All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(14)

I shivered, and the car swerved a few inches before I could settle myself. “Yeah.”

“Vie, it wasn’t just a dream.”

“Maybe you—”

“No.”

She said it with such conviction that I risked another glance. In answer to my unspoken question, Becca ran her hand across the back of my neck, and pain stung me. Her fingers came away red with blood.





Staring at the blood on Becca’s fingers, I barely noticed as the car drifted across the double yellow again. That was my blood. My blood, coming from a cut on the back of my neck. A cut that, now that Becca had touched it, stung like hell. A cut that shouldn’t have been there, because I had been cut in a dream.

A horn blared, and I swerved hard to the right, thumping over a manhole cover and turning up the next street. I pulled to the curb, reached back, and found the slash across my neck: low, just above the shoulders, and as long as my hand. It didn’t feel deep, but it was definitely still bleeding, and now I noticed that the collar of my shirt was wet. Another reason, I decided, feeling a surge of frenzied laughter that I clamped down, why this shirt was going in the trash when I got home.

Becca, studying her fingers, had a look of grim satisfaction. “It wasn’t just a dream.”

“No,” I said. Wiping my hand on my shirt, I added, “So what was it?”

“You don’t know?”

“No idea.”

“But you’re, you know, psychic.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“Well you are.”

I sighed. “Becca.”

“What?” Her eyes narrowed.

“Is this going to be a thing?”

“What does that mean?”

“I mean, every time something happens, are you going to ask me to . . . I don’t know.”

“Use your mojo?”

“Please.” I squeezed my eyes shut. “Becca, I’m serious.”

“Do you mean,” she asked, “that you aren’t going to pry all the secrets out of the next guy I have a crush on?”

I shook my head, eyes still closed.

“Like,” she continued, “if he’s a psychopath?”

I shook my head again.

“Or worse, if he’s married?”

“Nice, Becca. Real nice.”

“Or his dirtiest, filthiest fantasy?” Her nail hooked my collar, and I jumped in surprise, my eyes flying open.

“Jesus. What are you—”

She had a cast iron smile, heavy enough to press all the humor out of her words. “I’m not an idiot, Vie. I’m not a silly little girl.” Still toying with my collar, she considered me, and the weight of that cast iron smile pulled down the corners of her mouth. “So. You don’t know what’s going on. Not the first thing.”

“No.”

“Ok.” She thought for a moment. “You can sense emotions.”

“Sometimes. Mostly, though, I just get an impression the first time I meet someone.”

“Really? What about me?”

“A song.” I hummed a few notes.

Becca’s eyebrows shot up, and she coughed. One hand over her mouth, she said, “One more time.”

Again, I ran through the patch of song I’d heard.

Again, Becca started to cough. It took her almost a minute to settle down, and when she did, she stared at me with huge eyes, bright and teary. “Could you maybe sing a little for me?”

Something about the whole thing was off. My hackles rose. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing. Just, if you could belt out the first few lines, you know, maybe I’d recognize—”

“You’re laughing at me.”

“I am not!”

I shifted the car into drive.

“No more jokes,” Becca said, but then she buried her face in her arm, and when she looked at me again her eyes shone like stars. “Promise,” she added when she’d recovered. “Don’t be angry, Vie. I need your help. I’m freaked out, and I’m scared to close my eyes again, and when you—when you made those noises—”

“You mean, when I sang.”

“Right. Of course. When you—when you—”

I growled. “Get on with it, Becca.”

“I’m sorry, truly. I haven’t slept, and it’s either laugh or scream, and if I start screaming, I don’t think I’ll ever stop.” By the end of this, her eyes had filled with tears again, and she shook her head and blinked.

“Becca, I’m not trying to be a jerk, but whatever is happening here, you need to stay out of it.”

“Because I’m a girl?”

“Because you can’t protect yourself. Because until five minutes ago, you didn’t even know psychics were real. And because this isn’t about you. It’s about—”

“Who’s it about? It’s my dream, Vie. It’s the boy I liked who disappeared.”

For a moment, I considered telling her the rest of it: Luke, and Mr. Big Empty, and my own dream. The certain knowledge I had that Mr. Big Empty was coming, and he was coming for me. But knowing wouldn’t help Becca. It might even hurt her. So I swallowed, hating the dusty taste in my mouth, and shrugged.