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- Herausgeber: Books on Demand
- Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
- Sprache: Englisch
17-year-old Stella Blue finds herself in trouble when her home city gets caught up in a mysterious series of deaths. From suicides to homicides, one after one, each death seems to be somehow connected to her- from coworkers to old childhood crushes. She and her curious friends start an investigation, dying to find out the truth behind these deaths. Unknownst to Stella and her friends, there's a one of a kind ability sleeping within Stella- she can communicate with the dead in her dreams. To help her uncover the mystery, Stella has to try to help her dead friends remember why they died and by whose hand, while juggling her relationships with two guys...
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Seitenzahl: 102
Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1: Angels at a Rundown Pub
Chapter 2: Suicide
Chapter 3: Officer Everett Lore
Chapter 4: A Fated Friday Night
Chapter 5: Another Sunday at Work
Chapter 6: A Lost Sense of Reality
Chapter 7: Death Is in Love with You
Chapter 8: The Two Young Men
Chapter 9: The Dead Man Doesn’t Lie
Chapter 10: Something in Common
Chapter 11: Finding Artemi
Chapter 12: Diandra Okonjo
Chapter 13: Childhood Friends
Chapter 14: Finding Artemi, part 2
Chapter 15: A Puzzle with Only White Pieces
Chapter 16: Call My Name
Chapter 17: Narcissa’s Gut Feeling
Chapter 18: Alone?
Chapter 19: The Love That She Lost
Chapter 20: The Shadow in the Mirror
Chapter 21: It’s a Simple Story
Chapter 22: Artemi’s Warning
Chapter 23: Too Late
Chapter 24: Worthy of Love
Chapter 25: Perfect Enemy
Chapter 26: Cockroaches Running on a Concrete Floor
Chapter 27: Who are you?
Chapter 28: Mind Numbing Fun - Three months later
Prologue
It was right before the snow melted off the ground.
I was playing with my father in the kitchen. He would make a shape with his hands, and we would look at the shadow formed onto the wall opposite to the window.
Somehow, magically, the weird positions he’d put his fingers in would turn into animals on that wall. I would laugh, scream, “Another one! Another one!” and he’d make another shape.
Then, we heard the telephone ringing. My father ruffled my hair, as he walked past me, a smile on his face. I sat still, beaming as I waited.
A minute passed by, and Father didn’t say much.
Then two minutes…
Then three…
After maybe ten more minutes of almost complete silence, Father finally said, “Goodbye,” and put the phone down.
But he didn’t return to the kitchen. I waited for a bit longer, before finally getting up, and walking into the hallway.
That was the first time I saw my father cry.
I hugged his leg, and asked, “Daddy, what’s wrong?”
He kneeled in front of me and pulled me into a tight hug.
“Stella, dear, there’s been an accident.”
Accidents happen all the time. The news show nothing but accidents.
“What accident? When’s Mommy going to come back home from work?”
Father looked at me with pained eyes. He opened and closed his mouth repeatedly, tears burning his eyes and leaving red trails behind them, as they flowed down his rugged cheeks. Then, he took a deep breath, and said,
“Mommy isn’t coming back.”
Chapter 1
Angels at a Rundown Pub
Happy, romantic waltz music was playing in the background, as old couples swayed on the dance floor at The Port.
I leaned onto a bar table, bored out of my mind, waiting anxiously to get out of my workplace, that had a horrible cigar and tobacco stench to it. Next to me, my co-worker, Willow, dried beer glasses.
She was younger than me by a year, a short and petite girl with an aloof but explosive personality. Her dark hair was in a braid, that hung over her right shoulder, and her dark eyes seemed particularly clouded tonight.
“You seem rather quiet,” I said to her, trying to be nonchalant about my prying. “I’m tired,” she answered me, not taking her eyes off the glass she was drying. I nodded. There was no point in asking her to be more specific, she would only find it bothersome.
From the other side of the room, I saw one of my favourite customers make his way towards us. He did his best to avoid the dancers, and once he reached us, he had to sit down for a moment and take a few breaths.
“Could you turn the telly on, Stella? The game is about to start.” He smiled kindly. “Of course!” I went into the back room to get the remote control.
I turned the TV on and grinned, as the man thanked me and left. His two friends were waiting for him at the other end of the room.
They had a tendency to gather at The Port every Sunday to watch hockey or soccer together. They were nice customers, who always tipped the youngest employees with great amounts of money.
Then there were the annoying customers. Specifically, Old-Marc, who would slap any young female ass that walked past him. Right now, he was seated on the far-left side of the room, chatting with some other hard-to-handle customers.
I watched, as he raised a hand, and glanced at me and Willow.
Subconsciously, I let out an annoyed snort and turned away from the man, as if I hadn’t seen him waving for another glass of beer.
But Willow was different.
She took a glass that she had just dried, filled it with the liquid that looked, smelled and tasted like warm piss, and started to make her way over to Old-Marc.
She leaned over slightly, and at that moment, Marc grabbed her thigh, and let out a burst of mean laughter. It angered me, but before I could do much, Willow had taken a glass from a nearby table and emptied its contents onto his head.
I stared in awe.
As she returned to the bar, she gave me the glass and said, “My shift ends now,” before walking into the changing room.
“Uh-huh,” I muttered to myself, as I rinsed the glass before putting it into the dishwasher.
Chapter 2
Suicide
A blue-grey, plaid, pleated skirt.
A white dress shirt, with a black vest on top.
A black coat.
Grey, knee-high socks.
Black shoes with five-centimetre heels.
I pulled on my coat sleeves, made sure not a single strand of cat hair was on my uniform and left the dark, empty house in which I lived with my deadbeat father and my lazy cat, Mia.
“What’s up, slut.” Narcissa Coldwaters greeted me with a menacing grin. “Nothing much, slut.” I chuckled to my self, thinking that our usual morning exchange would bring horrors to those most sensitive of kind.
I hated overly sensitive people.
I closed the door to Narcissa’s new, matte black BMW. Her pale, small hand squeezed the gearstick, and for a moment I was amazed by how long her fingernails were. Then I remembered that she went to a salon yesterday.
To this day, it amazed me, that I was friends with her. If there was a queen bee at our school, it was her. Certainly, all reason would die out and anarchy would take over once and for all, if she was to disappear from Corewood High.
Or, at least that’s what Narcissa liked to believe.
“You’re unusually silent.” The car stopped, as the traffic lights turned red. “I’m monologuing inside my head,” I said as I kicked my legs onto the dashboard.
“What a fucking weirdo.”
I looked out of the window and watched a group of children laughing on their way to a nearby elementary school. Narcissa glanced at me quickly, before forcing the car back to movement, despite the lights remaining as they were.
“You really don’t like obeying the traffic laws, do you.” I laughed.
“Nobody else was on the road.” She rolled her eyes at my comment.
The sky above the city of Corewood was grey, like always. The air was humid and lukewarm. The atmosphere was downright depressing.
As Narcissa parked her car in the high school parking lot, I noticed I had left my bag home. I cursed under my breath.
“What are you sitting around for, get your ass up and start moving.” She slammed the car door. I ran my hands through my coat pockets. Phone and keys. That was all I had with me.
Narcissa stood outside, tapping her foot against the black asphalt, spinning her car keys around. Her take on our school uniform was fairly similar to mine, except it looked better on her (oh, and I guess her skirt was millennial pink, but that’s beyond the point I’m trying to make here). It didn’t mean I was particularly ugly- just that my friend was taller than me and slimmer than me and…
I stepped outside.
It was unnaturally silent inside Corewood High. I and Narcissa watched, as students, both young and old, whispered to each other, as they slowly made their way to their classes. Amongst those students, a familiar face peeked at us with her dark eyes. She waved, and then pulled on another girl’s short skirt, forcing her to follow her.
“What’s going on here?” Narcissa asked. Her brows furrowed as she looked at Alima Hamidi and Rechell Gloria.
“Apparently Willow from 1-B committed suicide,” Alima explained.
I froze.
“Willow... Willow, why does that sound familiar?” Narcissa bit her red lip. “She’s that girl who got constantly harassed by that one old fart at The Port.”
“Ah. That girl.”
I couldn’t believe my ears.
Willow?
It felt surreal.
But I’d seen her just yesterday, and she was-
...Not fine.
It was true that she seemed rather silent yesterday. Well, she was always silent, so I didn’t pay much attention to it. Apparently, outside of The Port, she was a people-pleaser, but inside that bar, she was never afraid to show her indifference towards others. She gave cold glares to indecent customers, flipped off a few members of an outlaw motorcycle gang (only to gain their affections somehow) and was all around a threatening entity among the workers at The Port.
“Stella, do you know anything about this?” Rechell’s voice caught my attention. As I looked back up at the girls, I saw them all eyeing me like I was a piece of cheap meat. “I’ve got nothing. She certainly didn’t seem like the type to kill herself.”
“You were friends with her, right?” Rechell asked. “Not really. Just acquaintances.” I shook my head.
“Wasn't she pretty popular amongst students in her year?” Narcissa glared at a group of first years, who passed us by. “Yeah, she was relatively popular.” I nodded my head towards the same group.
That’s right.
She was still 15, born in December, a Sagittarius. She would have had her 16th birthday in a bit over a month from now. "I wonder what caused her to do it..." Narcissa mumbled.
We were interrupted by the sound of the bell ringing.
“Homeroom...” Alima muttered as she pinched the bridge of her nose. As we walked to our classroom, our high heels click-clacked in choir against the cold marble floor. I felt Rechell pull up my skirt from behind me, before she whispered, “There'll be cops in there. Let’s give ‘em a bit of a tease.” She returned to my right side, winking, as she pointed at the garter belts, that were attached to her thigh-high stockings. I rolled my eyes at her, whispering, “I’m not as thirsty as you.” She giggled.
But the presence of the police force meant, that there was a possibility that he was at our school as well. It excited me a bit.
How long had it been since I last saw him? It must have been months ago.
As Narcissa opened the classroom door, everyone’s eyes turned towards us. Our homeroom teacher, Mr. Schneider, let out a heavy sigh, and said with a clear voice, “Miss Coldwaters, Miss Blue, Miss Hamidi and Miss Gloria... Seven minutes late. You’ve been coming late to all of your classes for the past month now, what’s your excuse?”
“Time doesn’t exist, Mr. Schneider. It’s a concept that goes against my religion.” Narcissa said with a caustic, teasing voice, as she walked past Mr. Schneider and the three policemen, who stood next to him in front of the class. I followed right behind her.
Alima grinned widely at Mr. Schneider, before going to the back of the class, and sitting on her girlfriend’s lap, while Rechell tried her best to give the adult men some bedroom eyes without completely embarrassing herself. Mr. Schneider and the policemen looked dumbfounded by it all, and it took a rude push from Narcissa, in the form of a sarcastic comment, to get the class to go on.
As the presentation went on, I couldn’t help but smile every time he looked at me.
He had been one of my best friends since… Well, for as long as I could remember, really.
