𝐀 𝐒𝐢𝐧𝐧𝐞𝐫'𝐬 𝐌𝐢𝐧𝐝

Chapter Seven

I screamed, scrambling back and away from the body. "Oh, my God," I cried, my hand clawing at the damp grass as I tried to get further and further away.

"What's wrong?" Dylan asked again, his eyes following my line of sight. "Holy... Ava?"

His gaze shot back to me—all color drained from his face—and I swallowed hard, daring to cast another look over the naked girl who lay in the bushes. My eyes watered and my breath quickened, my stomach turning when I noticed the red indentation lines around her throat. Oh, God. She had been strangled. Did this mean...?

"Dylan," I mumbled, and he rushed to my side, lowering next to me with tears in his eyes. "I'm so sorry."

"W-we need to... She..." His eyes were fixed on Ava's corpse as he stumbled over his words. Tears rimmed his eyes and he seemed in utter shock as I tried to register what kind of situation we had gotten ourselves into.

I wrapped an arm around him and pulled him against my chest, fishing my phone from my pocket with a shaking hand. He almost stole the breath from my lungs as he tightened his arms around my waist, but I let him, my heart breaking into a million pieces when a sob escaped his throat.

Ava was a stranger to me, and even though the sight of a dead body was something that would scar me for life for sure, I couldn't imagine what it must have been like for the man in my arms.

I dialed 911 and explained what I saw, my eyes watering and my voice hoarse when I was done.

"Jamie? Dylan?" Lisha's voice sounded from behind us, but I kept staring at a spot on the ground nowhere near the body as I lowered my phone. "Oh, sorry, I..."

Her footsteps stopped, and I closed my eyes to prepare for the moment she would notice Ava.

"No," she breathed, walking up to us and crouching down next to Dylan. He released me and started to comfort Lisha, and I decided to go get someone. Anyone. But who? I had no idea where the professors or any of the staff lived if it even was on campus. How would you deal with something like this anyway? Would Mr. Davis still be near?

More screams sounded around us when other students discovered Ava, and I heard sirens approach in the distance.

—

Light and empty eyes stared at me, the corpse they belonged to laying at my feet. I tried to move my gaze away from the sight, but everywhere I looked, those glassy white eyes stared back at me. It was as if my gaze was drawn to her somehow, like two magnets constantly trying to find each other.

Everything inside me screamed at me to run, to escape, but my body stayed frozen in place. I couldn't move. Whatever I did, I stayed in the same spot. I tried talking, screaming, anything, but that too seemed impossible. Only my heart beat frantically in my chest and my stomach dropped when I realized I was utterly stuck.

"Why didn't you help me?" Ava screeched—her voice unhuman-like, raspy and dark. I snapped my head in the direction her voice came from, and gasped when she started to crawl up to me. Dirt covered her body and though she was clearly moving, she seemed drained of all blood.

"Jamie."

Bloodshot eyes were fixated on me when she clawed at my legs. I tried to scream again, tried to move, but to no avail. My hands started to shake and my mouth went dry.

I kept trying to scream, and somewhere in the distance, I could hear someone call my name. I clung to that sound, hope sparking inside me when I heard it again.

"Jamie!"

I opened my eyes and gasped, Felicity's face above me looking utterly terrified. I realized that I might have not been able to scream in my nightmare, but that I definitely had been waking up everyone in the building in reality.