Read Online Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8) by Karina Halle - Free Book Online Page B

didn’t mean
anything.
    Suddenly I heard quick
footsteps behind me and the feeling of someone running past,
brushing against my legs. Right before my eyes I saw a child form
from thin air—a young girl—who ran after a ball. She squealed as
she went, her attention devoted to getting the ball and nothing
else.
    At least it seemed that way
until she reached it and kicked it off into the forest. The girl
stopped, and in her brief stillness I could make out her fine
features, her long dark hair and neatly tied bow at the back, her
plain dress and shiny shoes. She was no doubt a ghost—her
complexion was more than pale and there was a slight transparency
about her, but I still couldn’t tell if I was really seeing her or
if it was all in my head. My dreams had always been prophetic, but
since the one that Pippa appeared in the other day, it was hard to
tell if they were real or not.
    No wonder my parents were so
concerned about me losing my mind. It never really ended, did
it?
    The ghost dream girl cocked her
head at me and I could see her eyes were nothing but black marbles,
the soulless ones that ripped into you. “Can you go after my ball?”
she asked, her accent untraceable but her words properly
enunciated.
    I swallowed thickly and shook
my head. I’d been in that forest before, in real life, and it was
terrifying as hell. Fuck that noise.
    “ But I need my
ball,” the girl said, her tone becoming harder. I noticed her
little hands tightening into fists as the rest of her became more
solid and less see-through.
    “ I’m sorry,” I
said meekly, my voice echoing. “I don’t want to go in
there.”
    The girl glared at me and
flipped her hair over her shoulder before she started marching
over. “You will go in there and get my ball.”
    She stopped a few yards away,
and it was only then that I noticed a large spot of blood forming
on one side of her chest, spreading slowly like a blooming rose.
“You’re not really here, are you? Not yet?”
    I frowned, not sure what to say
to that.
    The girl took a neat step
forward, her hands clasped at her middle. “Or are you? Are you here
to play with us?”
    Without warning, a large gust
of wind blasted at my back, whipping my hair into my face. When I
finally brushed it out of my eyes, I saw Pippa standing between me
and the young girl. Just like in my dream before she was looking
tired and pale, her thin body hidden by a coat. Her attention was
entirely on the girl.
    “ You get away
from here,” Pippa said to her. “You leave her alone. She is not
yours.”
    “ But she can
see me,” the girl said matter-of-factly, a devious twinkle in those
cold black eyes.
    “ Go,” Pippa
said, her voice louder and almost animalistic. The young girl stuck
out her tongue but trotted after the ball, disappearing into thin
air right before the trees. Pippa faced me with a weary
expression.
    “ They keep
finding you, don’t they?”
    “ I don’t get
it,” I said. “Am I dreaming again? Is this real?”
    “ You are
dreaming but it is real,” she said. “This is the safest way I can
get to you. The Thin Veil is too risky.”
    I gestured wildly to the
forest. “Then who the hell was that little girl?”
    She gave me a slight smile. “I
am not the only one who can get to you this way. You know this.
Your dreams have always been very powerful, Perry, always. You’ve
seen and experienced things that eventually happened to you. Every
day you’re alive and embracing who you are, you’re opening yourself
more and more.”
    “ So what about
what you said before…about having to watch out?”
    “ I don’t think
you should be here, Perry.”
    “ Dreaming?”
    “ Doing the
show. Not right now. It’s just a feeling I have…”
    “ I can’t keep
going on your feelings. I have a life to live too, a living to
make.”
    She reached out and grabbed my
hand. Hers felt so delicate, thin and cold. “I know. But you’re not
in a good place right now. You’re the strongest when