Ruby's Ghost Read Free Page B

crept closer. Fear sent a spike of adrenaline through his heart, yet still he didn’t wake.
    “Hello?” His voice echoed back at him, but the mist shrank back. That was a good thing. A small part of him knew the mist was bad. He didn’t know why or how or what it would do to him, but he didn’t want to find out.
    He took a step forward. And the mist edged closer again, as if it were curious about him. It muttered and mumbled but he couldn’t understand a word. A tendril reached out, and he jumped to the side to avoid its touch. His chest hurt…his head hurt too. In the moment of distraction the mist closed up, tightening around him like a prison.
    “Boo!” The mist shrank back, but not as far as last time.
    It would get him. He knew that. If he stayed here he would disappear into the mist.
    Where the hell was he? He tried to remember what had happened. Lights and darkness, talking to a dark-haired woman. Thinking made his head hurt. He put his hands on his temples to stop the pressure from breaking open his skull, but it only got worse. His nails dug into his scalp, but the pain didn’t make him wake up. He was awake and trapped here.
    How had he got here? He’d been at a party. A party with Ruby. He blinked and thought he saw her in the mist.
    Where was Ruby? He was supposed to be taking her home. Had Ruby been taken by the mist? Icy sweat formed on his back; if she’d gone into the mist, he couldn’t help her. The same way he knew the mist was dangerous he knew that once it had taken someone it was too late. He turned as someone flickered past the corner of his vision, long pale hair catching in a breeze he couldn’t feel.
    “Ruby?” he whispered, not sure he wanted to summon anything out of the mist, but not wanting to be here alone either. He didn’t want to be here at all. He didn’t belong here. He wanted to go home.
    “Tate.” She stepped out of the mist, looking like he remembered…but something was different. “I thought I’d lost you.” She ran towards him, her arms outstretched and a smile on her lips. The one he remembered, all sugar and fun. Not the one she’d used at the party filled with half-masked anger and unspoken demands.
    He almost hugged her out of reflex, but at the last moment he twisted away. She’d walked out of the mist. How was that possible? Then he looked at her more closely. Was it really Ruby or a trick to lure him in and trap him?
    “What’s wrong?” She frowned and tried to touch his arm.
    He took a step back, then saw his arm hanging awkwardly by his side. The pressure in his head increased, pain stabbing down his neck. “I don’t know.”
    Tate tried to focus on Ruby and the mist, but the buzzing became louder and more insistent. As he stared at her, he realized why she didn’t look quite right. Her skin was pale—no, not just pale. She’d lost all color, like she’d just stepped out of an old black-and-white film. The mist had tainted her and changed her. He glanced at his own hands. They were skin-colored, but only just, as if he were also fading away. He looked at his arm and saw raw skin and blood through the tear in his jacket. The pain in his head increased…was he dying? Or dead?
    Screeching of tires. He remembered the impact and the sensation of being weightless before hitting the ground hard. The lights and voices. Was he hurting because he was alive? The pain in his shoulder and head became stronger, but he welcomed it. He didn’t want to die. He wanted to live. He glanced at the strangely faded Ruby. Was she dead? He wasn’t sure he wanted to ask because the answer he was going to get would be too awful. He realized what the mist meant.
    “Where am I?” he said instead.
    “Where do you want to be? We can go anywhere.” Ruby pointed at something to her left. “How about our special spot on the beach?”
    The mist shifted and reshaped, but he saw nothing.
    “This isn’t right.” It was just endless mist and cold. He couldn’t see what