Free The Haunting by E.M. MacCallum

ready to hurl.
    “It went into that study.” Phoebe gestured and flopped her arm back down in her lap. Sweat gleamed across her forehead, and her lips looked pale. Read patted her leg, and she grimaced at first before offering a weak smile. “Hi, buddy.”
    “Hi,” he said, a rattle in his throat.
    I went to the T-intersection that we’d originally started in, listening for Cody. I peered around a corner and saw Cody punching at the closed door to the library with all his might, then ramming his shoulder into it. Bouncing off, he clutched his shoulder as if it’d betrayed him.
    “Locked?” I asked, looking back to Phoebe and Read on the ground.
    Phoebe raised her eyebrows at me as if to say, “What do you think?”
    “So Frankenstein has Robin?” Claire asked.
    I startled; I hadn’t even heard the two of them approach. Standing straight, I eyed the two of them. “Decided to come back?”
    “There was a dead end,” Joel muttered.
    Claire pointed to the hallway where Cody pounded on the door. “Frankenstein has her, though?” she repeated.
    “Well,” Read said, “Frankenstein’s monster.”
    Joel’s face pinched as it usually did when he was ready to start an argument. “That thing wasn’t Frankenstein?”
    “Misconception.” Read struggled to catch his breath, paling. “Frankenstein is the name of the scientist who made the monster. The thing he created was never named.”
    “How do you know this?” Phoebe asked, brushing perspiration from her brow.
    He shrugged. “Did a paper on Mary Shelley once.”
    “So how do we get Robin back?” Cody demanded, striding down the hallway, his hands balled into fists. Both of his bare shoulders and fists had bloodied, peeled skin on them.
    Claire’s face contorted, and she started crying all over again, deep shuddering sobs. She buried her face in Joel’s neck.
    “What?” Cody asked, sounding impatient.
    Joel shrugged.
    “We can’t get her back!” Claire wailed.
    We all stared at her, waiting for her to continue.
    She kept her face buried, her knees threatening to collapse if it weren’t for Joel’s arm secured around her waist.
    “Why won’t she come back?” Cody asked, a vein in his temple pulsing.
    “Claire…” Phoebe warned.
    Claire lifted her head, brushing strands of her auburn hair away. On any other day, I may have gained a bit of pleasure seeing her runny make-up and ripped manicure, but today it made her look broken. Cowering, she began to shiver. “Frankenstein or whatever wanted a bride. He needed more girls…” She swallowed hard, her lips trembling. “I watched him…I watched him…” She struggled to take a breath.
    “Were there other girls in there with you, Claire?” I asked.
    Phoebe stiffened on the floor, watching Claire closely.
    Claire nodded and broke down into tears again.
    “Holy crap,” Phoebe said softly. “He chopped one up in front of her.”
    “Claire,” I said as calmly as I could. Despite the minor tremble in my voice, I was a little proud of how easily I said her name. “They weren’t real. Those girls aren’t like you and me.”
    “No,” Cody broke in. “But Robin is. That thing has Robin.”
    “The girls were made-up?” Claire asked, hands on her face.
    I nodded and could only pray that I was right. The men who’d kidnapped my sister and me had been real. What others could be here for the eternally punished? Who needed Hell when there was the Demon’s Grave?
    “That doesn’t mean that we can’t get her back,” Cody said. “There’s still time.”
    Claire’s eyes shifted sympathetically up to him, but she was wise enough to keep her lips sealed.
    I turned to Read, who still sat on the floor next to Phoebe. “What can you tell us about Frankenstein?”
    Read stared up at me with glassy grey eyes, then looked to Cody uneasily. “I don’t know how we could save her,” he said.
    “No,” Phoebe started. “You don’t have to. Just educate us. Maybe there is some way we can get