right in my arms. She’s my friend, okay? I just . . . I need to know she’s safe.”
    Guilt squeezed my chest.
    Had I infected the rest of his family too?
    John Lacroix licked his lips. “Listen, Em, that’s uh . . . that’s what Rincon Systems, NASA, and half the Air Force are working on right now . . . how to stop it from spreading. We encase it in concrete. It leaks through, though. We encase it in more concrete. It crawls out. We burn the stuff, we bury it, we dissolve it in acid. Nothing works. The whole thing’s a crap shoot.”
    “And yet the Defense Department insists on weaponizing it,” said Emory, throwing up his hands. “Why am I not surprised?”
    “No, no, no, we’re not weaponizing it, Em. God no. It’s already weaponized. What we’re trying to do—what I’m trying to do, what AFSPC is trying to do, what NASA is trying to do—is work out a scenario where we don’t lose everything . That’s what we’re trying to do.”
    Emory pressed his lips