Page 131 of Dead Girls Don’t Forget

Tears stung the cuts on my face. “Love you too… Pleash… don’ leaf me.”

Her fingers brushed weakly against mine, then slipped away. Her body went still.

I pulled her close anyway, holding her as smoke filled my lungs and something heavy collapsed behind us in a roar of flames. Heat rolled across the room like a living thing.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered against her hair.

I let her go.

Crawling to the back door was agony. Every inch sent fresh agony through my broken body. Blood kept running into my good eye, blurring the world. Deep cuts across my arms and torso still bled heavily.

I don’t know how I got the door open. I just remember collapsing into the cold night air, dragging myself across the yard toward the trees as the house burned behind me.

The forest swallowed me whole.

Only when I could go no farther did my body finally give out.

And everything went black.

Chapter 37: Harper James

10 years ago

Something beeped.

I drifted in and out of consciousness for days. Awareness came in fragments. Fleeting. Disjointed. Never connecting properly before darkness pulled me under again.

The first time I surfaced, I was lying in a bed. The sharp scent of antiseptic filled my nose. I tried to open my eyes but couldn’t. My limbs felt impossibly heavy, like I was sinking into the mattress. I couldn’t move. Couldn’t even twitch my fingers. That terrified me more than the pain.

The beeping got faster.

I tried to scream. Something was lodged in my throat, choking the sound. I gagged, chest seizing, and the beeping exploded into a shrill alarm. Hands were suddenly on me, voices above me, none of it making sense.

“Easy. You’re safe.”

“Oxygen’s dropping—”

Every instinct screamed at me to run. To hide. To escape. But my body wouldn’t obey, and I slipped under again.

The next time I surfaced, the tube in my throat was gone. My throat felt raw, scraped with glass. I could move my fingers against the sheets. Then my arms, slowly. I forced my eyes open and only one obeyed. My vision swam, blurry and distorted. Machinery surrounded the bed. IV lines disappeared into my arms. Slowly, sluggishly, my mind pieced together the sterile setting.

Hospital.

I closed my eyes and tried to think, but my mind offered only broken shards. Why was I here? Where was Mom?

Then the memories crashed over me. Mom. Harmony. The screaming. The fire.

My heart rate spiked. Alarms shrieked.

“Hey, hey, it’s okay.” A woman leaned over the bed, her voice gentle but urgent. “You’re safe now. You’re in the hospital.”

A blurry face came into focus. “I’m Janet,” she said softly. “I was your mother’s friend.”

Recognition flickered somewhere deep inside me. Then the memories slammed back in.

I tried to speak. Pain flared through my shattered jaw.

“Mhh… Mom? Harmony?”