I want to lie down.

I want to close my eyes.

I stumble, but Jacob steadies me.

“Hey, Cass,” he says. “What’s the fifth rule of friendship?”

“Um,” I say, trying to focus. “Don’t let your friends get stolen by ghosts.”

“What about rule number eight?”

I exhale a cloud of pale white fog. “Don’t let your friend get hit by a car.”

“And number sixteen?”

I swallow, my voice getting stronger. “Don’t go somewhere I can’t follow.”

My head is starting to clear. And up ahead, the mist thins, just enough for me to see a girl with two dark braids in a pale gray shirt, a reddish light shining through her chest.

“Lara!” I call out, but my voice does the opposite of echoing. It drops away, inches from my face, swallowed up by the heavy quiet of this place.

Up ahead, Lara sways on her feet, stumbles, and falls.

“Lara,” I call as she pushes herself up and keeps walking.

“Lara!” I shout again, forcing myself forward. But she still can’t hear me. When I get close, I see her eyes are open, but glassy, unfocused, as if she’s in a dream.

“Lara, it’s me,” I say, but she doesn’t blink, doesn’t stop walking. “You have to wake up.”

“Um, Cass,” says Jacob, and I can tell by his voice that something else is wrong. I look at him, but he’s looking ahead, to the place where the mist swallows the bridge.

The space there is getting darker, the gray dissolving into black.

We’re almost to the end of the bridge. But Lara’s still walking, the red glow flickering inside her chest.

“Lara, stop,” I say, grabbing her arm.

But the moment my hand touches her skin, the world dissolves, the mist recoils, and all of a sudden I’m not on the bridge. I’m in a hospital room, surrounded by the slow beep of machines, the chemical-clean scent of sick places.

And there, lying in the middle of the narrow bed, is Lara.

She must be eight or nine, but she looks so small. Her tan skin is slick with sweat, her black hair matted to her face. Her breath comes out uneven, in little hitches and stutters, as if something is trapped inside her chest.

I open my mouth to say her name, but someone else says it instead.

“Lara.”

I look up.

A man and woman stand on the other side of the bed, holding on to each other, their faces hollow with fear. I’ve never met them, but they must be Lara’s parents. I see her written on their faces, her sharp eyes, her pointed chin.

A doctor stands at the foot of the bed, looking down at his sheet.

“We’re doing all we can,” he says. “Her heart is weak. Her fever isn’t breaking …”

Across the bed, the man and woman look so lost.