Dust to Dust Read Free Page B

back onto my pillow with a sigh. “When will everyone stop treating me like I’m a broken little baby bird?”
    Nick tilts his head to one side teasingly. “You kind of are a broken little baby bird,” he says. So I throw a pillow at him.
    He catches it and sits back down on the bed.
    â€œCome here,” he says, holding up his arm.
    I pout at him.
    â€œCallie, we’ll get back to that stuff soon enough,” he says. “It just doesn’t feel right just now.”
    â€œOkay,” I say quietly.
    I lean into him again and he gives my arm a gentle squeeze. The moment is gone, and I wonder where it went. It just doesn’t feel right . Nick’s words echo in my head as I close my eyes and try to fall asleep.
    The aliveness, the sensation of touching and kissing and feeling, is so very right. But Nick isn’t all wrong. Something seems off to me too. Nick is warm and familiar with his soft brown curls and warm, smooth cheeks and smiling, kissable lips that used to move so well with mine. And yet I can’t shake this uneasy feeling I have sometimes when he and I are alone. A feeling that I’ve let go of him, and I’ve already said good-bye in my heart.
    I wake up in the middle of the night and Nick is gone. My phone says it’s just after three a.m. I turn onto my side and face the window, slowly closing my eyes again.
    Crack! I sit up, startled, and find myself staring at the newly fractured glass in my bottom windowpane. Shakily, I stand to inspect it. It’s a single line, not like the spiral spiderweb that would happen if someone threw a rock—more like a break created by extreme pressure. I trace my finger along the ridge of it, and as I do, a low thrum of energy rattles my body.
    My pulse quickens as I hear a loud, familiar sound. A guy’s voice, deep and boisterous, rings in my ears. “ Callie . . . we’re heeeere .”
    Then a girl’s voice follows, higher and less jovial. “ You’re so cheesy ,” it says, seeming to address the first voice. But then, her focus shifts to me. “ We are here, though. And we’re very interestedin renewing our friendship with you, Callie May McPhee .”
    I whip my head around, trying to see where the voices are coming from, but all I see is my room, trashed. Destroyed again like the image I can’t rid my mind of, as if a storm blew through it and destroyed it piece by piece—curtains flying, rug shredding, framed photos smashing against shimmering walls.
    â€œWho’s here? What do you want?”
    â€œ Wait, you don’t remember us ?” says the girl’s voice in a fake pouty tone. “ I’m hurt .”
    â€œ Yeah , Callie ,” says the guy, his voice growing deeper and more menacing. “ You were such a dear friend .”
    Then something grips me by the throat and I can barely breathe.

UNCORRECTED E-PROOF—NOT FOR SALE
    HarperCollins Publishers
    ..................................................................
Three
    I SIT UP IN bed with a start, sweat on my forehead. My eyes adjust to the dim light of the early morning, and my shades are drawn. My room is fine, neat and tidy. It was a dream. But my heart is racing and when I raise my hands in front of me, they’re shaking. Those voices sounded so real.
    I hear a low crackling sound, like static from a radio, and I scan the room to find my old alarm clock in the corner—the one I used to have before I started using the alarm on my phone. I stand up and walk over to it. The numbers that tell the time are blinking and the radio is tuned between stations. That’s weird. I probably haven’t turned this thing on for years. I shut it off and open my laptop to see if there was a power surge or something.
    There’s a blank page open on my screen—a Word document that hasn’t been written yet. I don’t remember starting anything.
    I’m about to shut it down