Soul Screamers, Volume 1

She shrugged. “Just watching the news. I’m grounded—what else is there to do? Besides, this is the weirdest thing that ever happened around here. And the fact that you predicted one of them is beyond bizarre.”


I flicked on my blinker again and swerved off the highway at our exit, forcing my hand to relax around the wheel. I didn’t even want to think about my premonition anymore, much less talk about it. “You don’t know the deaths are connected. It’s not like they were murdered. At least not the girl in Arlington. Mike saw her die.”

“She could have been poisoned....” Emma insisted, but I continued, ignoring her as I slowed to make the turn onto her street.

“And even if they are connected, they have nothing to do with us.”

“You knew the first one was going to die.”

“Yeah, and I hope it never happens again.”

Emma frowned but let the subject go. After I dropped her off, I pulled into an empty lot down the street from her house and called Nash.

“Hello?” In the background, I heard gunfire and shouting, until he turned down the volume on his TV.

“Hey, it’s Kaylee. Are you busy?”

“Just avoiding homework. What’s up?”

I stared out the windshield at the dark parking lot, and my heart seemed to stumble over the next few beats while I worked up my nerve.

“Kaylee? You there?”

“Yeah.” I closed my eyes and forced the next words out before my throat froze up. “Can I use your computer? I need to look something up, but I can’t do it at home without Sophie snooping.” And I did not want my aunt to bring me laundry without knocking—as was her habit—and see what I was looking up online.

“No problem.”

But second thoughts came fast and hard. I should not be alone with Nash in his house—that whole willpower thing again.

He laughed as if he knew what I was thinking. Or heard it in my nervous silence. “Don’t worry. My mom’s here.”

Relief and disappointment came in equal parts, and I fought to let neither leak into my voice. “That’s fine.” I started the engine, my headlights carving arcs of light across the dark gravel lot. “You hungry?”

“I was about to nuke a pizza.”

“Interested in a burger?”

“Always.”

Twenty minutes later, I parked on the street in front of his house and got out of the car, a fast-food bag in one hand, drink tray in the other. Again, his mother’s Saab was in the driveway, but this time the door was closed.

I crossed the small, neat yard and stepped onto the porch, but Nash opened the front door before I could knock. “Hey, come on in.” He took the drinks and held the door open, and I stepped past him into a clean, sparsely decorated living room.

Nash set the cups on an end table and stuffed his hands in his pockets while I looked around. His mother’s furniture wasn’t new or as upscale as Aunt Val’s, but it looked much more comfortable. The hardwood floor was worn but spotless, and the entire house smelled like chocolate-chip cookies.

At first I assumed the scent was from a candle like the ones Aunt Val lit at Christmas, to give the impression that she knows how to bake. But then I heard an oven door creak open to the left of the living room, and that cookie-scent swelled. Mrs. Hudson was actually baking.

When my gaze returned to Nash, I found him looking at my shirt, but in amusement, rather than real interest. Which is when I realized I was still wearing my Ciné uniform. Way to dress the part, Kaylee…

Nash laughed when he saw my surprise, then gestured toward a narrow hallway branching off the living room. “Come on…” But before he’d taken two steps, the swinging door into the kitchen opened, and a slim, well-proportioned woman appeared in the doorway, barefoot, in snug jeans and a blue-ribbed tee.

I’m not sure what I’d expected Nash’s mom to look like, but this woman did not fit the bill. She was young. Like, thirty. But that couldn’t be right, because Nash was eighteen. She wore her long, dark blond curls pulled into a simple ponytail, except for a few ringlets that had fallen to frame her face.

She could have been his older sister. His very hot older sister. Aunt Val would hate her....

When Mrs. Hudson’s eyes found mine, the world seemed to stop moving. Or rather, she stopped moving. Completely. As if she weren’t even breathing. I guess I wasn’t what she’d expected either. Nash’s exes were all beautiful, and I bet none of them had ever come over in a shapeless purple polo with the Ciné logo embroidered on one shoulder.