Read Online Enthralled: Paranormal Diversions by Melissa Marr and Kelley Armstrong - Free Book Online Page A

destroyed. You have to disperse it, sort of like blowing up a bomb. My friends know how to do it. I just have to keep the ghost contained until I get to their place. They’ll do the rest.”
    Tommy glanced at the black paneling. “You’re crazy, you know that?” His arm wasn’t draped casually over the seat anymore, and his hands were balled up in his lap.
    “Maybe,” she answered. “Maybe not.”
    He reached for the handle to roll down his window, but it wouldn’t turn. “Your window’s—” He paused, working it out in his mind. “It isn’t broken, is it?”
    Edie took her foot off the gas and let the car roll to a stop. “You didn’t really think I’d pick up a hitchhiker, on a deserted road in the middle of nowhere?” She turned toward the blue-eyed boy, a boy she knew was a ghost. “Did you, Tommy?”
    His eyes widened at the sound of his name.
    Edie’s heart felt like it was trying to punch its way out of her chest. There was no way to predict how Tommy’s ghost was going to react. Wes had warned her that ghosts could psychically attack the living by moving objects or causing hallucinations, even madness. His mom had walked off the second-story balcony of their house when Wes was in fourth grade. It was only a few weeks after she had started hearing strange noises and seeing shadows in the house. Wes’ father wanted to move, but his mom said she wasn’t going to be driven out of her house by swamp-water superstition. She didn’t believe in ghosts. Not until one killed her.
    Now Edie was sitting only inches away from a ghost that had already murdered six people.
    But he didn’t look murderous. There was something else lingering in his blue eyes. Panic. “You can’t stop here.”
    “What?”
    “There’s something I need to tell you, Edie. But you have to keep driving. It’s not safe.” He was turning around in his seat, scanning the woods through the windows.
    Edie bit the inside of her cheek again. “What are you talking about?”
    Before he had time to respond, the light outside flickered as a shadow cut through the path of the car’s headlights.
    Edie jumped, jerking her eyes back toward the road.
    There was a man a few yards away, waving his arms wildly. “Get outta the car now!”
    “It’s too late,” Tommy whispered. “He’s already here.”
    “Who?”
    “The man who killed me.”
    Edie didn’t have a chance to ask him to explain. The man in the road was still yelling as he moved closer to the car. “Hurry up! Before that blue-eyed devil skins you alive like the rest a them!”
    Tommy’s ghost grabbed her arm, but she couldn’t feel his touch. “Don’t listen to him, Edie. He wants to hurt you, the same way he hurt me. And your brother.”
    “What did you say?” The words tore at Edie’s throat like razor blades.
    “I didn’t kill any of those kids that died out here. He did.” Tommy pointed at the man in the road. “I watch the road. I try to make sure no one stops near his cabin. I tried to warn all of them, but they wouldn’t listen.”
    Edie remembered her brother’s last words.
    I should have listened . . .
    She had assumed he was referring to the stories—the constant warnings to stay off Red Run after dark. What if she was wrong? What if he had been talking about a different warning altogether?
    “No.” Edie shook her head. “Those guys beat you to death—”
    Tommy cut her off before she could finish. “They didn’t. That’s the story he told the police. And no one believed a bunch of drunk kids when they denied it.”
    The voice outside was getting louder and more frantic. “Whatever that spirit’s telling you is a lie! He’s trying to keep you in there with him so he can kill you! Come on out, sweetheart.”
    It was easier to see the man now that he was just a few feet away. He was about her dad’s age, but worse for the wear. His green John Deere cap was pulled low over his eyes, and he was wearing an old hunting jacket over his broad