A Pocket Full of Posies (Book 2)

Chapter One

There is no sound more irritating than the relentless bashing of keys on a laptop keyboard. Being massively sleep deprived, stuck in an enclosed space surrounded by pungent flowers, and on the run from evil paranormal entities that want to suck all joy out of everything in life isn't helping, either.

That someone being Jamie then amplifies that frustration by tenfold. His abnormally heavy, shallow breathing is only making the situation more dire. I give up. I open my eyes, sit up straight in the car seat, and release an enormous groan.

"Sh! I'm trying to concentrate," Jamie snaps.

"Really?" I whisper in reply.

I keep my voice low because Carmen and Tom are somehow fast asleep, despite sitting next to Darth Vader's even more deformed brother. I whip my head around to glare at him.

"Mate, I've been trying to sleep for the past hour, but all I can hear are your pudgy fingers smacking your laptop. Also, pretty sure you're having an asthma attack. I'd get that shit checked, if I were you."

"Shut up, travelling makes my hands swell up, okay? If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't even have to be doing my uni work at this time of the night on a road in the middle of nowhere."

"Jay, we literally left the manor house this afternoon, and believe it or not, I'd also rather not be on the run from some psychotic--"

"Oh, will you two shut it!" Ava hisses in a whisper from the driver's seat. She sighs. "Okay, whoa, look, we're far enough away to be safe for a little while now. We're all shattered, stressed, and I'm not going to be able to drive all through the night, so do you want to find a hotel?"

"Not if there's a risk we'll get attacked by his baggage," Jamie mutters in response, motioning towards me.

"Piss off, if you'd not gone and played ghost hunter with your ouija board and gotten yourself possessed, we'd not be half as screwed as we are right now."

"Gotten myself possessed? Yes because I intentionally sought out--"

"We're getting a hotel." Ava's voice is like a song as she interrupts our bickering with a smile, yet I get the feeling she wants to strangle us both until our lungs give out.

That doesn't sound like too bad of an end result at this point, honestly. Jamie and I don't say another word, largely out of fear of Ava. He carries on beating up his laptop though, and I'm seriously contemplating catapulting myself through the car windscreen when Ava makes a stop outside a hotel just off the M1.

It's a chain hotel, so there shouldn't be any nasty surprises. We wake Carmen and Tom after parking the car, and I practically sprint into the hotel at the prospect of a bed. Once rooms are sorted--a triple room for me, Jamie and Tom, and a twin room for Ava and Carmen--we head straight to them. I don't even remember lying down, let alone falling asleep.

I'm a lot more refreshed than expected when I wake up. I'm even more surprised when I check my phone and see that it's only six in the morning, but then figure it wasn't actually that late when we arrived here last night. Tom is still fast asleep in the bed next to me, as is Jamie based on his snoring. Why is everything he does so loud? I throw a pillow at him as I get out of bed, which ends up being pretty funny when it makes him flail in his sleep, and head towards the bathroom for a shower.

By the time I'm dressed, Tom and Jamie are still asleep, but Annabel has made an appearance. She's flicking Tom's hair while he sleeps, and every time she does, he smacks his own head. It's grown out a lot since he had it cut short at the start of uni, but he's not dyed over the red colour it was for Christmas, so it's not looking its best. Turns out he's a natural brunette. Who'd have known, eh? After being entertained by that for a few minutes, I decide to head downstairs and check out what's on offer for breakfast.