Free Tonya Hurley_Ghostgirl_02 by Homecoming Page A

Death.”
    Of course it was always a competition between them, and Petula almost always won. If she got the most bites, she used to tell Scarlet it was because “even the bugs couldn’t resist” her. Petula was crafty and liked winning, but Scarlet was always the tougher of the two. She would never let Scarlet know, but Petula would marvel at how her sister could take the abuse, the defeats, and keep coming back for more.
    Petula smiled at the little girl she saw in her mind as much as the little girl she saw in front of her.
    “You think that’s funny?” Virginia chided.
    “What?” Petula said distractedly before gathering herself, “Oh, ah … no, you just remind me of somebody, that’s all.”
    After shopping, the Wendys arrived at Petula’s hospital room, keeping a vigil, some said, or more accurately, a deathwatch, and much to their surprise they saw Scarlet lying just as lifeless in the bed next to Petula. Dr. Patrick was in the room, on evening rounds. Evidence of the commotion was everywhere, with tubes, syringes, tape, gauze, and monitors of all kinds still strewn around from the cardiac team’s fight to stabilize Scarlet. Instead of sympathy, all the Wendys could muster for Scarlet was contempt.
    “Did she finally see the light and try to kill herself ?” Wendy Anderson sniffed.
    “Look at that,” Wendy Thomas said at the sight of Scarlet lying next to Petula in a hospital bed. “It’s booty and the beast.”
    “What a follower,” Wendy Anderson snapped.
    “Yeah,” Wendy Thomas agreed coldly, “it wasn’t enough that she stole her boyfriend. Now she had to go and steal Petula’s coma spotlight too?”
    Both girls turned suddenly as Damen entered the room. He was rumpled, scruffy, and red-eyed, looking weary and worried. The Wendys, who’d never forgiven him for choosing Scarlet over Petula — or either of them for that matter —savored this opportunity to kick him while he was down. He ignored them both and took his seat between Petula’s and Scarlet’s beds.
    “What the hell happened?” Wendy Thomas asked, more irate than concerned.
    Damen didn’t bother to respond. He knew once he got sucked in, he would be caught up in the endless, mindless hamster wheel that was the Wendys’ thought process.
    “It’s possible that Scarlet is in a self-induced coma, triggered by extreme stress,” Dr. Patrick said. “It could be psychosomatic.”
    “You got the psycho part right,” Wendy Thomas snipped.
    “It might be too much for her to see her sister whom she loves lying there,” Dr. Patrick said.
    Wendy Anderson was unable to hold back the laughter, and the Red Bull she was drinking leaked out of her nose. The thought of Petula meaning that much to Scarlet was too much for them to handle. However, they managed to regain their composure after Mrs. K, who had been stroking Petula’s Homecoming dress absentmindedly, shot them a nasty look.
    Just then Scarlet’s heart-lung monitor went off, and she appeared to be experiencing some type of acute distress.
    “Everybody out,” Dr. Patrick ordered and pushed the call button for the crash team. “Now!”
    Chapter 8
    Back in Your Head
    Did I dream you dreamed about me?
    —Tim Buckley
    Hope against hope.
    Most hope is false if you think about it. It’s a belief that an outcome will be positive despite evidence to the contrary. But where would we be without it? It’s the mind’s compass and the heart’s buoy, which we cling to as we wait for help to arrive. Without hope, life is sink or swim, and Charlotte hoped she would find a way to swim.
    Maddy and the others were stuck on their calls, so Charlotte decided to leave by herself. As she crossed from the office complex to the residential campus, she looked over at the fences that bordered the entire barracks. She hadn’t noticed them much before because she’d always been talking to Maddy along the way. They seemed in place more to mark a border than to discourage entry or exit, which