My Immortal Read Free Page A

– the forest floor, the dead dog, the frightened child. Surely she was just imagining things. Surely it hadn’t been more than just coincidence. Surely Dr. Ashcroft was right and she was just taking her work home with her.
    Surely , she reiterated to herself as she tried to gulp down her rising apprehension.
    Her shaking hands clasped the handle of the drawer and it slid slowly out in front of her. The light from the other room glinted off of the metal slab. The covered body on it seemed so small, too small.
    Adele eased down the dark cloth, revealing all that remained of Lily Maldonado. Her hair was dark and leaves and residual sprigs still poked from her scalp. Adele fought the urge to pick them out, and forced herself instead to look at the child’s face. Her shaking fingers angled her phone to capture a picture, cataloging yet another piece of the puzzle.
    Lily’s skin was so pale, almost incandescent. Adele instantly recognized the hue; she’d seen it in herself through her lifelong battle of anemia. Only this was worse. There were no fluids left in this girl. Adele’s brow knit as she tried to remember the file. Had she been embalmed? Was there an autopsy already?
    Adele stared so intently into Lily’s face that she couldn’t help herself but move closer to the drawer. Was this the face from her dreams? Had she even seen the face in her dreams? It was all so fuzzy now. She closed her eyes and tried to recapture the details of her nightmare. It had seemed so real just the night before. With time, as always, it had become a jumble of broken fragments, like the jagged edges of shattered mirrors. Only disjointed bits and pieces remained. With a frustrated sigh Adele opened her eyes to stare back into the face of the dead child.
    Her phone clattered to the floor as she gasped out loud. Lily’s eyes were open, and they now stared into hers. A scream lodged somewhere in Adele’s throat as the tiny bones in Lily’s neck cracked when she turned inexplicably toward Adele, revealing the gaping wound on the other side of her neck.
    “ They’re coming for me,” croaked the tiny lifeless body, as if pleased or comforted by the idea.
    Adele stumbled backward, moving right over the handle of the other vault causing it to pop open. Metal screeched against metal, sliding open the drawer with another covered body. Adele lost her footing and fell face first toward the rigid, cold corpse. She could have sworn she heard the little girl laugh from the other drawer. With a strangled cry Adele scrambled toward the door without looking back.
    She didn’t stop running until she exploded through the front door of the building and hit the night air. Her hair spilled around her shoulders as she ripped off her cap and turned and stared back up at the building, specifically the darkened windows on the second floor.
    She reached into her pocket for her phone, and then realized too late it was still on the floor up in the examination room. She cursed under her breath. As much as she wanted to run as far as she could get, she knew she couldn’t leave the phone. Her shaking hands stuffed her hair back under her cap rather unsuccessfully before she headed back into the building.
    She thought her heart would beat a hole in her chest as she rounded the corner to the examination room. Shadows danced in the darkness and played tricks on her eyes, which were already primed to see things she couldn’t explain, like a talking dead child. With another cautious glance each way she hit the light, and sucked in a breath at what she saw.
    The doors to both vaults were closed, and her phone was nowhere to be found.
    Had she already been found out?
    Or had the little girl snagged her phone before she slid back into the dark recesses of her vault?
    Adele shook her head. That was crazy. And she knew crazy.
    With an audible gulp, Adele reached for the handle. If she had remembered any prayers from her childhood, she might have thought to recite them. But