The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall

 

“She’s passed out,” Eliza said. “She’s lost too much blood.”

 

I dropped to the ground and reached for Nic’s wound, trying to press my own hand on it.

 

But I couldn’t even do that much. My hand wouldn’t make contact with the soaked shirt.

 

Oh God, she’s going to die. I killed her.

 

I killed my best friend.

 

“Please, Eliza, help me,” I said. “Please!”

 

“Get out of the way,” Eliza said, and she crouched at Nic’s side. As if it were the most natural thing in the world, she pressed her fingers on the dressing and held firmly. “If he can get her to the hospital soon enough, she’ll probably be okay.”

 

“But it’s snowing,” I said. “The roads are iced over.”

 

“Well, you should have thought about that before you tried to murder her!” Eliza barked. “Honestly, Delia. She could die here, and it would be your doing. I thought you said she was your best friend.”

 

“I know,” I said, and then I started to shake. My whole body quaked so violently that my vision blurred. “It was an accident—I never meant to—”

 

Eliza looked away, as if it embarrassed her just to witness my feeble uselessness. “Hold yourself together,” she said quietly. “The very least you can do at this point is not make things worse.”

 

I nodded and shut my mouth, but I couldn’t stop the tremors that coursed through me. I stared at my best friend’s pale, unconscious face, wondering if some part of her knew it had been me who did those terrible things.

 

What kind of best friend was I? Nic wasn’t stealing my boyfriend. He wasn’t even my boyfriend anymore. And more significantly, I was dead. You can’t steal anything from a dead person.

 

What had I done?

 

I was desperate for Landon to return, to put her in his car so they could race to safety. I ran to the front window and watched the SUV come around the corner of the house. Leaving the engine running, Landon jumped out and came inside.

 

His face paled when he saw Nic slumped over, but after finding her pulse, he relaxed minutely. Groaning with effort, he pulled her away from the window in an attempt to lift her. But his left arm was limp and useless, and as he tried to pull her up, he let out a primal yell of pain.

 

“You need to wake up,” he said. “Nicola, come on, wake up.”

 

She stirred, but her eyelids didn’t even flutter.

 

Again, Landon tried to hoist her off the floor, and again he cried out in pain.

 

“Please, Nicola, come on,” he begged. There was a tone in his voice I’d never heard before … a tenderness he’d never used with me. And it was mixed with crushing fear. When I looked at his face, I was shocked to see terrified tears streaming from his eyes.

 

He genuinely cared about her. More than he’d ever cared about me.

 

“He can’t pick her up with that arm. She needs to wake up.” Eliza stared at the ground for a second, came to some decision, then shot a sharp glare at me. “You stand well back.”

 

“Why?” I asked. “What are you going to do? Are you going to carry her for him?”

 

She looked at me like I was crazy. “Carry her? And how would that look? You don’t understand anything about how the world works, do you? Do you want spiritual mediums and two-bit psychics crawling all over this place? Now, stand back.”

 

I stood back.

 

“Farther,” she said. “On the other side of the table. I don’t want her to see you.”

 

To see me? I obeyed wordlessly.

 

Eliza closed her own eyes and inhaled—but instead of taking in air, her body seemed to breathe in light. She glowed slightly, kind of like Florence had in the lobby with Maria. But that light had been fierce and vivid—this had golden warmth to it.

 

She leaned forward and placed her hands on Nic’s cheeks.

 

“Wake up, then,” she whispered. “Come, Nicola, wake up.”

 

Nothing happened.

 

Eliza leaned forward so her forehead touched Nic’s, and a bit of her glow ignited a flush of warmth under my best friend’s graying pallor.

 

“Wake up, sweetie,” Eliza said, a bit more tersely. “Enough of this foolishness. Wake up.”

 

But nothing happened.

 

Eliza shot me a despairing look, then turned back to Nic. Her voice rose and became firmer. “Nicola—wake up! Wake up, you idiot! Trust me, you do not want to die here! Wake up!”

 

Nic’s eyes suddenly popped open.

 

She stared right at Eliza.

 

“There’s a good girl,” Eliza said, stroking her cheek gently.

 

Nic was transfixed, staring at Eliza with wonder in her eyes. Then Landon grabbed her face and, pulling it toward his own, smothered her forehead with kisses.

 

“Oh, God,” he said, his voice thick with tears. “I thought I was losing you.”

 

Nic looked surprised to see him, and then she turned her gaze back to where Eliza had been sitting—where she still sat, though she was invisible to Nic now.