The Dead List Read Online Free

house.
    Brock came forward, the bottle of beer dangling from his fingers. “You’re so hot.”
    My eyes widened as he planted his hand into the side of the house next to my head. I darted under his arm. He spun around, frowning again, in a confused way.
    “Where are you going?” he asked.
    “I’ve got to get home. Curfew and all,” I lied. It had been many moons since I worried with a curfew, but if he said hot one more time I might vomit. “But it’s been fun. Got to go. Bye!”
    Brock started toward me, but his gaze darted to the right and his brows slammed down. “Hey!” he shouted. “Who in the hell let you all in here?”
    I looked over, spying three skinny underclassmen that looked like they also had no idea what they were doing here. The three boys huddled together, throwing panicky looks at one another. Something about the sight of them pierced my chest, reminding me of—I shook my head, clearing my thoughts.
    Brock tossed his beer bottle to the side, where it bounced off a shrub and then shattered on the walkway. “Charlie!” he yelled, grinning in a way that caused my stomach to dip. He looked like a lion about to pounce on a three-legged gazelle. “Look at what we have here.”
    I had no idea where Charlie was, but I took full use of the distraction and spun around, hurrying back to the cluster of dancing bodies, dropping my almost full beer bottle in the trash. My eyes searched for Linds, but she and Mason were nowhere to be found.
    Deciding it was way past the time for me to make an exit, so I didn’t end up hanging around and doing something stupid, I dipped inside and grabbed my keys from where I’d left them near an unused breadbox. I figured when I got home, I could pick up the last Black Dagger Brotherhood book that was patiently waiting for me on my pillow. I don’t know what it was about gangsta talking vampires that made me about seven different kinds of happy but it did. The only other books to do that were the ones I stole from mom when she wasn’t paying attention. The Kristen Ashley romance books.
    They made me want to move to Colorado.
    Linds liked to give me a hard time about having my nose stuck in the book, but sometimes I needed to get my head out of real life and reading was the best and quickest way to do it.
    Back outside, I headed toward the gate leading to the front of the house. As I crossed the lawn, the sounds of the party faded into the background.
    I needed to text Linds, letting her know I’d left, but my cell was in my car. Telling myself not to forget, I passed the tall hedges blocking the yard from the dark road in front of Brock’s house.
    His house was the only one for at least a mile on the isolated stretch of road, but tonight, the sides of the street were packed with cars, and I had to park where it felt like a million miles away from the house.
    Wrapping my arms around my waist, I picked up my pace. My sandals smacked off the cracked asphalt, echoing around me. As dark as it was, with no street lamps and only thin slivers of moonlight stretching across the road, it was an eerie, too long walk.
    I kept waiting for Big Foot to barrel out from the thick stand of trees crowding the road. Or maybe the Mothman, after all, I did live in West Virginia.
    A shiver coursed down my spine as I pictured a giant winged creature flying out from the trees and then cursed my imagination. Not what I needed to be thinking about when there was no one around.
    When I spotted my car, a wide smile broke out across my face. Almost there. My fingers tightened on the keys as I stopped at the driver’s door, pushing my finger down on the unlock button.
    My car chirped a hello.
    My sandals still smacked off the asphalt.
    No. Wait. Another shiver tiptoed down my spine. I wasn’t walking, so those footsteps… they weren’t mine.
    Tiny hairs rose along the back of my neck as I whirled around, quickly scanning the dark road around me. Air caught in my throat as I squinted into the