Rachel Caine & Kristin Cast & Claudia Gray & Nancy Holder & Tanith Lee & Richelle Mead & Cynthia Leitich Smith & P. C. Cast Read Online Free Page B

right forearm. Blood is dripping through her fingers. I can smell it. I can almost taste it. I feel my fangs slide.
    I pause to regain control, calling, “Ginny!” like I can’t spot her toward the front, bent in the aisle.
    â€œOver here,” she says, straightening, her face covered by her honey-colored hair.
    I jog to her side. “What happened? Did you cut yourself on a chair?” They’re old, and the heavy cushioned seats fold down. She could’ve torn her skin on a spring.
    â€œNo.” Ginny lifts her hand from her arm to show me three short, deep scratches. They look like fingernail marks. Sounding mystified, she adds, “It was like being clawed by the wind.”

    Sonia . I catch myself licking my lips. “You need stitches. Let’s—”
    â€œNo,” Ginny replies. “It’s fine. I was just surprised.”
    â€œIt’ll scar,” I insist.
    â€œGive me your shirt,” she counters.
    â€œWha—”
    â€œYour shirt. So I can use it to, you know, apply direct pressure.”
    Embarrassed by the misunderstanding, I’m already unbuttoning by the time she’s finished the sentence. I fold the material as best I can and tie it around her arm.
    â€œMy hero,” Ginny says again. She rises on her toes to kiss my cheek and, losing her balance, her lips land, lingering, on my throat instead. “About that celebration. . . .”
    â€œGo home, Ginny,” I say, moving away.
    She looks stricken, like the child she is. “But. . . .”
    I lighten my tone. “I mean, you’d best be getting home.”
    I watch her walk up the aisle, fuming, and disappear out the door.
    Then a disembodied voice—soft, musical, and furious—whispers in my ear, “Murderer, murderer, murderer.”

    Later, at my uncle’s ranch, I walk to his unmarked grave behind the barn. I buried him deep, wrapped in a Mexican blanket. The ground is bare, packed hard. I try to tell myself it’s more fitting that he’s here instead of at the old cemetery
in town. Uncle Dean loved this land as much as he was capable of loving anything.
    The grave unsettles me, though. No stone, no cross. He may not have been a good man, but he was my mom’s big brother.
    As dawn approaches, I shake off the guilt and go inside.
    Now, I’m surfing the Web at the dining-room table, drinking microwave-heated blood and researching ghosts. Sonia’s history does track with what I’ve learned so far. Her death was traumatic. Her murderer was never caught. In the spirit world, that’s textbook “unfinished business.” A reason to haunt. And it’s clear that Sonia wants me to know who she is—writing her initial and giving me the diary are clear enough hints.
    According to the newspaper article, though, Sonia was a sweetheart. She used to teach Sunday school and run errands for her elderly neighbors. A quick skim of the diary—peppered with initials—confirms that she was a good-hearted girl with loopy handwriting and typical teen angst: home-work, a boy (“D”), a rival girl (“K”). She adored Elvis (“E”), had a kitten named Peso (“P”), and collected toys at Christmas for the poor.
    Maybe Sonia thinks I’m a threat to Ginny, and she wants me to know she’s on to me. I’m not sure why she attacked Ginny, though. Maybe in her ghostly state, Sonia’s confused. Or maybe she’s trying to protect Ginny by scaring her off.
    I guess there’s always the possibility that the Old Love is home to more than one ghost. Katherine, the girl who went missing, is probably K. According to the diary, she and Sonia
didn’t get along in life. But there’s no hard evidence of more than one entity, and the singing voice that lead me to Sonia’s diary in the break room matched the accusing one that whispered “murderer.”
    Besides, how many dead people could