Free Shades by Mel Odom Page B

from the van, having to fight against her efforts to help Isabel get her little girl.
    Shifting, Isabel reached for the child. Before she could reach her, though, the little girl cocked her head and snarled, baring her tiny white teeth in a feral grin. Surprised by the reaction, Isabel hesitated.
    "Isabel," Jesse called.
    Isabel tried twice to speak.
    The child snarled and snapped. She looked at Isabel, then pointed a tiny, blunt forefinger. "You don't belong here."
    Jesse peered into the shadows that filled the van. "What are you looking at?"
    "The baby," Isabel whispered.
    "I don't see a baby," Jesse said. "Where do you see her?" He reached forward and moved boxes, reaching through the child as if she wasn't there.
    Before Isabel could reply, hesitating as she tried to frame an answer that would make sense, the little girl stood and bolted toward the front of the wrecked van. She scrambled over the boxes and seats on all fours, moving with the lithe leaps of a jackrabbit.
    Drawn by the glint of malicious intent she'd seen in the child's face, Isabel followed. She scraped an elbow on a jagged piece of windshield safety glass as she clambered from the vehicle. Outside again, the glaring intensity of the sun hammered her.
    "Isabel!" Jesse called frantically. He tried to get out of the van to follow her but struggled with the tight confines.
    Dizzy and not comprehending the situation, Isabel watched as the little girl loped up to the stricken woman lying on the ground.
    The woman reached up with her hands, unable to get to her feet because of her injuries.
    "Mother!" the little girl called in sadistic delight. The child's face split into a gamine grin that looked years older and bloodthirsty.
    "Abbie!" the woman whispered. Tears ran down her bloody face. "Oh god, Mommy didn't want to believe what the doctors told her. Mommy knew you were alive somewhere. I'm so sorry, my darling, that I wasn't there for you." She beckoned with her hands. "Come to Mommy, baby. Come to Mommy. Mommy swears we won't ever be apart again. Mommy will always be there for you."
    The child-thing… Isabel could no longer think of the little girl in any other fashion… stood just out of the woman's reach and crossed her arms. "You killed me, Mommy."
    Pain wracked the woman's features. "No, Abbie, that's not true! Oh god, that's not true!"
    Jesse freed himself from the van and started for the woman. "She's hallucinating."
    Isabel looked at him, knowing that for whatever reason, Jesse couldn't see or hear the child-thing. He started for the woman.
    Afraid for Jesse, not knowing what the child-thing was capable of, Isabel stopped him. "Call nine-one-one again," she said. "Let them know what they're dealing with here."
    Jesse hesitated.
    "It would be the best," Isabel said. "I'll help her."
    Grimly, Jesse nodded and took out his cell phone. He watched the woman as he spoke, concern tightening his face.
    Isabel liked that about Jesse, liked the fact that he cared about someone he didn't even know. Still, she was worried what her dad was going to say when he found out both of them had been together.
    "Abbie!" The woman sounded plaintive now, growing weaker from her injuries and shock.
    "You killed me," the child-thing accused. "You didn't want me enough. You didn't try hard enough."
    Disbelief swept through Isabel as she knelt beside the woman and tried to comfort her. "It's okay," Isabel whispered, but she never took her eyes from the belligerent child-thing. "Whatever you're seeing, whatever you're hearing, it's not real." Nothing could be that mean or spiteful.
    The woman grabbed Isabel's arm in both her hands. "I didn't kill her! I swear!"
    Isabel let the woman hold one of her hands while she smoothed her hair with the other.
    "You killed me, Mommy," the child-thing accused. "You didn't want me. You wanted Daddy all to yourself. You were afraid you were going to lose him."
    "No!" The woman sounded hysterical. "It was an accident, Abbie! The umbilical cord