Pretty Dark Nothing Read Online Free Page B

herself.
    Not now. Not now. Focus, Quinn, focus on the tiles. But they swirled together, turning as gray as the mist that surrounded her.
    She tried to fight, tried to reach out for her friends, tried to scream—anything to escape the drowning feeling. The floor came closer now. The cool, black-and-white tiles rushed up to soothe her troubled mind.

CHAPTER THREE
    “Hey, girls. What’s up?” Marcus waved as he and Aaron made their way through the crowd.
    Reese waved back, but Aaron focused on Quinn. She stood between Ami and Reese, eyes closed, face drained of color. She swayed side-to-side, like a skyscraper in the middle of an earthquake. Any minute she would topple.
    Quinn’s knees buckled. Aaron took two giant steps toward her, pushing a helpless freshman out of the way. He scooped her in his arms before her head hit the floor. The lunch chatter, the movement in the hallway, everything around him slowed. Ami stopped mid-sentence, Reese mid-wave.
    The second his skin met hers, a familiar tingling gathered in the front of his brain, a flash and then the lightning strike. Before he had time to shut her out, a wave of intense fear washed through him, nearly knocking him over. Instead, he fell against the lockers and gritted his teeth, struggling to force a barrier, a psychic wall, between them.
    “Dude!” Marcus’s voice brought Aaron back to reality, and Quinn’s fear became a low hum in the back of his brain, the tingle dissipating.
    He sank to the floor, cradling her head in his lap. “Go get Mrs. Chin,” he said to the small crowd gathered around them before he bent his head to her lips. Relief washed over him as Quinn’s breath warmed his cheek. “Quinn, can you hear me?”
    He closed his eyes, brushed his lips against her forehead, and loosened the grip on his ability. Releasing a tendril of light through the barrier, he focused on being calm, projecting love and security to Quinn. Slowly, the tingling gathered in the front of his brain, a spark, and then a blinding flash as he opened himself up to her unconscious.
    Quinn’s face appeared in his mind. Pale and shadowed, she smiled as she screamed. Her pain, anger, desire, defeat, exhaustion, and fear flooded him at once. He fought to regain control, to quell her emotions and restore balance, but no matter how hard he tried, her emotions overwhelmed him. He switched tactics and tried to restore the barrier before he reached sensory overload, but it was too late. He was enthralled by the power of the connection.
    Quinn’s face morphed until one face superimposed itself over the other. The skin pulsed and changed second by second from serene and beautiful, to screaming and alien as her features contorted, and her blue eyes faded to gold and back to blue again as if something tried to break though. A black mass pushed past the serenity. It thrashed and clawed, ripping at her flesh from the inside out as Quinn fought against the dark creature within. Suddenly, her expression settled back to a smile as blood tears trickled down her cheeks.
    “Help me,” she mouthed before morphing again.
    The dark entity inside Quinn locked its golden eyes on Aaron. “You!” It hissed and leapt toward him, its form twisting into an indistinct, faceless mist.
    Aaron forced all his energy toward it, and the shade erupted in a ball of light. The cord connecting him to Quinn snapped. He slammed the door of the barrier, and the sparks retreated. His heart raced, and he pulled his lips away from Quinn’s forehead. He’d never felt anything that intense; nothing unwanted had been able to get through his barriers since he’d learned control.
    He had no idea how long he had been gripped by Quinn’s nightmare. Seconds? Minutes? Long enough to have gathered a large crowd. He could only imagine what he looked like, bent over Quinn with his lips on her forehead. Like a freak.
    “Can someone get her some water?” he asked, but no one moved. “Are you all asleep? Can’t you see