Read Celeste Files: Unjust for Free Online

panties and tight cotton camisole she’d gone to bed wearing. While she still feared this unfamiliar place and the man who’d brought her here, her terror and denial must have been what had thrust her into the darkness and sealed her mouth. Rising higher and higher, she realized accepting the situation might be the only way to end this living nightmare. She also needed to discover what the boat captain wanted from her. The sooner she could help him, the sooner she could rid him from her life.
    “Are you still there?” she asked.
    When she received no answer, she hung suspended. Her body weightless, she swiveled and looked down. The Earth, bright and beautiful, was below her, inviting her to come back, to explore its wonders. She should be terrified. She should be begging for her ghost to come back. Except her curiosity, her fascination with this strange and yet magnificent dream-state had her longing to remain here. To thank the ghost for showing her such beauty.
    “ Find me .”
    She looked around, but there was no sign of the gray smoke. “Where are you?”
    Heat surrounded her. “ Come see how bad I can be. Come see what I am. ”
    His words chilled her and brought her back to reality. She wasn’t in outer space. She was in Everglades City, Florida, sleeping next to her husband in their vacation rental. She looked to the Earth, poured her focus onto the United States, and flipped herself until she mimicked Superman. Nothing happened. “Go,” she mumbled under her breath. “Fly.” Still nothing.
    The man laughed.
    “If you want me to meet you, tell me how to move and where to find you,” she demanded.
    “ C’mon, sugar ,” he said, still half-laughing. “ You brought yourself here, you can take yourself back on home. I’m on my way now. Catch me if you can .”
    Something hot burned past her in a blur of dark gray. Frustrated and angry at this game he played, especially when he had been the one to seek her out, she attempted to ground herself. She concentrated on the Earth again, specifically the Gulf of Mexico. When the boat captain had spoken, she’d detected the hint of an accent. It had been slightly Brooklynish, yet there had been something else to it. She’d spent her entire life living in either Wisconsin or Illinois, but this man had spoken similar to a salesman who she used to buy from when she’d been running her dad’s diner. That man had transplanted from New Orleans to Wisconsin to follow his wife’s job, and she remembered his distinct ‘y’at’ accent. Plus, the dead captain’s boat had been called the Cajun Lady. She honed in on the coast of Louisiana. Smelled salt water. Heard waves lapping and seagulls cawing.
    As if suddenly strapped to a missile, her body rocketed toward the Earth. The sun bright, she flew through clouds, over oceans, then mountains and fields of wheat. Fascinated by what her mind was capable of, she took in every detail and hoped she’d remember it all in the morning. She couldn’t wait to share this experience with Maxine and discover what it meant. Was this a vision? A trance? Or was she really connecting with the spirit world?
    The sun disappeared and she was ripped from the outside, only to be thrust into a dimly-lit room. Wood paneling coated the walls. An aluminum mini-blind hung haphazardly from a boarded window. Insulation dangled from a hole in the ceiling. The floor was nothing but a concrete slab, but old linoleum tiles remained near a closed door. In the center of the room a young woman lay bound and gagged on a filthy twin mattress. The woman’s long, matted, dark hair covered her face, while a flimsy, dirty and torn nightgown covered her body. The woman didn’t move, and Celeste wasn’t sure if she was dead or alive.
    She looked around the room for the gray smoke. When she didn’t see it, she moved closer to the mattress. The door burst open. Celeste lunged back. The woman, her eyes wild with fear, quickly scrambled to her knees and stared