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FOSTER
“What the…?”
I jammed on the brake so hard that I went flying forward, only for my seat belt to catch me tight and jar me to a painful, sudden halt.
In the passenger seat, Raina bounced happily. “Oh, yay. I’m not affected by inertia the way you are. How cool is that?”
“What the hell are you doing here?” I exploded, blinking at her repeatedly to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.
Raina heaved out a breath and sent me a helpless shrug. “I’m not really sure. One second, I was settling back in my chair at my bedside in the hospital, minding my own business and ready to wait untilwheneverfor my body to wake up. The next, I was here, in your truck. I wasn’t even thinking about you,” she swore with lifted hands. “It’s just like I can’t get very far from you before I’m sucked right back to your side.” Eyes widening, she gaped at me. “Oh Lord, do you think we’retetheredtogether?”
“Tethered?” I demanded.
“I’m going to test it.” Before explaining herself further, she disappeared from her seat, only to reappear outside, next to the crosswalk.
When I lifted my hands in question, she merely waved me on.
“Oh, for the love of…” I wasn’t about to leave her here by herself, but when her waving grew more insistent, I groaned and slapped my hands to the steering wheel before driving through the green light.
No one was around; it was nearly two in the morning; the intersection was empty. And it wasn’t as if anyone could see or touch her even if the first three weren’t true—she was safe—but I fully planned to simply drive around the block to pick her up again.
Until she appeared next to me before I could turn the first corner.
“Fucking hell!” I hissed, gripping my chest.
Or she might just kill me with a heart attack before that.
“Not even a full block,” she said, glancing over at me with a doomed kind of look. “That’s not a very long leash in the grand scheme of things.”
No, it was not.
Shit.
“Okay, here’s what we’re going to do,” I said, trying not to think about the fact that we were physically bound together.
“Thank God,” she breathed, lifting both hands in praise. “You have a plan. Because I had nothing.”
“It’s late,” I went on. “And everyone is probably dead asleep. So we’re just going to return to my place soIcan get a couple of hours of shut-eye. Then I’ll take you to my friends in the morning. Some of them have some supernatural abilities that might be able to help us figure out where to go from here.”
“You mean, like Oaklynn?” she asked with a hopeful bob of the head, only to gasp and cover her mouth. “Oh my goodness. Oaklynn! Yes. She can see ghosts. Maybe she’ll be able to see me too.”
I shot her a surprised glance. “You know about Oaklynn’s abilities? I didn’t realize the two of you were that close.”
“Well…” Raina bit her lip with a roll of her eyes. “She probably wouldn’t have willingly told me. But I was there when she described her roommate, Thalia, to Jaylani, and then I saw on the news a few weeks later that Thalia had been dead for, like, ten years, so I just kind of deduced the truth. I had to grill Oaklynn about it incessantly, though, before she finally gave in and admitted it was true.”
“That’s cool,” I murmured. “Oaklynn’s usually too scared to tell people about the things she can see. I’m glad she was able to tell you.”
“Yeah, well… I had to share a personal story with her first about this old guy my sister took me to see in Houston when I was sixteen. He claimed he could commune with the dead, and Kinsey wanted to see if we could reach out to our mom since neither of us had been old enough to remember her before she died. And the things he told us about her when she was dating the captain—well, when we went home to ask the captainabout them, he was utterly shocked. He assured us it was all true and thatno oneshould’ve known any of it. Anyway, I’ve been a believer ever since. I just had to assure Oaklynn I wouldn’t go blabbing her secret to everyone except the seven, since she said you guys already knew.”
“Right.” I nodded, soaking in her rambling story. “Okay, then. So we’ll head over there in the morning and see Oaklynn. I have a feeling the whole group can figure this out together.”
Plus, Oaklynn could be the one to gently break the news about Raina’s sister.
“Great.” Raina nodded, looking energized. “And thank you again for putting up with me until then. I imagine just bulldozing my way into your life is quite a nuisance for you.”
“It—” I gave a helpless laugh. “It’s been interesting,” I assured her, even as my hands tightened around the steering wheel, wondering just how much this was going to change things going forward…and for how long. “But you aren’t a nuisance. Don’t worry about that.”
“Oh good.” She blew out a breath, then looked out the window. “But I still hope we can figure out what to do next.”
