CHAPTER 76

CHAPTER 76

Everything hurt. I couldn’t hear. I couldn’t see. When blurred images finally began to form, all I saw was fire. Fire and Grayson, standing a hundred feet away from me.

I waited for him to come running.

I waited.

I waited.

He didn’t.

And then, there was nothing.

The world around me was dark, and then there was a voice. “Let’s play a game.”

I couldn’t tell if I was standing up or lying down. I couldn’t feel my body.

“I have a secret.”

If I had eyes, I opened them. Or maybe they were already open? Either way, I did something, and the world was flooded with light.

“I’m tired of playing,” I told my mom.

“I know, baby.”

“I’m so tired,” I said.

“I know. But I have a secret, Avery, and you have to play—just one more time, just for me. Okay, baby? You can’t let go.”

I heard a long and distant beep. Lightning tore through my body. “Clear!” a voice yelled.

“Come on, Avery,” my mom whispered. “I have a secret.…”

Another round of lightning tore through me. “Clear!”

I wanted to stop breathing. I wanted to go where the lightning and the fire and the pain couldn’t touch me.

“You have to fight,” my mom said. “You have to hang on.”

“You’re not real,” I whispered. “You’re dead. So either this is a dream, and you’re not even here, or I’m…”

Dead, too.