Soul Screamers, Volume 1

Another text message from Nash. U OK?

Fine. I lied. U? I almost told him he’d been right. That I shouldn’t have told my aunt. But that was a lot of information to fit into a text.

Yeah. With Carter, he replied. Call U soon.

I thought about texting Emma, but she was still grounded. And knowing her mother, she stood no chance of a commuted sentence, even after practically seeing a classmate drop dead.

Frustrated and mentally exhausted, I finally fell asleep in the middle of the movie I wasn’t really watching in the first place. Less than an hour later, according to my alarm clock, I woke up and turned the TV off. And that’s when I realized I’d almost slept through something important.

Or at least something interesting.

In the sudden silence, I heard my aunt and uncle arguing fiercely, but too softly to understand from my room at the back of the house. I eased my bedroom door open several inches, holding my breath until I was sure the hinges wouldn’t squeal. Then I stuck my head through the gap and peered down the hall.

They were in the kitchen; my aunt’s slim shadow paced back and forth across the only visible wall. Then I heard her whisper my name—even lower in pitch than the rest of the argument—and I swallowed thickly. She was probably trying to convince Uncle Brendon to take me back to the hospital.

That was not going to happen.

Angry now, I eased the door open farther and slipped into the hall. If my uncle gave in, I’d simply step up and tell them I wasn’t going. Or maybe I’d just jump in my car and leave until they came to their senses. I could go to Emma’s. No, wait. She was grounded. So I’d go to Nash’s.

Where I wound up didn’t matter, so long as it wasn’t the mental-health ward.

I inched down the hall, grateful for my silent socks and the tile floor, which didn’t creak. But I froze several feet from the kitchen doorway when my uncle spoke, his words still low but now perfectly audible.

“You’re overreacting, Valerie. She got through it last time, and she’ll get through it this time. I see no reason to bother him while he’s working.”

While I appreciated my uncle standing up for me, even if he didn’t believe in my premonitions either, I seriously doubted Dr. Nelson would consider himself “bothered” by a phone call about a patient. Not considering what he was probably getting paid.

“I don’t know what else to do.” Aunt Val sighed, and a chair scraped the floor as my uncle’s shadow stood. “She’s really upset, and I think I made it worse. She knows something’s going on. I tried to get her to take a sedative, but she busted the bottle on the refrigerator.”

Uncle Brendon chuckled, from across the kitchen now. “She knows she doesn’t need those damn pills.”

Yeah! I was starting to wonder if my uncle wore chain mail beneath his clothes, because he sounded eager to slay the dragon Skepticism. And I was ready to ride into battle with him....

“Of course she doesn’t,” Aunt Val conceded wearily, and her shadow folded its arms across its chest. “The pills are a temporary solution, like sticking your finger in a crack in a dam. What she really needs is your brother, and if you’re not going to call him, I will.”

My father? Aunt Val wanted him to call my dad? Not Dr. Nelson?

My uncle sighed. “I hate to start all this now if we could possibly put it off awhile longer.” The refrigerator door squealed open, and a soda can popped, then hissed. “It was just coincidence that this happened twice in one week. It may not happen for another year, or even longer.”

Aunt Val huffed in exasperation. “Brendon, you didn’t see her. Didn’t hear her. She thinks she’s losing her mind. She’s already living on borrowed time, and she should not have to spend whatever she has left of it thinking she’s crazy.”

Borrowed time?

A jolt of shock shot through me, settling finally into my heart, which seemed reluctant to beat again for a moment. What did that mean? I was sick? Dying? How could they not have told me? And how could I be dying if I felt fine? Except for knowing when other people are going to die…

And if that were true, wouldn’t I know if I were going to die?

Uncle Brendon sighed, and a chair scraped across the floor again, then groaned as he sank into it. “Fine. Call him if you want to. You’re probably right. I just really hoped we’d have another year or two. At least until she’s out of high school.”

“That was never a certainty.” Aunt Val’s silhouette shrank as it came closer, and I scuttled toward my room, my spine still pressed against the cold wall. But then she stopped, and her shadow turned around. “Where’s the number?”

“Here, use my phone. He’s second in the contacts list.”

My aunt’s shadow elongated as she moved farther away, presumably taking the phone from my uncle. “You sure you don’t want to do it?”