All The Pretty Ghosts (The Never Series Book 1) Jamie Campbell (best life changing books .TXT) 📖

The moment the woman realized I had seen her she would harass me until I did whatever she wanted me to. I kept walking, trying to take a few deep breaths to stop my shaking hands.

We wove our way through the maze of makeshift beds and people until we joined a long queue. About a hundred feet away I could catch glimpses of the food serving area.

I leaned in closer to Oliver. “Where does everyone get their food from?”

“Here, mostly. Volunteers cook and serve once a day for lunch. After that, everyone is on their own.”

“Where do the volunteers get the food?” If they had a source, I wanted in on it. I wouldn’t take any more than I needed, but I did need something. I couldn’t go back empty handed and waste the whole horrible experience.

Oliver leaned in closer again so we couldn’t be overheard. “Mostly from stockpiles that were found after the Event. Nobody is making any new food so it all has to come from old stock.”

“There aren’t any farms anymore?”

“Who would run them?” It was even worse than I had thought it would be. Of course there wouldn’t be any farms, it was stupid of me to assume children would take over where their parents left off. Kids of farmers had no more obligations than the rest of us.

We spent the longest time possible in the shelter line as we shuffled forward inch by painful inch. I longed to leave and go to my house on the hill. The hall was too noisy, full of nothing but sadness and grime. At least my house only held the endless chatter of the ghosts and not groans from the living.

The smell of food made my stomach grumble loudly as we reached the front of the line. A girl of about sixteen handed me a plate that was half-full of canned vegetables. They were probably stale but they were hot and edible, it didn’t matter what they tasted like. I would have eaten cardboard by that stage.

“You’re not going to eat?” I asked Oliver as he kept by my side, plate-less.

“No, I’m fine.”

“But you waited in line for so long and-” He held up a hand to stop me mid-sentence.

“I’m fine, Everly, really. You eat up while we talk.” He led me out of the hall and down a corridor. We found a patch of grass outside in the cloudy sunlight and sat down.

I forced myself to eat slowly and not make a pig out of myself, even though I wanted to shovel the food into my mouth as quickly as possible. Soggy, stale carrots had never tasted so good before.

“I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you here today,” Oliver started. I could sense he was only just gearing up for a lecture.

“I told you, I ran out of food.” And I had to make sure he was alive, but I didn’t tell him that.

“These people could really use your help. You’ve seen how bad it is now and this is only the beginning.” There it was, the compliment that headed directly into requesting me to do things I couldn’t do. I focused way too intently on my peas instead of his penetrating stare.

“There are plenty of people here helping. One more set of hands wouldn’t do much,” I replied. I would have told him I had leprosy and was highly contagious if it convinced him to leave me alone.

“You know you would be more than that.”

“Nope, that’s it. Ten fingers, it’s all I have.”

He shifted his weight as he sat and moved his feet so he was sitting cross-legged. “Everly, don’t pretend. You have access to the kind of information they need.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. If you want information, you should go to the library and read a book. I’m sure it would be more helpful than me.”

“You can speak with the dead, Ev.” He paused as my head shot up to look at him. I wasn’t sure if I had heard correctly.

Nobody knew about my abilities.

I certainly hadn’t told anybody.

How on earth did Oliver know?

Chapter Four

I had to protect my secret at all costs. I couldn’t look at Oliver as I lied. “Speak with the dead? Yeah, right,” I said sarcastically, brushing the idea off as ludicrous.

“Come on, I’ve known you forever. You really think you can lie to me?” Oliver laughed and I knew it was impossible to avoid his questions any longer.

But I wasn’t going to give up so easily. “I really have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“So you can’t see ghosts?”

“No.”

“Sure.” He rolled his eyes and it instantly made me remember the last time we had hung out together. It was in my bedroom, we were studying ancient history. I was trying to convince him Cleopatra was a made up figure and he was shooting me down by applying logic and reason. He had rolled his eyes at me then too and I thought it was adorable. Now, it was frustrating.

“I swear,” I insisted.

“Miss Everly Anne Hilton, you are too bad of a liar to actually do it convincingly. Quit it.”

I couldn’t keep up the charade, no matter how much I tried. Oliver had a way of seeing right through me. It only left one question: “How long have you known?”

“A while.”

“I don’t want anyone else to know.”

He nodded, back to being completely serious again. “I can respect that. Nobody needs to find out.”

I needed him to understand just how much was at stake with my secret. Even though I trusted Oliver more than anyone else in the world, he could still make a mistake. “It’s just that, if people know, then the ghosts will all know too. Sometimes it’s too much and they won’t