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

I tried to be vague, they could piece it together. They could find me.

Would they have any more mercy for me if they found me again? I somehow doubted they would. My death would probably be long and drawn out, made to suffer for embarrassing them by escaping the first time. They wouldn’t risk it a second time.

“I don’t know where to go,” I admitted.

“You could stay.”

“For what? There’s nothing here for me anymore.”

Oliver shifted his weight between his feet, summoning up the courage to say what he wanted to. I wished he would just spit it out. I knew I wouldn’t like it.

“Well?” I prompted.

“You could stay and help,” he finally said. How many times did we need to have that conversation? I was no closer to understanding how I could be of help to a broken city. I was just one girl.

And I was just as broken.

I threw up my hands in frustration. I felt like I was on the verge of insanity with nothing making sense. I was so close to tipping over the edge that I could see the fall. “How could I possibly help? Tell me specifically what I can do. Please, Oliver, because I’m totally lost here.”

If he was affected by my outburst, he didn’t let it show. Cool and collected, that was Oliver. He was a good guy to have around in an emergency. “You could be more aware. Open up your mind to the spirits and listen to them. They have knowledge that we need.”

“They say nothing but garbage. It’s just chatter, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“But are you really listening?”

What the hell was he talking about? I had ears, of course I was listening to the ghosts. It was all I could do to not listen to them sometimes. It was harder keeping them out than letting them in.

I turned around and started walking. I didn’t know where I was going and I didn’t care either. Let Taz find me, he could do his worst.

“Where are you going?” Oliver called out.

I didn’t turn around to answer him. “I need some time alone. I have to think.”

“Be careful.”

No amount of carefulness would be good enough in the city. I thought I was careful before Jet’s boys took me. Now I knew there was nowhere to hide from them.

Oliver let me go and every step I took led me further away from him. He had no right telling me what to do. He had no idea what the spirits were like. He couldn’t. He had to be only guessing, grasping at straws like everyone else still hanging onto a spark of hope in the city.

There was no destination to my walk so I didn’t know when I would get there. Darkness was still a long time away, I could walk for hours before I needed to find somewhere for the night. At least that was a small mercy.

I stomped until my feet hurt and I couldn’t walk any further. I looked around at my surroundings. I was in a residential neighborhood. A few kids were sitting on the curb, some clutching onto the small railings up to the apartment buildings.

All were filthy.

All were hopeless.

It was as safe a place as any. I sat on the bottom of three stairs that led to a red front door. It was hanging on its hinges, it wouldn’t last long before it would fall off completely.

Oliver’s words were still ringing in my ears.

Open your mind to the spirits.

It was useless. The voices spoke of nothing but nonsense that didn’t mean anything. I should know, having listened to forty-three of them for endless months in my house on the hill. If they had something important to say, surely I would have heard it in that time.

The only spirit I had truly engaged with was Agatha. I wondered what she was doing, whether she was still in the house and awaiting my return. I never thought I would, but I missed her. She always knew the right thing to say, offering some comforting words that I needed to hear.

I really needed some comforting words right now.

But I wasn’t going to rely on other people for those. I was stronger than that. I didn’t need anyone. Not Agatha and not Oliver. I had survived for over a year after the Event when so many had perished.

I could do it.

I opened my mind.

Instead of pushing away the voices and desperately trying not to see the spirits, I let them in. They rushed at me. Like opening a floodgate in a deluge of rain, they came. One after the other, the voices encroached into my consciousness.

At first it was just a din of noise. When I blinked my eyes, there were hundreds of them. I could no longer see the buildings across the street. The filthy kids were blocked out. All I could see were spirits as they jostled to get to me.

And they all spoke at once.

“Tell me they’re okay.”

“Find her.”

“It hurts so terribly.”

“I can’t see the light.”

“It’s gone, it’s just all gone.”

“You have to help.”

“They’re in danger.”

“We’re in danger.”

They went around and around like horses on a carousel. The voices drifted over me, assaulting my senses. They soon felt like a wall closing in on me. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t think. I no longer existed, only the voices of those experiencing so much pain. I would rather have died myself than suffer along with them.

“Stop!” I yelled, covering my ears. “I will listen to you, but you have to take it one at a time. Please.”

They stopped.

But only for a moment.

It started again. Their voices were merely a loud wave of sound, inescapable. If I continued to sit here, I would go