Chapter 29

• It didn’t feel empty—not like sleep or silence. It felt thick, like smoke curling around my lungs, like drowning in fire. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t scream. Couldn’t breathe. Only float. Memories drifted by like ash in the wind. A child’s laugh. A cliff. Silver chains. Kelly’s smile—sweet and twisted. Mike’s voice, calm like poison. And the light. The light inside me that had turned everything to chaos.
• “When you wake, there will be nothing left of the girl.” “Only the Ghost.” I wanted to scream. To fight it. But there was nothing to fight. Only me.
• I gasped. Air tore into my lungs like I hadn’t breathed in days. My whole body arched on the surface I was lying on. I wasn’t in chains anymore. I wasn’t on a cold marble floor. It was—