Soul Screamers Collection. Rachel Vincent

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СКАЧАТЬ glance my way and shot to her feet. She wobbled for a moment, then dashed around him and knelt at Emma’s head to check her pulse.

      More people knelt on the ground, hands covering their ears, their mouths moving frantically, uselessly. They were oblivious to the creatures peppered throughout their midst, a condition which was apparently mutual. A tall, thin man made frantic motions with both arms, and the humans behind him backed up. The gray creatures seemed to press even closer, but I saw it all distantly, as the scream still tore from my throat, burning like razors biting into my flesh.

      Then my eyes were drawn back to Emma’s soul, which had begun to twist and writhe frenetically. One smoky end of it trailed toward the corner of the gym, as if struggling in that direction, while the rest wrapped around itself, sinking toward Emma’s body like the heavy end of a raindrop.

      Transfixed, I glanced at Nash to see sweat dripping down his face. His eyes were open but unfocused, his hands now clenching handfuls of his pressed khaki pants. And as I watched, the soul descended a little more, as if the gravity over Emma’s body had been somehow boosted.

      People rushed all around us, staring in my direction, shouting to be heard over me. Human hands touched my arms, tugged at my clothing, some trying to comfort me and silence my cry, others trying to pull me away. Odd colorless forms gathered in groups of two or three, watching boldly, murmuring words I couldn’t hear and probably wouldn’t have understood. And Emma’s soul moved slowly toward her body, that one smoky tendril still winding off toward the corner.

      Nash almost had her. But if he couldn’t do it quickly, it would be too late. My voice was already losing volume, my throat throbbing in agony now, my lungs burning with the need for fresh oxygen.

      Then, at last, the lucent shadow settled over Emma’s body and seemed to melt into it. In less than a second, it was completely absorbed.

      Nash exhaled forcefully, and blinked, wiping sweat from his forehead with one sleeve. My voice finally gave out, and my mouth closed with a sharp snap, loud in the sudden silence. And every single gray being, every last wisp of fog, simply winked out of existence.

      For a moment, no one moved. The hands on me went still. The human onlookers were frozen in place as if they could feel the difference, though they clearly had no idea what had happened, other than that I’d stopped screaming.

      My gaze settled on Emma, searching out some sign of life. Rising chest, jiggling pulse. I would even have taken a wet, snotty sneeze. But for several torturous seconds, we got nothing, and I was convinced we’d failed. Something had gone wrong. The unseen reaper was too strong. I was too weak. Nash was out of practice.

      Then Emma breathed. I almost missed it, because there was no Oscar-worthy gasp for air. No panting, no wheezing, and no choking cough to clear sluggish lungs. She simply inhaled.

      My head fell into my hands, tears of relief overflowing. I laughed, but no sound came out. I had truly lost my voice.

      Emma opened her eyes, and the spell was broken. Someone in the crowd gasped, and suddenly everyone was in motion, leaning closer, whispering to companions, covering gaping mouths with shaking hands.

      Emma blinked up at me, and her forehead furrowed in confusion. “Why am I… on the floor?”

      I opened my mouth to answer, but the residual pain in my throat reminded me I’d lost my voice. Nash shot me a grin of total, exhilarating triumph and answered for me. “You’re fine. I think you passed out.”

      “She had no pulse.” The round woman sat back from Emma, her face flushed in bewilderment. “She was. I checked. She should be.”

      “She passed out,” Nash repeated firmly. “She probably hit her head when she fell, but she’s fine now.” To demonstrate, he held out his hand for one of hers, then pulled her upright, her legs stretched out on the floor in front of her.

      “You shouldn’t move her!” the principal scolded from my side. “She could have broken something.”

      “I’m fine.” Emma’s voice was thick with confusion. “Nothing hurts.”

      A quiet murmur rose around us, as the news spread to those too far back to have seen the show. Whispered words, like “died” and “no pulse” set me on edge, but when Nash reached across Emma’s lap to take my hand, the anxiety receded.

      Until a second scream shattered the growing calm.

      Heads turned and people gasped. Emma and Nash stared in horror over my shoulder, and I twisted to follow their gaze.

      The crowd still surrounded us, but through gaps between the bodies, I saw enough to piece together what had happened.

      Someone else was down.

      I couldn’t see who it was, because someone was already bent over her, performing CPR. But I knew by the straight black skirt and slim, smooth calves that it was a girl, and I knew from the pattern that she would be young and beautiful.

      Nash’s hand tightened around mine, and I glanced up to find his face as tense with regret as mine surely was. We’d done the unthinkable. We’d saved Emma at the expense of someone else’s life. Not one of ours—an innocent, uninvolved girl’s.

      I arched both eyebrows at him, asking silently if he was willing to try it again. He nodded gravely but looked less than confident that we could carry it off. And in the back of my mind, tragic certainty lingered: if we saved another one, the reaper would simply strike again. And again. Or he’d take one of us. Either way, we couldn’t afford to play his game.

      But I couldn’t let someone else die for no reason.

      I opened my mouth to scream—and nothing came out. I’d forgotten my voice was gone, and this time so was the urge to wail. There was no panic. No fresh pain clawing up the inside of my throat.

      Horrified, I looked to Nash for advice, but he only frowned back at me. “If you can’t sing, she’s already gone,” he whispered. “The urge ends once the reaper has her soul.”

      Which was why my song for Meredith had ended as soon as she’d died—we’d made no bid for her soul.

      Devastated, I could only watch as people scurried around the dead girl, trying to help, trying to see, trying to understand. And in the middle of the confusion, one of the onlookers caught my eye. Because she wasn’t looking on. While everyone else was focused on the girl lying on the gym floor, one slim arm thrown across the green three-point line, one woman stood against the back corner, staring at…me.

      She didn’t move, and in fact seemed eerily frozen against all the commotion surrounding us. As I watched, she smiled at me slowly, intimately, as if we’d shared some kind of secret.

      And we had. She was the reaper.

      “Nash.” I croaked, and groped for his hand, hesitant to take my eyes from the oddly motionl ess woman.

      “I see her.” But he’d barely spoken the last word before she was gone. She blinked out of existence, as silently and suddenly as Tod had, and in the bedlam, no one else seemed to notice.

      Frustration and fury blazed through me, singeing me from the inside out. The reaper was taunting us.

      We’d known the possible consequence and had taken the risk anyway, and now someone had СКАЧАТЬ