Read Beyond for Free Online Page B

she calls over the music.
    It goes quiet again with a whisper of brush on a snare drum, like drizzle gusting against a windowpane.
    I can see why Lexi falls for the guys she does. Beautiful liars like Max. She hates it when I say this, but they’re clones of her dad.
    “Does this make you think rain ?” she asks.
    I nod.
    As the drums boom again, they’re echoed by real thunder outside. There’s always another storm coming.

I wake slowly, with the sound of my name echoing in my ears. Someone’s calling me. From far away.
    Jane .
    No. Let me sleep. Five more minutes, Mom.
    Jane .
    Whispered closer, tickling my ear. Not Mom’s voice. More like a guy’s.
    Pulled from my doze, I try to open my eyes.
    But they won’t open! Must be sticky with too much mascara gunk and sleep sand. I start rubbing and feel something weird.
    What is this?
    Under my fingertips it feels like I’ve got false eyelashes stuck on, gluing my eyes shut. But I never wear those.
    I try to pull whatever it is off, but it won’t come loose.
    It seems more like … thread?
    Stitches!
    As if my lids are sewn shut. No! I’m not thinking right. Still half-asleep.
    Wake up!
    I pluck at one thread, and it tugs the skin, stinging.
    Get up! Go to the bathroom and wash this crap off!
    I sit up in bed and my head cracks on something solid, just inches above me.
    What’s that?
    My hands fumble blindly, find a flat surface looming over me. That can’t be there. Where am I? I reach out, and my palms hit walls on both sides of me. Boxing me in. Like …
    Like a coffin!
    No. No! Get me out of here!
    Must be dreaming.
    I go to scream and wake up the house. But I can’t.
    My lips won’t open either. Touching them, I feel more thread, more stitches. From one corner of my mouth to the other. So tight I have to breathe through my nose.
    I scream anyway. It comes out smothered.
    Shoving at the surface above, it won’t budge. I catch a sliver in my thumb with a sting that feels way too real.
    A coffin. Made of wood.
    Pounding my fists against the sides makes only a deadened thud. As if there’s earth packed against the outside.
    Get me out! I’m not dead!
    My screams die, muted, in my throat.
    I claw at my mouth, straining the stitches, feeling skin tearing. I taste blood trickling into my mouth.
    Jane .
    A voice. Right in my ear.
    I’m not alone in this coffin. I breathe in the sickly sweet smell of flowers gone rotten.
    Stay with me, Jane .
    I sense something reaching for me. A cold caress freezes the side of my neck. I pull away, but there’s no room.
    Don’t touch me!
    Stay with me .
    I pull away. No space to move. I try rolling over, turning my back to it.
    As I turn, it feels like I’m falling. For a second. Then I crash hard.
    My eyes fly open. It’s dark, but I can make out some things.
    There’s my bed beside me, my desk in the corner. My room.
    I lie on the floor, hyperventilating. My lungs feel starved for oxygen.
    Must have fallen off the bed, rolling over to get away from that thing.
    Crouching on my knees with the blankets pooled around me, I feel my lips with my fingers. No stitches. No blood. Nothing.
    I crawl over to my desk and click on the lamp.
    I’ve had that same wild nightmare a couple of times since I got nailed. But never so bad, so vivid. And before, I was always alone in the coffin. Now something else is locked in there with me.
    I lean against the wall. Can’t get back in bed—can’t risk picking up where I left off.
    I can blame Lexi for some of the details in these nightmares. She’s obsessed with horror flicks, filling myhead with this stuff. Like the way they sew the corpses’ eyelids shut to keep them from springing open during the funeral.
    A full-body shiver runs through me. I can’t shake the freeze left from that touch.
    The sickeningly sweet smell is still in my nose. What was that thing in the coffin? Bringing me dead flowers like a valentine.
    Stay with me , it said. Down in the dark.
    “Go away,” I whisper to