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Sitting bolt upright in the bed, I tugged the covers with me.Someonewas there, and she seemed to know me, yet however hard I peered into the dark, I couldn’t make her out.

“Who is this?”

The gloom shifted around me as though it were alive, revealing the silhouette of a person—the woman I’d heard. I could scarcely pull in a breath as her shadowy outline edged forward from the blacker hues, but the temperature around me seemed to fall with every second I watched her.

Forcing my gaze away from the mirage, I acknowledged what should have been obvious. The fire had gone out, abandoning the cabin to shadow and ice.

“You left me.” The nameless female was closer still, though I heard no evidence of her footsteps.

Recoiling against the bed, I realized I did recognize her voice.

She wasn’t nameless after all.

“Chelle?” My breath was just about visible between us. “Is that you?”

How could she be there? She’d headed in the opposite direction from the cabin and didn’t know we’d be there. I wanted to believe it was her, though. Longed to think that somehow, despite the snow and her frantic desperation, she’d managed to cling to life and find her way to me.

“How could you have left me?” Her words came again, but they were steelier that time, as though she’d spat them in my direction.

“Youleft me!” Tears welled at her recriminating tone. Why was she so angry? I’d begged her not to go. “But I’m so happy you’re here. I’m glad you’re okay!”

“I’mnotokay,” she hissed, nudging at the blankets by my feet as her presence neared. I froze, willing my numb toes to move but unable to make them. “I’m fucking dead, you moron!”

“What?” I couldn’t make sense of what I was hearing. “You can’t be dead! You wouldn’t be here talking to me if you were.”

“And yet I am.” Her tone dripped with disdain. “Not an hour dead and I find myself here. Is this the afterlife, Erin?” She snorted. “Or is this hell? Trapped in the darkness with the people who failed to save James.”

“Please.” Thick, ugly tears fell, burning my flesh as they trailed along my face. “Don’t say that. I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t want you to leave!”

“Look at you.” She floated closer still, and even though I couldn’t see her face, I sensed her sneer searing me. Loathing was coming from her energy in waves, forcing me to shrink back against the pathetic pillows. “Parading yourself half-naked with him when you should be out there looking for me and James!”

“Chelle, don’t...” It wasn’t like my friend to be so cruel. She missed James—of course she did—but there was a viciousness to her tone that I didn’t recognize.

Whoever loomed before me was not the woman I’d laughed and clung to for the last ten years. She was someone else.

“Pitiful.” She tutted. “Who knew you were such a whore.”

“No!” Anger flared inside me.

How dare she accuse me of something so disgusting? What was a whore anyway, except a woman judged to enjoy too much of her own sexuality? The Chelle I knew was better than that.

“That’s not true,” I countered. “I’m notwithEli. He’s only trying to help me. I—”

“Whore!” Her voice was louder as she interrupted me. “Nothing but a fucking whore!”

“Stop it!”

Taking a deep breath, I hollered the words so loudly that I burst out of the bubble of hollow sleep I’d fallen into and lurched from the dream.

Awake and trembling, I found myself in a cold sweat in the bed, listening to the wind whipping around the side of the building.

“Erin?” Eli sounded groggy as he stirred from the chair. “What’s wrong?”

Noises reverberated in the darkness, the sounds of him moving, but all I could think about was the dreadful dream. I’d fallen asleep in the end, but all my guilt-ridden mind could drag up was a horrific visit from Chelle’s ghost.

What the hell was wrong with me?

“Erin?” A stark beam of illumination appeared from the flashlight he’d found, forcing me to turn away from its glare.

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