Dawn (When They Return Book 1) Read Free

way to her mother’s car. She didn’t look back, too afraid of what she might see. Once in her mother’s vehicle, she slammed the door shut, and locked it.
    Smack .
    A bloody hand slammed against the car window.
    Smack… smack… smack.
    Breathing hard, Dawn faced forward and buckled her seatbelt, ignoring the pounding against the window . ‘It’s not real’ she repeated. If her mother didn’t hear it, it couldn’t be real. It seemed like it took her mother forever to pull out of the parking lot.
    Dawn let out a sigh of relief when the car finally sped off. She glanced in the rearview mirror. The apparition was gone. Relieved, Dawn leaned her head against the seat.
    Smack .
    The headrest shook. Dawn leaned forward and peered in the back seat. She whirled back around and covered her mouth, refusing to scream.
    ‘She’s not there. She’s not there.”
    Smack… smack… smack.
    The headrest continued to vibrate. Oblivious to what was going on, Dawn’s mother kept her eyes on the road. Dawn nodded her head up and down as her mother attempted to make small talk. With her teeth clenched, she held her scream in all the way home, too afraid to move.
    What if it touched her?
    Could it touch her?
    What did it want?
    Why wouldn’t it stop hitting the seat?
    Her mother said something else. Dawn nodded, having no clue what her mother had said. One more stop sign to go through then they would pull into their driveway. She counted the seconds it took to do so, fifteen.
    When they made it home, Dawn rushed upstairs to her room, closing and locking her door behind her. Her mom yelled to her that dinner would be ready in an hour and that her dad would be home in a few minutes.
    Great, another person to give her weird looks over the dinner table while she tried to ignore the girl that was haunting her. This should be fun. Dawn glanced around her room. Once she was sure she was alone, she changed out of her school uniform and into a pair of worn jeans and a purple T-shirt.
    Comfortable, she grabbed her backpack, walked over to her desk and sat down. She looked around her room one more time before pulling her books out. Homework always helped take her mind off her real problems. The only homework she had today was math.
    She hated math. But she loved math ten times more than she liked sitting around wondering where she would see the creepy girl next. So math it was. With her books open, Dawn read over her assignment.
    It took her longer than usual to do each problem. She was too busy casting glances at the mirror over her vanity table thinking she’d seen someone walk past it. Finally she told herself to focus and get her work done. Twenty minutes into her studies a chill crept over her flesh.
    Had her mother turned on the air conditioner? Her dad liked for the house to be cold. Perhaps she was getting it ready for him. Their fondness for cold weather was the only thing she and her dad had in common.
    He liked the cold because he said it was cuddling weather. She liked it because it was the only temperature she could feel which was why she wasn’t allowed near the stove. All it took was one burning incident for her mother to ban from being near anything hot.
    Dawn went back to work, but became distracted again when she sighed and smoke billowed from between her lips. She breathed in deeply then blew it out and watched the smoke slowly disappear. It was really cold in her room.
    Smack .
    She tensed, senses on high alert. The sound had come from behind her, too close for comfort. She didn’t have to turn around to know the mirage was standing there. She could see its reflection in the mirror over her vanity table. Though she told herself not to be afraid, her pencil still shook slightly in her hand.
    “She’s not real,” she whispered as she stared down at her homework. “She’s not real.”
    She uttered the chant two more times and still the room remained cold. Dawn nearly jumped out of her skin when her mother called