Sleep No More
Page 60

But just as I’m sure she’s about to die, Smith’s hands fall away. His body collapses and writhes, and a small trickle of blood trails from his ear as Sierra gags and coughs.
The scene fades and I’m shoved violently off of Smith and barely manage to keep my fingers clenched around the necklace. Smith stands and looks down at me and I hold out my fist with the silver chain trailing from it in front of me like a talisman.
“You think that’s going to save you?” Smith says, and the fury in his eyes takes my breath away. I was not supposed to see that scene. I wasn’t supposed to know his secret.
Her secret.
“I’m more powerful than you,” I say, willing it to be true despite my trembling voice.
He grins and reaches out for my legs. I try to kick away but his hands are so strong and he pulls me across the floor to him. His nose is inches from mine and I’m frozen in fear as he says, “You think you’re in control? Even your powers are not your own anymore.” Then he reaches out two fingers, braces them against my forehead, and shoves me.
I fly across the room, through a wall, and expect to land in another scene—another grotesque dream of Smith’s—but there’s only blackness. And I’m falling. A scream tears itself from me and I pinwheel my arms trying to find something to grab on to.
But I just fall.
Fall.
Fall.
Until I hit the ground with a bone-splintering crunch.
TWENTY-NINE
Lights flash across my eyes as I blink them open slowly.
“She’s alive!”
“Miss, miss, can you tell me your name?” A flashlight is shining in my eyes and a rubber-gloved finger lifts one eyelid and then the other before I can finally focus on the bright light.
What happened?
He pushed me out. Smith pushed me out of my own supernatural plane.
Or is it his now? That thought makes icy terror pump through my veins.
“I’m fine,” I say, pushing the hands away. I can’t stay here. I have to go to Sierra.
But what will I say?
“Miss, what is your name?”
“Charlotte,” I say, pressing my body up to sitting. “Charlotte Westing.”
“Please lie still,” the guy with the flashlight says, trying to push me back down.
“I’m not hurt.”
“You may not feel hurt now, but when the shock wears off you could be seriously injured,” he insists, pushing harder.
“Do you think shoving me down is going to help?” I ask loudly, flinging his hands away from me. “I’m not hurt.”
Then another voice. “Miss—”
“Charlotte,” the EMT offers oh so helpfully to the cop that just walked up.
“Charlotte,” the cop amends, “you’ve just survived an attack—I think you should stay put.”
I open my mouth to tell them I wasn’t attacked, but realize the humongous can of worms that would open and close my mouth again. No memory, that’s what I’m going to have to say.
And I do. Over and over again. To every cop who comes within earshot. I don’t know how I got here, I don’t remember leaving my house, the last thing I do remember is lying in my own bed. I hear the press start to gather and I turn my face away, hoping beyond hope that the backs of all the cops have been able to block me from the cameras.
Smith isn’t nearly so lucky. I’m not sure if he beat me out of the supernatural plane or not, but he’s sitting in the snow, handcuffed, with two officers pointing their guns at him.
Seeing Smith here in the physical world jolts me like a blow from an enormous hammer, shaking me from head to toe. He peers up and meets my eyes and I freeze. I feel like he should be looking at me with hatred, betrayal, anger at the very least. But he looks complacent. Almost like he’s won. I have to turn my face away. Even being looked at by him feels like a thrust from a knife.
The knife!
Where is it? I don’t have it. I don’t think I have it. But where did I put it?
If they find the knife—my life is essentially over.
I try to look around the scene while the EMTs take my temperature, blood pressure, pulse, and do everything but pull out the little mallet to tap my knee. But I don’t see it anywhere. I shiver on the tailgate of the ambulance and since the EMT seems to be done, I shrug back into my coat. Michelle’s coat.
And feel an unfamiliar weight. I carefully pat an inner pocket to be sure.
There it is. Hidden. The things my unconscious self does. I can’t suppress a shudder and it catches the EMTs attention.
“You okay?”
“I just want to go home,” I mutter. “I’m fine, right?” He hesitates before admitting that he can’t find anything wrong with me. I toss the pastel-blue blanket aside and walk over to a cop before the EMT can stop me.
“Officer,” I ask, tapping the shoulder of a man I think I recognize as an actual Coldwater cop. “Can you please take me home before the cameras find me? I need to tell my mom I’m okay.”
And tell Sierra that I know.
“Yeah, we should do that,” the officer says kindly, and I hope and pray I’ve found the right person to get me the hell out of here.
The cop checks with some of the other officers and they look at me askance until I bring out the words that always work on television. “I’m a minor,” I say, trying to sound confident, “so I can’t say anything else until I’m with my mom.”