Hereafter. Tara Hudson

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      To Robert. In an instant. In a heartbeat.

      Contents

      Chapter One

      It was the same as always, but different from the…

      Chapter Two

      My first impression of the scene was wrong. The water…

      Chapter Three

      Two days passed.

      Chapter Four

      I was just full of foolish impulses lately. There he…

      Chapter Five

      Hours can pass like years when you wait impatiently for…

      Chapter Six

      That night I didn’t mark the passage of time with…

      Chapter Seven

      I shouldn’t have been surprised. My world had changed the…

      Chapter Eight

      Death may have stolen my old memories of riding in…

      Chapter Nine

      After school ended, Joshua drove us back to Robber’s Cave…

      Chapter Ten

      By the time Joshua pulled his car off the main…

      Chapter Eleven

      I have no idea how long I wandered after I…

      Chapter Twelve

      I bolted upright, gasping.

      Chapter Thirteen

      At the sound of the knock on the window, we…

      Chapter Fourteen

      After Ms. Wolters’s class ended and other students made their way…

      Chapter Fifteen

      Joshua guessed it would take us at least twenty minutes…

      Chapter Sixteen

      When the oppressive black water finally vanished, I woke up,…

      Chapter Seventeen

      Long after Ruth disappeared back into the church, I paced…

      Chapter Eighteen

      The first step into his bedroom transformed me into a…

      Chapter Nineteen

      While the night shifted into morning and Joshua slept on,…

      Chapter Twenty

      “Would you like to hear a story, Amelia?”

      Chapter Twenty-One

      I felt my vision narrow to a black pinpoint and…

      Chapter Twenty-Two

      Joshua hunched over his cup of coffee—the last remains of…

      Chapter Twenty-Three

      It was the same as always.

      Chapter Twenty-Four

      I woke up, still wheezing and gasping. My fingers twitched…

      Chapter Twenty-Five

      For a moment I thought something inside the graveyard—possibly a…

      Chapter Twenty-Six

      I should have known, from the first moment I spotted…

      Chapter Twenty-Seven

      I rushed to the guardrail, but I was too late.

      Chapter Twenty-Eight

      I thought I’d burned them all, incinerated the living and…

      Chapter Twenty-Nine

      I should have been scared. And I was. But instead…

      Epilogue

      “I’d stop asking you if you’d stop being such a…

      Acknowledgments

      About the Author

      Copyright

      About the Publisher

      Chapter

       ONE

      It was the same as always, but different from the first time.

      It felt as if my sternum was a door into which someone had roughly shoved a key and twisted. The door—my lungs—wanted to open, wanted to stop fighting against the twist of the key. That primitive part of my brain, the one designed for survival, wanted me to breathe. But a louder part of my brain was also fighting any urge that might let the water rush in.

      The black water seized and scrambled and found purchase anywhere it could. I kept my lips pressed together and my eyes shut tight, though I desperately needed sight to escape this nightmare. Yet the water still entered my mouth and my nose in little seeps. Even my eyes and ears couldn’t hold it back. The water wrapped around my arms and legs like shifting fabric, tugging and pulling my body in all directions. I was buried under layers and layers of slippery, twisting fabric, and I wasn’t going to claw my way free.

      I’d struggled too long, fought too hard, and now my body was weakening from the lack of oxygen. The flail of my arms toward what I assumed was the surface became less exaggerated, as if the invisible fabric around them had thickened. I literally shook my head against the urge to breathe. I shouted No! in my head. No!

      But instinct is a slippery thing, too—ultimate and untrickable.

      My mouth opened and I breathed.

      And as I always did, except for the first time I’d experienced this nightmare, I woke up.

      My eyes remained closed and I continued to gasp. This time my gasp brought hysterical СКАЧАТЬ