Kami Garcia: Unbreakable

“I have my cell,” I bluffed. “Leave, or I’m calling the police.”

“Will you—”

“I’m dialing.”

Eventually, I heard the stairs creak.

I didn’t come out until the front door slammed. I leaned against the wall, staring at my bedroom door, as a question fought its way from the back of my mind.

How did they know my name?

The girl’s tortured expression and the handprints around her neck kept coming back to me, no matter how loud I blasted Velvet Revolver. Even worse, when it wasn’t her face, it was my mother’s empty stare.

My mom was dead because of that girl—or something like her.

The thought had sent me tearing out of the house as soon as the guys left. I had spent hours looking for Elvis, but there was no sign of him. I doubted he would come back to the house. At least he was alive.

Now I was driving around aimlessly on a Saturday morning with nowhere to go.

I almost called Elle, but what could I say? Two guys broke into my house and shot a ghost that tried to kill me? I’m too scared to go home and—oh, did I mention that I’ve lost all touch with reality?

Elle checked our horoscopes every morning, and she’d stayed inside for two days after a palm reader told her that her “future was uncertain,” but a ghost possessing my cat was pushing it. Convincing her that I didn’t need therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder after my mom died had been hard enough.

The light turned red, and I closed my eyes for a second. With the adrenaline rush over, my head pounded. I took a deep breath and tried to relax, when a horn blared behind me.

My eyes flew open to a green light.

I was too exhausted to keep driving around like this.

I pulled into the nearest driveway. At nine thirty in the morning, the lot at the public library was practically empty. Maybe I could sleep for a little while. I locked the doors, unable to shake the feeling that someone, or something, was following me.

I tried to piece together the scene in my bedroom, but the ghost and the gun and the voices were all tangled up in my mind like a pile of broken necklaces. I only remembered snippets of the conversation with Jared and Lukas.

Something about angry spirits? No—vengeance spirits. That’s what they called them.

Two girls walked past my window carrying armloads of grad school prep books. I climbed out of the car and followed them into the library. I needed answers, and this was a good place to start.

I found an empty computer station and typed vengeance spirits into the search field. I scrolled through pages of articles, reading the ones that seemed the most legitimate and the least crazy. The consensus among paranormal investigators was pretty consistent when it came to the definition—malevolent spirits who haunt or seek to harm the living; usually victims of murder, violence, or suicide; spirits that may, or may not, know they’re dead.

Lukas and Jared Lockhart weren’t the only ones who believed in this stuff.

There were hundreds of sites dedicated to paranormal activity. I had actually witnessed more in my room than most so-called investigators had in a lifetime, and it still didn’t seem possible.

Researching grave jumping was harder. It was classified under myths, folklore, or urban legends, depending on the website. Some articles claimed that if you walked over a fresh grave, the spirit could leap out and turn you into a vampire. Others validated Jared’s version in which the spirit jumped inside a person or an animal. It sounded ridiculous, but I still wasn’t about to step on a grave anytime soon.

The Internet wasn’t going to answer all my questions. I needed to figure out who Lukas and Jared Lockhart were, and what they were doing in my neighborhood at five o’clock in the morning, carrying a gun loaded with salt.

First, I had to find them.

A general search for their names led to information on a dead poet, a German family crest, and the drummer from a punk band. Maybe I was spelling them wrong. I should’ve asked if they could write their names down before I kicked them out of my house.

“Can I help you find something?” A young and eager-looking librarian stood behind me.

“Um, is there a way to see if someone attends one of the local high schools?”

“Not online. But you can try the reference room.”

“What’s in there?”

The librarian headed toward the stacks. “Yearbooks.”

She led me to the back of the library and unlocked the door to the reference room, where dusty public school yearbooks were lined up on an even dustier shelf. “Let me know if I can help you with anything else.”

“Thanks.”

I ran my finger along the rows of leather volumes with tacky silver and gold lettering, estimating how long it would take to flip through them all. Lukas and Jared looked about my age or a little older, so I started with ones from last year.

My cell rang and Elle’s name popped up on the screen.

I tried to sound grouchy and half asleep, the way I usually did when she called this early. “Hey.”

“I’m starving. Wanna get breakfast?” Hearing her voice made the last six hours seem surreal.

“I still have a ton of packing.” I fought the urge to tell her everything. Even if I knew she’d believe me—which I didn’t—this definitely warranted a face-to-face conversation. “Let’s meet up when I’m done.”

Then maybe I’ll tell you about the ghost that tried to kill me.

“I have rehearsal until nine tonight, remember? I can’t blow it off again or my understudy will totally try to steal my part.” Elle had scored a lead role in the school musical and developed an unhealthy paranoia when it came to her understudy. “You can come hang out and witness the suckage firsthand.”

“Tempting, but I’ll pass. See you at your house at nine thirty.”

Elle hesitated. “You sound weird. Is everything okay?”

Everything is completely screwed up and confusing and in no way okay.

I took a deep breath. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Don’t be late. It’s your last night.” She hung up before I had time to say good-bye.

Reaching for a dingy white yearbook at the top of the stack, I flipped through the pages of football games and homecoming candids until I hit class photos.

Identical twins wouldn’t be hard to spot.

If I figured out where Jared and Lukas went to school, maybe I could track down an e-mail address or a phone number. It was a long shot. But I needed to do something—to take control of a situation that felt completely out of control.

By the time I closed the last creased leather cover, it was getting dark outside, and I didn’t know any more about Lukas and Jared Lockhart than when I started.

I should’ve been at home packing. A driver was taking me to the airport in the morning—a fact that I’d made peace with before I found out what really happened to my mother.

I pulled into the only space on the street in front of my house, letting the engine idle as I listened to the last few verses of the Cure’s “Inbetween Days.” My world felt that way. Trapped in between the days before it fell apart and the ones I lived in now.

I climbed out of the car, and my throat went dry.

Even with its Kelly green door and trimmed boxwoods lining the walkway, when I looked at my house, all I could see was the dead girl in my bedroom.

Were there other spirits in the house? Could they hurt me if I was awake?

I turned away, trying to summon the courage to go back inside.

A black van was parked across the street, facing the opposite direction. It looked like the ones serial killers use to abduct their victims. The driver noticed me staring and jerked away from the window.