Free The Lola Chronicles (Book 2): A Day Without Dawn by Jillian Eaton Page B

ever kissed a boy, Lola? I bet you have. I bet you’ve kissed dozens and dozens.” 
    Why was Angelique talking to me about boys? Almost like we were…friends. There was something different about her. Something off.
    Something almost human.
    “Bobby was so handsome,” she continued with a dreamy little smile. Her eyes were unfocused, as though she was recalling a memory from a long time ago. “All the girls wanted him, but he was going to choose me. He was going to skate with me. He was going to kiss me. ” Her voice became agitated as her smile slipped away. “But he was late and Fi and I got in a silly fight and I came out here to be by myself.”
    “Why are you telling me all this?”
    “I sat right there,” she whispered as though I hadn’t said a word, pointing to the bottom of the concrete steps leading up to the entrance of the skating rink. “And I waited for Bobby to come. I waited and I waited and I waited. All I wanted was a kiss. I just wanted my first real high school kiss.” Her eyes filled with tears. “And then He came.”
    “Bobby?” I ventured.
    “No!” Her nostrils flared. “Not Bobby .”
    “Okay then… Well, this has been a nice chat but I think I’m going to wake up now.”
    “And miss the best part? I don’t think so.” Moving with deceptive quickness Angelique grabbed my arm and dragged me over to the steps. I put up a struggle, but I might has well have been fighting against a stone statue. “Sit,” she demanded. “I said sit .”
    My knees buckled when she put her hands on my shoulder and pushed. I fell back, scraping my elbows on the concrete. Angelique sank down beside me and drew her knees to her chest.
    “I heard him in the darkness,” she said softly. “He whispered my name.”
    “ Who whispered your name?”
    “It won’t be long now. He always comes when the sun has set.” Reaching up, she drew her hair to one side, exposing the slender column of her pale throat.
    I jumped when I heard the rich hum of masculine laughter coming from the shadows. I could feel something watching me. Something watching us . Something dark and dangerous far more evil than Angelique. Because I was no longer talking to Angelique the cold-blooded murderer. I was talking to Angie, the girl she had been before a monster dragged her down into hell.
    “We need to move.” I tugged on her wrist and tried to get her to stand but she flicked me off as though I were a pesky fly. Her eyes were pinned on the slithering shadows just beyond the circle of light.
    “It doesn’t matter now.” A sad smile tugged at one side of her mouth as she turned her head to look at me. “There’s nothing you can do. There’s nothing anyone can do. There’s nothing anyone can do,” she repeated quietly, “but bleed.”
    It wasn’t until her tears turned red with blood and her lips parted in a silent, endless scream that I realized the horrific truth.
    I wasn’t trapped in my nightmare.
    I was trapped in Angelique’s.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
    Rose
     
     
     
    “Shake her again.”
    “What’s wrong with her?”
    “Hit her with your pillow.”
    “You hit her with your pillow!”
    I woke up to four faces crowded around mine. Still half asleep and caught up in the dregs of Angelique’s nightmare I struck out instinctively, delivering a glancing blow to Hayley’s chin with my right hand and a punch to Becca’s gut with the left. With identical cries of pain both girls went reeling back and I shot up out of my sleeping bag as though it had suddenly caught fire. I crouched low, ready to attack again, but unless the drinkers had started wearing pajama bottoms with big pink hearts of them it looked the only thing I was in danger of was being hit in the head with a pillow.
    “Put it down Lacey,” I ordered.
    She slowly lowered her pillow. “My name is Livy .”
    Tomato, tomatoe.
    “What is wrong with you?” Hayley cried, clutching her chin as though I’d given her a knockout punch Mike Tyson style