Beautiful Dreamer

Chapter 19

Chapter Nineteen

Aubrey caught my arm as we mounted the stairs, trailing behind Laury and my mother as they made their way up to my room. I tried to pull away, knowing what she was going to say to me, but she held tight. Her eyes bored into the back of my head until finally, sighing, I was forced to turn around.

“What?” I demanded crossly, belatedly yanking my arm away. The sharp movement knocked me off balance, and I had to grab onto the banister to keep myself from toppling down the stairs. Aubrey watched me with concern.

“Are you okay?” she asked, her tone solicitous. Though she said no more than that, it was pretty obvious that she wasn't talking about my near face-plant.

I shrugged. “Never better.”

She hesitated. “When I go home, I'll...I'll talk to Logan. You two will be okay.”

“I don't care. I'm fine,” I snapped, before ducking my head and shuffling away down the hall. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught sight of Aubrey at the top of the stairs, pinching the freckled bridge of her nose.

By the time I got to my room, I'd managed to push the thought of Logan's departure out of my mind—at least momentarily. I tried to pretend that the familiar sound of an old car sputtering out of the culdesac wasn't him, that it was just another passing neighbor. And for some reason, it wasn't that hard; especially once I stepped through the open doorway of my room and found my mother panicking over the state of my floor.

Glass bits were still strewn about, with only the screw caps and support wires of the light bulbs still attached and swinging gently on electrical strings. My mother was stepping gingerly around the pieces in her house slippers, squealing, “Parker Sage, what happened in here?” as she attempted to pluck the shards out of the carpet. Laury, meanwhile, was walking straight into the thick of it, her shoes crunching over the little pieces. Her brows were knit in concentration, her eyes guarded as she scanned the room.

“They were here last night,” she stated, and it wasn't a question. I doubted that she even needed to ask me, because it seemed that just by gazing at the aftermath, she could see the twisted events clearly in her mind. Still, I gave an affirmative nod.

I stood at the threshold of my room, staring at the glittering slivers and trying to make sense of the fact that this had happened only the night before. It had merely been hours, but it felt like days.

Aubrey said nothing when she finally came up beside me; her only reaction was a soft exhalation and the whispering rustle of her hair falling into her face. She, too, stayed parked in the doorway, and a moment later, my mom calmed down and stepped back toward the wall to join us. The three of us watched silently as Laury prowled around the room, stopping occasionally to pick up a shard or touch a random piece of furniture.

“I hope you're actually doing something productive,” Aubrey said after a moment, raising her eyebrows as Laury dropped to her stomach and peeked beneath the bed.

“Hm? Oh, very much so.” Laury grunted as she hauled herself back to her feet. “I'm feeling a very strong source of paranormal energy from somewhere in this room, but I can't seem to place it.” Craning her neck, she began to run her hand along the wall. With her big eyes and jerky movements, she looked like a proper supernatural investigator—or whatever title is given to the people with night vision cameras who peruse old buildings at night and assume that every little creak is ghost activity.

“I feel like we're in an episode of Ghostbusters,” I joked, before realizing that was something Logan would have said, if he had been there.

“Except that those are fake, darling,” Laury said. “This, on the other hand, is quite real.” Frowning, she peeled her hand away from the wall; as she did so, her body suddenly went rigid. She was standing next to my vanity, adjacent to my bed, but she immediately dived toward the pillow that rested on my headboard. The pillow didn't stand a chance against her prying hands, and it went flying across the room, hitting the wall with a muffled thump.