Page 6 of Haunted

I pull up my playlist, press play, grab a fresh pair of gloves, and get back to work on Kyle’s tattoo.

2

LUCA

I’M AT ONE OF THE places I come to when I need a break from the daily bullshit of my life. I sit on the edge of the bluff, one knee bent with my arm draped over it, my other leg hanging over the side. I look out across the abyss before me, taking in all that is Silver Hill. It’s amazing, the difference between the left and the right. One side holds the riches of Silver Hill, while the other carries the dirt-poor and desperate. It literally splits down the middle. Where I sit on the cliff, it looks like I’m balancing between the two. I’m not, and never will be. I’ll always belong to the barren and crummy side, even if Ink Me is doing well enough I could afford the finer things in life.

I lie back against the hard gravel and stare up at the bright sky, tucking my hands behind my head. Silver Landing, a name the people of Silver Hill have dubbed the bluff, is the one place where the two sides come to socialize. Both rich and poor teenagers come up here on weekends to satisfy their twisted need to mix with the others. I came up here a few times during the nightly get-togethersjust out of curiosity, but it was never my thing. Instead, I preferred to come during the day when no one was around to bother me.

I close my eyes and enjoy the fresh air as it passes through my lungs. I frown as something sweet intermingles with the woodsy scent.

Wildflowers.

That’s the only word that comes to mind for the smell. It shouldn’t be here because there’re no wildflowers around. All that’s here is gravel and dirt and patches of dried grass. The smell is beautiful, which contrasts with my surroundings.

The bright light from the sun through my closed eyes dims, and I slowly open them. They widen when I see something hovering over me. Not something, but someone. A woman. A woman with brunette hair that floats around her. Her eyes, the color of bright amber, stare at me dolefully.

She’s about five feet above me, her body longways to match my horizontal position. She seems to be in a spectral form. She’s in front of me but not fully there. Her white sleeveless dress drifts around her legs.

She’s pretty. No, not pretty. Devastatingly gorgeous.

Not understanding why I do it, I lazily smile up at her. She smiles back, but it fades seconds later, and her eyes take on a dead look. The first sharp stab pierces my chest, and I suck in a breath at the sudden pain.

“Where are you, Luca?” the woman whispers, her lips barely moving. “I’m waiting for you.”

Her hand reaching toward me and the desperate pleading in her eyes paralyze me. I want to reach out and grasp her, to pull her to me and demand she tell me what’s wrong, but for some reason I can’t. I’m frozen; the only part of my body moving is my chest as I breathe heavily.

My jaw clenches as I strain my muscles, trying to get themto move, but no matter how hard I internally push myself, nothing fucking happens.

What in the ever-lovin’ hell?

“Tell me your name,” I force out through gritted teeth. Even moving my lips is strenuous, but something tells me I need to know her name.

Instead of answering me, her arm goes back to her side. Tears glisten in her eyes and her expression turns sad once again.

A second stinging pain lances my chest, and I flinch.

“I need you. Please,please,help me.”

I try again to lift my arm but get nowhere.

“I don’t understand.” The growled words rumble from my tight throat. “How do I help you?”

She stays silent as she looks at me with her solemn golden eyes.

Her body inches closer to me, and I know if she were to reach out now, she’d be able to touch me. I wish she would. I don’t understand why I have this need, but there’s a strong desire to have some part of her touch some part of me.

All I can do is lie there and look at her as she gets closer and closer. Her wraithlike appearance allows me to see the trees above us through her body, but as she draws nearer, her features become more clear. She has a small scattering of freckles across her cheeks. One in particular stands out more than the others because it’s bigger and is just below the corner of her right eye. She also has the beginning of small indents in her cheeks that suggests dimples if she were to smile.

My body tenses even further when she doesn’t stop and keeps floating toward me. Her eyes don’t change, and she doesn’t try to touch me. She’s only inches from me now, and my chest tightens the closer she gets.

She’s so close I can see black specks in her eyes mixing in with the pretty golden amber.

Painful breath rushes from my lungs when she all of a sudden closes her eyes and an agonizing scream escapes her lips. Not a second later, she bursts into a thousand tiny flashes of bright light, her scream still echoing around me. The small fragments fall, and it’s like some magnetic force inside me is drawing them into my body. Each piece that penetrates is more excruciating than the last.

I WAKE WITH A jerk, my eyes flying wide open as I sit up in bed. I clutch my chest as searing pain crushes my lungs. I pull in deep breaths, trying to push the discomfort away. It’s fake, leftover fragments from the pain in my dream. It has to be.

I toss the covers aside and climb from the bed. Stalking toward the bathroom, I stumble a few steps, my equilibrium off.

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