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

afternoon. I was left alone with my thoughts, coming to no other conclusion than knowing I was no closer to solving any problems.

The sun was starting its slow descent down to kiss the horizon. It was time I started moving. I stood, stretching my limbs and finding them still painful and stiff. It was going to take a while to get over the damage the mole people had inflicted.

I walked slowly, compensating for my wrecked body. Oliver said he would meet me back at the basement apartment, hopefully he would make it back before I did so I didn’t need to worry about where he was.

Not that I ever stopped worrying about Oliver.

As I rounded a corner, a loud explosion erupted through the city. Instinctively, I crouched down and my arms flew over my head – sending pain bolting through my shoulder.

There was no debris that rained down on me this time. Wherever the explosion was, it wasn’t anywhere near me. A puff of smoke in the distance was all I could see of the damage and death that had occurred.

All I could pray for was that Faith and Oliver weren’t anywhere near the building that had blown up. That thought spurred me into action. Ignoring the now pulsing pain in my shoulder, I set off in a run toward the apartment. There was nothing I could do about knowing my sister’s whereabouts, but I could find Oliver.

I had to know he was okay.

My eyes searched the streets for the landmarks that had guided me only that morning. My feet pounded on the pavement in the same rhythm to my heartbeat.

Thud. Thud. Thud.

It echoed in my head.

The thought of being without Oliver, of something taking him from me, was unbearable. He had become a part of me, just as sure as my own limbs. Without him, I wouldn’t be able to survive. I was fooling myself the entire time I was living in my house on the hill. Being without Oliver wasn’t living, it was only existing.

By the time I rounded the last corner, I was nearly crazy with panic. My lungs burned and my legs were quickly turning to jelly. I stopped outside the apartment building, taking the steps down to the basement two at a time.

He wasn’t there.

“Oliver?” I called out. My eyes found all the nooks and shadows, searching them and making sure he couldn’t be hiding anywhere from me.

There was no response.

If Oliver wasn’t here, he might have been in that building. The explosion that could be heard echoing around the city could have engulfed him. Swallowed him up like his life meant nothing. Like he was nothing.

I couldn’t breathe.

This time, it wasn’t the mold and mildew making it difficult, but sheer panic. I had to find Oliver. The thought repeated in my head, shutting down any other thoughts.

I ran for the door.

And almost ran straight into him.

I managed to stop myself before collided with his chest. Again, I found myself desperate to wrap my arms around him but couldn’t cross that line. We were friends, I wasn’t supposed to need him so badly.

“Everly? Are you okay?” he asked, his eyes full of nothing but concern.

I stepped back, trying to regain my lost composure. “Yeah, I was just… going to get some food. Have you eaten?”

“I have.” He took a step closer, his brows knitted with worry. “Are you sure you’re okay? You’re so pale. And breathless. What’s going on?”

Looking up at his earnest face, I couldn’t lie. There was no point. “I heard an explosion, I was worried you might have been hurt.” I held his gaze, desperate to know all that was running through his mind.

“I was worried about you for the same reason,” he confessed, his eyes leaving mine and falling to the floor.

Nobody cared about me as much as Oliver did. Not since the Event and I had lost my family. My heart, the same piece of me I had thought shriveled and dead, started to swell. It was a strange feeling, flooding my veins with warmth and lifting my spirits.

All that, in the space of less than a second.

Oliver was looking at me expectantly, waiting for me to say something. Anything. I wasn’t sure if I could find any words to speak. Because, as much as I knew my own feelings, I didn’t know his.

“I should go get food before it gets too dark,” I managed to get out. It was completely inadequate for what I wanted to say but it would have to do.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

I nodded, not ready to leave him again so soon. We walked side by side to the shelter, largely in silence. I didn’t want to confess that I had spent the day stalking Jet and he didn’t want to share his day’s activities for whatever reason he held.

The shelter was getting busier every time I visited. As the food supplies were running out in peoples’ private stashes, they were turning to the kindness of the shelter workers. The crazy kid had been right, the food was going to dry up soon.

As I waited in line, one of the spirits caught my eye. I knew he wasn’t real as he was an adult, standing taller than most people here.

And I had seen him before.

David was walking amongst the kids. He hadn’t seen me, he was going in the opposite direction. He shouldn’t have been here. I had seen him cross over and disappear with my own eyes.

Why was he still walking the earth?

I had released him, helped him settle his affairs with his children. He should have gone to the better place we were all promised. There was no way David could still be here.

“Ev? What’s going on?” Oliver asked, trying to