Read Online Blur (Blur Trilogy) by Steven James - Free Book Online Page B

alright?” the doc asked. “Can yo u see me?”
    Daniel felt himself nod. “Yeah.” It was different from when he woke up in the church on Tuesda y. This time he’d had the air knocked out of him when he was sacked, so he was also short of breath.
    “What’s yo ur name?”
    “M y name?” he mumbled.
    “Yes.”
    “Daniel.”
    “And yo ur last name?”
    “B ye rs. Daniel B ye rs.”
    “Do yo u know where yo u are, Daniel?”
    He turned his head, looked for Emil y coming toward him across the field, but didn’t see her. “Yeah. In the stadium. It’s homecoming.”
    The doctor held up four fingers. “Daniel, can yo u see how man y fingers I’m holding up?”
    “Four.”
    Daniel found his attention shifting to the sidelines, but there was no sign of Emil y.
    Where is she?
    Where—
    “And what da y is it?”
    Person, place, and time. Daniel had been pla yi ng sports long enough to know that those were the three things the y ask a pla ye r after he wakes up from blacking out. That, and checking his visual acuit y, which the doctor was testing when he asked about the number of fingers he was holding up.
    “Frida y. September twent y- ninth,” Daniel said.
    The worr y on the man’s face eased. He glanced to the side, making e ye contact with Coach Warner, who stood nearb y. “Good.” Then he stepped back and a couple of people helped Daniel to his feet.
    He was slow getting up, and a little wobbl y. Relieved applause from the crowd greeted him as he headed off the field with the coaches beside him.
    At least he wasn’t on a stretcher. Randall had told him the Coulee defense was tr yi ng to earn a pizza b y tackling a pla ye r so hard he couldn’t walk off the field. So, no pizzas on that pla y.
    On the wa y to the sidelines, Daniel scanned the field, the track encircling it, and the stands, but he didn’t see her. Thank goodness he didn’t see her.
    Please don’t let me see her again.
    Don’t let me see her ever again.
    He knew better than to tell the doctor and his coaches about Emil y’ s appearance. The y would onl y think he was hallucinating, that the knock on his head was worse than the y’ d imagined. And the y would undoubtedl y do a bunch of tests on him, since the y’ d be convinced he was seeing things that weren’t there.
    And the y’ d be right.
    You are.
    He pushed that thought aside.
    When he reached the side of the field, he realized the y’ d alread y taken his helmet and hidden it. That was t yp ical if the coach or the doctor wanted to make sure a pla ye r couldn’t go back on the field.
    Daniel was forced to confront the fact that he was not going to be pla yi ng an y more in the game tonight.
    With the recent national attention on head injuries in football, Beldon High’s coaches had gone over all of this with the team at the beginning of the ye ar: whenever a pla ye r blacks out, it’s classified as a grade-three concussion, and after an y concussion, at least in high school, yo u’re sidelined for the rest of the game.
    There was just too much public concern over repetitive traumatic brain injuries these da y s —e speciall y with teenager s—t o chance it.
    But still, when he first woke up, Daniel had been hoping that ma yb e things would work out for him this time. That he would be the exception.
    Usuall y, the y would even take the gu y to the hospital to look him over, but since Daniel had answered all the doctor’s questions correctl y, he hoped he wouldn’t have to mess with an y of that after the game.
    He’d lost consciousness.
    Yes.
    But he didn’t know if he’d blacked out from the headache or from the shock of seeing Emil y again, or ma yb e from being hit in the head when he was tackled.
    In the end, it reall y didn’t matter. He’d seen what he had seen. There was no getting around that.
    Twice now.
    First speaking to him.
    Now holding up her necklac e—a fter pulling it through her neck.
    Emil y Jackson, the dead girl, had appeared to him.
    And