The statement makes me feel angry and violated. Not only had that creature somehow reached into me and pulled out my greatest wish, but I’d also given a piece of myself to everyone in this room without ever intending to.

“Of course, it wouldn’t have been a problem if you had obeyed curfew,” Natalie cuts in. “You should know better, Thane.”

“Fuck off, Natalie. We were investigating.”

Shy glares at Thane and then at me. “Investigating what?”

“Lily’s killer is out there, and none of you have done anything to find him,” says Thane.

“Or her,” Natalie corrects. “How do you know she isn’t sitting in this room right now?”

I straighten. “Excuse me?”

“She wouldn’t be your first victim, would she?”

“Natalie,” Shy warns.

“I didn’t kill Lily.”

“What about Chase Lockwood?”

This is what Shy meant when he said he wanted to hear my story. Moisture burns my eyes, blurring my vision, and I swallow.

“I killed him.”

I let those words hang in the air, creating a barrier between me and everyone else in the room. I expect them to look horrified, to jump to their feet and draw those sickening, curved blades, threaten me like Chase did, but none of them move.

“How?” Natalie asks.

“With the thread,” I say, though it’s obvious. It’s the only weapon I own.

“The correct question is why?” Shy says crossly.

Why?

“Because he tried to kidnap me.”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Anora and Chase Lockwood

Four months ago

“Mom, I see dead people.”

I shake my head. No, she’ll just think I’m quoting The Sixth Sense.

“Mom…I see ghosts.”

“I still sound crazy,” I mutter under my breath. Okay, how about, “Mom, I see souls.”

This is going to be a disaster.

I look at my report card. The D beside chemistry looks like the mark of Satan. How am I supposed to show this to Mom? I’ve never gotten a D. I think about the last few months and what’s led to my failing grades. Chemistry isn’t the only class that’s taken a hit. Trigonometry’s a low B, and history’s a C. This is the worst report card I’ve ever received.

And I know why.

I reach for the chain around my neck and clutch my poppa’s coin. It’s only been two months since he died. Two months since I witnessed his soul leave his body, tangled with some black substance that I can only describe as wrong. It has been two months since a gold thread erupted from my palm and consumed my poppa’s soul, turning it into a coin.

After the incident, everything just got worse. The dead are literally everywhere, and sometimes they look like real, living people. Sometimes my route home looks like a scene from The Walking Dead.

So yeah, school’s been rough.