Brantley moans. “You do realize all of these people, including Tillie and Madison, are only allowed in this house because of you, right?”
I tilt my head while keeping my eyes on his, pressing my lips to his arm. “I know.” I step out from under him. “Please get some sleep. I can’t imagine you grumpier than usual.” The bacon smell doesn’t hit me as hard as before as I pull out one of the stools beneath the kitchen island.
“Can he make me nauseous?” I ask Ophelia as she scoops scrambled eggs into a large bowl.
She peers up at me from beneath her lashes. “No. Remember, it’s not paranormal. It’s science, but—more.” I know Ophelia believes in the science side of everything, but I’ve seen things. How can she classify me seeing a dead girl as science?
Tillie smothers thick spread over her toast. “I swear boys make you hungrier than girls. I was never like this before.”
Before I can ask her about her last pregnancy, the boys pile in and start loading their plates.
“Hey.” I turn in my seat, looking at Bishop. “Where’s Eli?” I haven’t seen him since the ceremony.
Bishop tilts his chin, a satisfied grin flashing over his mouth. “Busy.”
“Okay…” My stomach rumbles, but the sweat is still sticky on my shirt from my run, so I tear it off and toss it to the other side of the room.
I take a plate and move to the dining table, listening as they all talk about normal conversations that don’t include crazy witch mothers and rich covens.
I watched her carefully this time. A little more than usual. I’d begun to look forward to the times I could attach myself to her. I fed off of it. Needed it. I didn’t want it to ever stop. She was looking down at a gravestone in the Vitiosis cemetery, her hair down over her shoulders and her eyes weak. She was in a dream state. Not knowing what was happening to her, but not caring either. This was the part where I knocked on her head and got her to let me in, but they were catching onto what I was doing. They weren’t far behind. I wasn’t at all surprised by this. I knew every step I took was just one copied.
Her arm reached out toward the stone, her fingers grazing the fuzzy moss growing through the cracks. She curled her finger and a high pitch shriek bellowed when she ran her finger down, dirt catching itself beneath her clean nails. I wanted to follow her tonight. Maybe see where her subconscious wanted to take her. Feel where she wanted to go when not being forced to be with me. Her movements stopped. Birds flew out from the trees and insects that were once loud were now silent. Something was wrong. Her head moved like static, half of her hair falling over her back. Her eyes came to mine. White. Completely white. No color.
I stilled, looking around myself. Something wasn’t right. What was she doing?
She raised her hand and pointed one finger at me. “You’re going to die.”
“Stop!” Ophelia grabs my arm as I fly off the bed, sweat slick over my skin. It has only been a few hours since Tillie and Madison flew off to Perdita with Tate and Spyder, but I wanted to get started straight away. Brantley, Bishop, and Nate are in the room with O and me, so I know I’m in safe hands. Safe enough to do this.
Ophelia wipes my sticky hair from my forehead. “We can’t go too hard. He read that something was wrong.”
“Do you know who he is?” Brantley seethes, sitting beside me on the bed. Bishop is on the other side and Nate is standing at the bottom of the bed.
“No.” Ophelia sighs. “He’s still appearing as you.”
Brantley kicks off the bed. As he heads toward the bathroom, he slams his palm against the wall before disappearing inside.
Nate whistles while looking up to where there’s a fresh hole. “He needs to kill someone. Preferably whoever is in your head. We have roughly—” Nate looks to Bishop. “Twenty hours to find out who this person is before we’re all in danger from him.”
“I’d say ten hours,” Bishop grumbles, shaking his head.
“This person.” Ophelia searches my eyes. “He has to have a connection to you to be able to do this. Who did you make friends with when the texts started coming through?”
“No one,” I say, shaking my head. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m pretty sheltered.”
Ophelia curls her lips beneath her teeth to stop from laughing. “Okay. So it can’t be that. Maybe they’re using another line to you, but that would mean whoever he is using would have to be very close to you. It all works that way when you’re an empath—an especially strong one like you. We feed off of emotions, whether we want to or not, and we form connections to people, whether we want to or not. I fear this may have been what has happened here.”