Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1) Read Online Free Page A

mess of her life.
    Like she’d done to Tim.
    She shoved that thought away fast, before it could swallow her.
    She’d been on the bus since that bizarre belly dancing gig, just riding the loop and hoping to keep Ponytail off her trail until she pinned Bea down one last time.
    Sexual fantasies were a huge improvement over her usual thought patterns, at least. Noah Gallagher was going to haunt her dreams, and her dreams were already haunted. His smoldering gaze was a mindblowing distraction.
    One she didn’t need. Not when she had to fight for her very existence.
    Her eyes stung from lack of sleep. Lashes were gummy from old mascara. She rubbed them, and when she opened them, her stomach dropped into a bottomless hole.
    Her hands were wet, crimson. Slippery with blood. She held a boxcutter in her shaking hand. It dripped with hot gore.
    She looked up, in dread. The big guy who had been with Mark Olund on the night of the attack at Dex’s office stood before her. The one who had held her down on the worktable while Mark murdered Dex.
    She’d killed him. Almost by accident. She’d grabbed the boxcutter at random with her scrabbling hand, and gotten in a wild lucky jab right to his neck. He’d cut her too, in the brief struggle that took place afterwards. She’d barely noticed at the time.
    The ghost man stared at her with pale, accusing eyes. His bloody fingers pressed against the hole she’d punched into his throat. Slowly, tauntingly, he lifted his hand—and hot pulsing spurts of blood pumped out, drenching her.
    He grinned, with bloody teeth, and toppled slowly toward her.
    She jumped up to evade his falling body with a cry—
    He was gone. So was the blood, the boxcutter. Of course. It was just the old lady on the plastic bench, peering up with a suspicious frown. Her tiny dog stuck its head out of the purse and bared its sharp yellow teeth, growling low in its throat.
    The bus was dead silent. Everyone was giving her the Look. Shrinking away as far as they could get from a crazy passenger who yelled at things no one else could see.
    It made her cringe to be that girl again. With her overdeveloped capacity to visualize, combined with extreme stress, hallucinations could happen out of nowhere. The first time was when she was little, after Mom died. Since then . . . she’d had others.
    She knew the difference between fantasy and reality. And it wasn’t all bad. Her freakish visual ability had given her art, masks, costume design. It had brought her to the attention of Dex Boyd of GodsEye Biometrics. Which had transformed her life.
    Her body clenched instinctively when she thought about Dex. His murder had happened only eight months ago. Still a raw wound in her mind.
    The bus lurched to a standstill. It was one stop too soon, but she had to get away from the sidelong glances. She grabbed the bag that held her dancing costume and headed for the exit as the door opened.
    The vehicle hissed and groaned and lumbered away, leaving her in near darkness with raw wind gusting around her. Her knees still wobbled from the shock of the ugly hallucination. And now she had twelve extra blocks to walk. Great.
    She was chilled to the bone when she found Bea’s boyfriend’s house. She tucked her glasses into her bag, spat out the jaw prosthesis, peeled off the wig, raking a hand through her flattened hair. She felt horribly exposed without her disguise.
    She spun around. No one seemed to be lurking. So far, so good.
    The house was a weatherbeaten green, the sparse lawn fenced with chain-link. She went up onto the sagging porch and pressed the doorbell.
    The curtains twitched to the side. A man peered out. Her heart sank. She’d been hoping desperately to talk to Bea alone. The door opened, stopped short by a clanking security chain. A stocky, bearded guy peered out. She knew who he was. Todd Blount, originally from Chelan, Washington, a special ed teacher in elementary school.
    “Can I help you?” he asked.
    “I hope so. I want