The Life After Trilogy: Soul Taken / Soul Possessed / Soul Betrayed. Katlyn Duncan

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СКАЧАТЬ and it wasn’t as if either of us had a cell phone that worked in the After. I wanted, no, needed answers more than anything.

      “You will reach your destination to the left in 0.2 miles,” the GPS said.

      The rain had let up a lot; only a few drops hit the windshield as we neared our destination. Jamie drove the car through a winding road that opened up to dozens of brick buildings nestled close to each other. Most of them were closed for the day, but a few pickup trucks idled in the lots or passed us on the way out of the park.

      Ally’s skin crawled as we got closer.

      “This is it,” Jamie said. She slowly drove by a gray building with a bright white sign that read, ‘Anderson Landscaping’. “Seth works for his father’s business.”

      “How do you know that?” I asked, even though I had known this through a quick peek at Ally’s memories.

      “Everyone knows that,” Jamie said, driving past the building.

      “Where are you going?” I asked.

      “We can’t just sit in front of the place. There was a light in the upstairs window.” She pulled the car close to the curb and turned it off.

      Her phone blasted a rock song from its speakers. I dropped it.

      “Crap,” she said, grabbing the phone. “It’s my dad.” She lifted it to her ear. “Yeah, Dad?… No, I’m still here at Ally’s house… yes… it’s in the top cabinet… no, the other one… keep going…” She rolled her eyes at me and mouthed an apology.

      My soul buzzed. We were so close. I had to know what Jackson had to say about Seth and possibly Krystal.

      “Stay here,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

      I shoved the door open and hopped out of the car before Jamie could stop me. Abandoning the crutches in the car, I put on a limp just in case anyone Ally knew was around.

      Including Seth. I hoped he was innocent in all of this, and a small part of me hoped Krystal was as well. I just couldn’t imagine two of the people that Ally trusted would ever go to those lengths for… what? Revenge? They couldn’t have known what she was. But why had Jackson opted to meet me at Seth’s father’s business if it didn’t include him?

      I pulled Ally’s coat tight around her as the rain picked up again and rounded the wide open fence into the lot. The light that Jamie had seen was still on, but nothing inside the room moved. Ally’s blood ran cold. Had Jackson lured me here, thinking Seth had been a part of all this then hurt him so he couldn’t warn Ally? I kept my eyes glued to the window, yet I still didn’t see anything or anyone.

      Thunder rumbled in the distance, and I looked up at the dark gray clouds above me. I held Ally’s arms tight against her chest, holding back a shiver.

      “You made it,” Jackson said, appearing in front of me.

      I thought back to the memory of his hand touching mine in the woods, the need to feel that again burned inside of me, but I stood my ground.

      “I don’t have a lot of time,” I said.

      He stepped forward and I side-stepped him until my back faced the building.

      “I will not harm you, Maggie,” he said firmly holding his hands out at his sides. “I wish you didn’t do this to us. Then you would know that.”

      “Us?” I asked.

      He ignored my question. “Did you get my message?”

      “I’m here, aren’t I?” I snapped.

      His gaze fell to the space between us. “Not that one,” he said. “Do you have it with you?” he asked, as if I should know what he meant.

      I did. I took the owl from Ally’s pocket and held it between her fingers. “What does this mean?”

      He raked a hand through his thick tresses. “You’re smarter than that, Mags. I showed you my memory and brought you something you’d lost a long time ago. You made the connection yourself. Why did you come here if not to find me?”

      He took a step forward and Ally’s hands stretched out between us. Jackson kept coming and I couldn’t move, his eyes capturing me in their wicked net.

      “What does Seth have to do with this?” I asked, finding my voice, although it sounded too high.

      Jackson looked down at me, our bodies nearly a foot apart. “He is the experiment.”

      “Experiment for what?” Ally’s heart raced. I yearned to look at the window, checking to see if Seth was okay, but I couldn’t take them off Jackson.

      “I know I can pass along my memories,” he said, brushing two fingers across Ally’s cheek.

      The touch sent an electric shock pulsing through me. I inhaled deeply.

      A grin spread across his face. “But I want to see if we can access yours.”

      Closing my eyes, I waited for the visions to unfurl from his touch, but after a few seconds the pressure of his hand against Ally’s cheek disappeared. I opened my eyes and Jackson was gone. I scanned the lot. Where had he gone?

      “What the hell, Maggie?” Jamie said, storming up the lot, holding the crutches in both hands.

      I shushed her, shaking off the residual fluttering inside me.

      “I thought,” she said, her voice low, “we were in this together? You could have waited.”

      If I’d waited I wouldn’t have found Jackson, or maybe I would have and at the same time revealed Jamie’s gift to the so-called enemy.

      “Sorry,” I said sincerely, taking the crutches from her, tucking them under Ally’s arms. “I was just checking this place out; no one is around out here.”

      “Thank God for that. What if someone saw you without your crutches?” She stopped and shook her head. “I sound like my grandmother.”

      “Let’s go inside,” I said. “I want to be back at the house before Cooper gets there.”

      The office door opened easily. Jamie and I shook off the cold rain from our coats and continued further into the building, passing through a door at the back of the office into a cavernous room. All the lights were off, except for a few emergency lights scattered on the walls that created hulking shadows across the equipment. Jamie and I moved closer together as we walked.

      A crash from the second floor stopped us in our tracks followed by a high-pitched scream that echoed through the room. I dropped the crutches and ran to the wooden steps at the far end of the room taking them two at a time, Jamie only a few steps behind me.

      At the top of the stairs, a small hallway branched off into three doorways. Light shone out of the bottom of one of them. A girlish whimper sounded from behind it. Without thinking I grabbed the door handle, twisted it, and pushed through into the room. The door drifted out of my hand as I tried to comprehend the sight in front of me.

      Seth СКАЧАТЬ