Free Shadowlands (Shadowlands (Hyperion)) by Kate Brian

quick scare I’d had in Darcy’s room, I closed the door quietly behind me. We were safe here. No one was watching me anymore. People were allowed to look out their windows.
    I climbed the stairs, sank down on the bed, and stared up at the wood-beamed ceiling with a sigh. So this was it. This was my new life. With my family but entirely alone. At least something about this place was familiar.

“Rory…”
    I sat up straight in bed. My eyes darted around the unfamiliar room, the dark corners, the distorted shadows. Someone had just whispered my name.
    “Rory Miller!” the voice sang again. “Can Rory Miller come out and play?”
    I flung the covers aside, my bare feet hitting the cool wood floor. A quick turn of the room convinced me that no one was there, but the voice came again.
    “Come on, Rory. Come out and play with me.”
    Goose bumps popped up all over my bare arms as I shakily stepped toward the stairs and peeked over the guardrail. No one was there. Just the bare steps winding down into the dark.
    “Rory?” It was Darcy this time. “Rory!” she screamed. “Rory, help!”
    Heart in my throat, I stumbled down the stairs. When I opened the door, it stopped with a thud. I looked down, and there was Darcy, curled up in a fetal position on the floor. Her eyes were open and staring, dead. Her head was so crushed it seemed impossible it was ever whole.
    “No!” I screamed, covering my eyes. “No! No! No!”
    I whirled around on the stairs, right into Steven Nell’s waiting arms.
    “No!”
    I startled awake on Sunday morning, my hands over my stomach, the bright sun assaulting my eyes. Sweat covered every inch of my body and my skin felt like it was on fire. My belly ached like I’d eaten too many bags of cotton candy and chased them with an entire bottle of Coke. I covered my face and told myself it was just a dream. It was just a dream. It was just a dream.
    Breathe, Rory. Breathe.
    As my breath started to calm, I heard the sound of my father slamming pots and pans around in the kitchen. I shoved my feet into my slippers and yanked on my E = mc 2 sweatshirt before padding down the two flights of stairs. I tiptoed through the foyer and paused by the table near the door. My father had placed the family photo there—the one that used to hang on our upstairs wall. I hadn’t even seen him take it from the house. When another crash sounded, I slid over to the kitchen door and peeked inside. My dad was bent over in jeans and a T-shirt, rummaging through a low cabinet, every so often tossing a Teflon pan or a copper pot behind him onto the floor.
    “Tell us we have to leave our house and then send us to some backward island with no phone service and no Wi-Fi,” he muttered into the hollow of the cupboard. I’d noticed the Wi-Fi problem last night when I’d tried to log on to the Internet from my iPad, but I’d hoped it was a temporary glitch. “What the hell kind of way is this to run a government agency?” He started to pull himself up and slammed his head on the edge of the opening. “Motherf—”
    I jumped back to hide before he could spot me and start yelling at me, too. Outside I heard a bicycle bell trill, and I made my way to the front door. I slipped onto the porch, closing the door quietly behind me. The warm summer air enveloped me from head to toe. I tiptoed over to the porch swing and sat, wrapping my arms around myself. Even from the front of the house, I could hear the waves rushing against the beach out back, and the air was filled with the tangy salty scent of the sea, plus that sweet floral infusion I couldn’t quite place.
    Someone nearby was humming. The tune sounded vaguely familiar as it floated on the breeze. Familiar enough that I started to hum along. Until I realized exactly why I knew the melody. I jumped up from the swing, whirling around.
    It was “The Long and Winding Road.”
    I was flashing again. I had to be flashing again. But then a little yellow bird flew over and