Dark Demon Rising: Whisperings Paranormal Mystery book seven Read Free Page A

shoulder.
    My hand went through him.
    I snatched my hand away and transferred it to
my mouth. Backing away, I began to moan. I couldn’t stop the sounds coming from
me and didn’t want to.
    When I managed to quiet myself, I looked at the
woman, her pale face, tip-tilted nose, the silvery brows and the lashes brushing
the tops of her cheekbones, and imagined silver-white hair framing her face.
    An icy chill worse than anything I’d known gushed
through me. My bodylay in a hospital bed. I had no reflection, I
couldn’t touch Royal or anything else. I had a hole in my head.
    I have seen too many shades who bear death
wounds.
    Oh my freaking god! Another moan escaped me as the reality of what
I saw, the whole picture, slammed into me. I’m usually not this
slow but this blew my mind to new heights, so totally incomprehensible it took
me till now to put the pieces together.
    I
wanted to pull my hair out but doubted I could. I wanted to scream, but no one would
hear me. What I always dreaded had come to pass. I died, violently, cursed to
remain here until my killer died.
    A
sob rose up my throat. Numb with misery I stood rooted to the spot, thinking of
the shades I’d met one after the other and my sympathy for their plight. I was
one of them, doomed to watch the world turning without me, never again a
participant, only an observer.
    Stop
it! Pull yourself together.
    But
why should I not give in to grief for everything I lost? For a future with the
man I loved. My life was over, too soon, with so many things left undone.
    Because
it won’t get you anywhere, stupid.
    Something
tickled the back of my mind and I felt it should be thumping at the front,
telling me, you’re missing the obvious, Tiff.
    My lips parted and my shoulders relaxed as the
answer came to me. Jack’s wrong. I would not be on life support were I
brain dead. Royal would not do that to me. If a person’s brain still functions,
they are alive, even though they survive with the help of machines. Something of me was still in there.
    But part of me was out here, separated from my
flesh and bones. If not the shade of a dead person, what was I?
    Stressing over the question would get me
nowhere. I had to let it go.
    Easier said than done.
    You
have the characteristics of a shade but you’re not one.
    But
if it looks like a shade, acts like a shade and falls clean through its
boyfriend. . . ?
    I
tried to assess my feelings. Scared? Yes. Angry? Hell yes. Angry, frustrated,
with misery creeping on my heels.
    I couldn’t bear it. Hyperventilating,
I stumbled away. I couldn’t breathe. Where is a brown paper bag when you need
one?
    I
stopped short, dragged in a breath but tasted nothing and no sensation of air
passing down my throat to my lungs, yet I felt them swell. I peered at my
chest. It didn’t move.
    I
slapped my hands to my chest. “I can’t breathe. Can’t breathe! Help me!”
    Jack
sucked the inside of his cheek and dipped his chin. Mel slowly shook her head.
    Jack
lifted his head to eye me with mock compassion. “Tiff, oh Tiff, what are we
going to do with you? The dead don’t breathe.”
    “But
I did before!”
    “No,
you assumed you breathed. Now you understand you can’t, you’re
panicking.”
    “Maybe
it’s a phantom sensation,” said Mel. “A person who loses a limb often thinks
they still feel it. Try not to think about it.”
    I
inhaled again. Nothing passed through my air passage yet my lungs filled. I had
a thought: “You need air to talk.”
    “Yes,”
Mel hissed, “if you’re alive! ”
    I
almost laughed then. All the times my roommates challenged my patience, now I tested
theirs.
    A tap on the door and another nurse walked in
balancing a small laptop on one palm. I did a fast backward shuffle to get out
of her way.
    “Don’t mind me, I’ll be done in a minute,” she
merrily told Royal as she set the laptop on the bedside table and adjusted the
IV drip. I didn’t think he heard her.
    Royal. In my confusion and misery