Read Undone for Free Online

realized what I was hearing. Skidding tires and the squeal of worn brakes.
    It was a pickup truck, old and faded blue, and not from this world. And now it was flying down the hill, down Highway 101, swerving like no one was in control.

E verything happened in slow motion.
    We were only two lanes of highway from the cliffs and the beach, on a hill a quarter mile up from where people and families were laughing and relaxing and enjoying one of their last carefree days of summer.
    As the truck barreled through the portal, I saw her.
    Janelle.
    The red of her bathing suit and matching shorts caught my eye first. She stood down the hill, at the edge of the parking lot, on the cusp of the road. Directly in the truck’s path.
    Tanned skin, her brown hair pulled back on top of her head, sneakers on her feet, her cell phone to her ear.
    She was talking to someone. It must have been someone important. She was pinching the bridge of her nose, like she always did whenever she was stressed and trying to figure something out, and even though I couldn’t see them, I knew her eyes would be closed. I’d seen her make that face a lot.
    Before I could even think through what I was doing, I was running toward her.
    When my mind kicked in, it told me what I already knew, what I should have already thought of: I was going to be too late.
    So I screamed her name.
    She turned toward me and saw the truck. It was almost on top of her.
    She threw an arm up in front of her head, like she was bracing for the impact.
    Then it hit her.

W hen I got to her, she was still. Not breathing. One of her eyes was open and red with blood. Her collarbone was jutting up through the skin, and her lower back was bent at the wrong angle. Worse, her head was turned too far to be natural. Her neck had to be broken.
    She was dead.
    A cold blankness swept through me. I somehow felt both numb and like I’d been ripped in two. I had seen it happen. I could see her in front of me, and I knew it was real, but part of me still rejected it. This couldn’t be real. I’d watched her get hit by the truck, but that was impossible because she was good and I would never hurt her.
    I fell by her side, and my hands shook as I reached for her neck.
    I stopped thinking. I righted her head, ignoring the wave of nausea that rolled through me at the way it flopped loosely in my hands. I wasn’t going to let this end this way, not a chance.
    I could feel the break in her neck, the separation of the vertebrae and spinal cord. I gathered all my strength and funneled it down through my hands and into her, feeling the bones and flesh shift under my fingertips. When things were whole again, I moved my hands to her chest, not letting up with the flow of energy, afraid it would stop if I did. I pushed harder, focusing on her heart, willing it to start beating again.
    It didn’t.
    I needed more energy. I pulled with everything I had, until I was light-headed and my ears started to ring. Everything I’d ever felt for her, all those complex feelings I didn’t understand and couldn’t put a name to. I forced it through my arms, out of my fingertips, and into her.
    “Janelle, please,” I whispered. “Janelle, stay with me.”
    I thought of everything I knew about her, everything good about who she was, the things she did, the way she smiled, the sound of her laugh. And I channeled them into her.
    I remembered the first moment we met.
    I’d fallen through the portal and blacked out. The next thing I knew, I was freezing. Water was everywhere, I was submerged, my head was throbbing, and my arms and legs were too heavy and sluggish to move. I was sinking. I didn’t know how to get to the surface, or which way was up. The salt water stung my eyes, and my insides burned because I needed to breathe. I tried harder to move, but nothing happened, and I needed air. Needed it so badly, my mouth opened, even though there was only water.
    Then she saved me. She wrapped an arm around my chest and pulled