Free Resurrected (Resurrected Series Book 1) by S. M. Schmitz

sophisticated art on our walls than a poster of Death Valley on game night.
    Lottie looked at the print, then back at me. She swallowed and dropped the tube next to me on the sofa. “I just liked it,” she said firmly. Defensively. I looked up at her. She was angry. At me?
    I nodded. “I know.”
    Lottie shook her head. “No,” she said, “ I liked it. I just wanted it, ok?” She almost sounded panicked.
    “Ok,” I said. I wasn’t really sure what I was agreeing to though. I picked up the tube and thanked her, anxious to change the subject, but Lottie was agitated, clearly troubled by my recognition of the serigraph.
    She sat down uneasily in a chair perpendicular to the sofa and looked back at the print on the wall. “It was hers, wasn’t it?” She was fidgeting with the hem of her t-shirt. That small little crease had appeared between her eyebrows, that look of consternation and confusion and frustration, and although she probably already knew the answer, I told her anyway.
    “Yes.”
    She sighed and closed her eyes, falling back into the chair. I wanted to hug her again, kiss her, promise her that it was alright, even though I didn’t know if it was, but she looked so incredibly depressed, I would have done anything to make it true. “I saw some of his art in a book at the store, and I was drawn to it. I thought it was just … me. This one … just spoke to me.”
    It may have been that moment that I finally started to believe her. And she looked just like my Lottie, and often, even acted like her, so seeing her so despondent made me want to fix everything for her, to make everything right and put everything back in place where it belonged.
    “Maybe it is you. I mean, a lot of people like his art.”
    “Yeah, Dietrich, I’m sure out of all the artists in all the books I flipped through while stocking the shelves, I just coincidentally picked this one out and no other.”
    Of course it wasn’t a coincidence. She wasn’t stupid. I couldn’t seem to stop myself from talking though. I almost wished I would forget how to speak English for a while. “Doesn’t mean you can’t like the same things, though. Maybe his art caught your attention because of Lottie’s memories, but you bought this one because you like it?” Even I knew how incredibly ridiculous I sounded.
    Lottie’s big hazel eyes bore into me, frighteningly furious and determined. “What else?” she demanded.
    “Um.” What other lame excuses could I make? Probably quite a few.
    “What else is hers ?”
    Oh. Shit. I licked my lips, but my mouth suddenly felt sandpapery, my throat rough and raw. Stall, I thought. Or distract. Or both. “You like to read?” I asked lamely. Goddamn it, I was as good at lying to her as I was to Eric. 
    Lottie nodded and gestured toward the wall of bookshelves. “Go ahead,” she offered. She wanted me to see if I recognized any of the titles. Don’t do it, Dietrich . That seemed about as smart an idea as walking into a hornet’s nest.
    But I got off the sofa anyway and knelt down by the bookshelf closest to me, dragging my fingers along the spines of the books, plucking one out about halfway through the top shelf. I heard her groan behind me. It was an autographed copy of Richelle Mead’s Vampire Academy , the same author we had waited in line in Dallas to meet; the same book Lottie had had autographed when she finally met one of her idols.
    I turned around to look at her, and her eyes were pooling with those tears again. “Is there anything in there that wasn’t hers?” she asked.
    I looked back at the bookshelf. I didn’t recognize quite a few of the titles actually, but some of them were quite new. It wouldn’t help to point that out, so I just said yes. Lottie wasn’t satisfied. “Which ones?”
    “Lottie, there’s a lot of books here …” I started, but she cut me off, begging me, “I know, Dietrich, please. Just tell me.”
    I put Vampire Academy back on the shelf and grabbed one I