Soul Screamers, Volume 1

“I knew, Aunt Val.” I planted both hands on the countertop again and stared at the granite. Then I looked up and made myself say the rest of it. “And I knew about the girl at Taboo too.”


My aunt’s eyes narrowed drastically, showcasing two sets of crow’s feet, and her voice dropped dramatically. “How could you, unless you were there?”

I shrugged and crossed my arms over my chest. “I snuck in.” I wasn’t about to rat on Emma or her sister. “Ground me if you want, but that won’t change anything. I was there, and I saw Heidi Anderson. And I knew she was going to die. Just like I knew about Meredith.”

Aunt Val’s eyes closed again, and she turned to stare out the window over the sink, gripping the countertop with white-knuckled hands. Then she exhaled deeply and turned back to me. “Okay, this other girl aside…” Though we both knew she’d readdress the clubbing issue later. “If you knew Meredith was going to die, why didn’t you tell someone?”

A fresh pang of guilt shuddered through me like a psychological aftershock, and I sank onto one of the cushioned bar stools facing her, my arms crossed on the countertop. “I tried.” Tears filled my eyes, blurring my aunt’s face, and I swiped at them with my sleeve before they could fall. “But when I opened my mouth, all I could do was scream. And it happened so fast! By the time I could talk again, she was dead.” I looked up, searching her face for some sign of understanding. Or belief. But there was nothing I recognized in her expression, and that scared me almost as badly as listening to Meredith die.

“I’m not even sure that saying something would have helped,” I said, feeling my courage flounder. “But I swear I tried.”

Aunt Val rubbed her forehead, then picked up her mug and started to take a drink—until she realized she hadn’t poured one. “Kaylee, surely you know how all this sounds.”

I nodded and dropped my gaze. “I sound crazy.” I knew that better than anyone.

She shook her head and leaned across the bar for my hand. “Not crazy, hon. Delusional. There’s a difference. You’re probably just really upset about what happened to Meredith, and your brain is dealing with that by making up stories to distract you from the truth. I understand. It’s scary to think that anyone anywhere can just drop dead with no warning. If it could happen to her, it could happen to any of us, right?”

I pulled my hand from hers, gaping at my aunt in disbelief. What would it take to make her believe me? Proof was pretty hard to come by when the premonitions only came a few minutes in advance.

I slid off the stool and backed up a step, eager to put a little space between us. “I barely knew Meredith. I’m not scared because I think it can happen to me. I’m scared because I knew it was going to happen to her, and I couldn’t stop it.” I sucked in a deep breath, trying to breathe beyond the guilt and grief threatening to suffocate me. “I almost wish I were going crazy. At least then I wouldn’t feel so guilty about letting someone die. But I’m not crazy. This is real.”

For several seconds, my aunt just stared at me, her expression a mixture of confusion, relief, and pity, like she wasn’t sure what she should feel.

I sighed, my shoulders fell. “You still don’t believe me.”

My aunt’s expression softened, and her posture wilted almost imperceptibly. “Oh, hon, I believe that you believe what you’re saying.” She hesitated, then shrugged, but the gesture looked more calculated than casual. “Maybe you should take a sedative too. It will help you sleep. I’m sure everything will make more sense when you wake up.”

“Sleep won’t help me.” I sounded acerbic, even to my own ears. “Neither will those stupid pills.” I grabbed the bottle from the bar where she’d left it and hurled it at the refrigerator as hard as I could. The plastic cracked and the lid fell off, scattering small white pills all over the floor.

Aunt Val jumped, then stared at me like I’d just broken her heart. When she knelt to clean up the mess, I jogged down the hall and into my room, then slammed the door and leaned against it. I’d done the best I could with my aunt; I’d try again with Uncle Brendon when he came home.

Or maybe not.

Maybe Nash knew what he was talking about when he said not to tell anyone.





Chapter 7





For several minutes, I stood still in my room, so angry, and scared, and confused, I didn’t know whether to scream, or cry, or hit something. I tried to read the novel on my nightstand to distract myself from the disaster my life had become, and when that didn’t work, I turned on the TV. But nothing on television held my attention and all the songs on my iPod only seemed to magnify my anger and frustration.

My mind was so full of chaos, my thoughts coming much too fast for me to grasp, that no matter what I did or where I stood, I couldn’t escape the miserable roar of half-formed thoughts my head spun with. I was starting to seriously reconsider that sedative—desperate to just be nowhere for a little while—when my phone buzzed in my pocket.