A Pocket Full of Posies (Book 3)

Chapter One

Everything is different now. Everything looks different, feels different. Just is different. We're cruising through familiar roads as we creep closer to our university city, but it's different. It's all in my head. I'm fully aware everything is exactly the same, but it doesn't feel like that. I was shut away from everything, stuck in Connor's cesspool of shit for longer than two weeks. I must have been. Any other reality doesn't compute in my brain. Logic is telling me otherwise, but it felt so long, so heavy. Never felt more intimate with a radiator, mind you.

"Listen to us!"

I wince. The joy of escaping the Trackers and dark spirits is rapidly wearing thin, and the voices are becoming harder to ignore. I lift my eyes to Ava in the driver's seat. She's humming as she taps the steering wheel with her fingers, and nothing about her calm disposition suggests she's aware of my incessant inner turmoil. Annabel's arguing with Lucy, or rather at Lucy, and it's pretty impressive how she's not taken time out for anything else since I woke up today. I'm usually the one on the receiving end of her rage, and I'm honestly a little jealous.

"Help!"

"What are you waiting for? Stupid, stupid!"

I squeeze my eyes shut. Shut up. I don't mean to, but I'm gritting my teeth. It has to stop eventually, right? It has to. They can't do this forever. I can't do this forever. I lift my eyes back to Ava. Maybe I should say something.

"We don't deserve this!"

"Stop torturing us, it's evil. Evil."

"I couldn't give less of a shit, Luce." Annabel's voice hisses over the ones in my head. "Hell, you know what? I hope his arse ends up in jail forever, and you finally realise he's the one--"

"Stupid child! Come on!"

"... your only way to communicate with him is by watching him get his arse whooped in prison by all the creepy old men who want a piece of his young--"

"Stop running, just stop! Give up!"

"Give in!"

I bounce my leg up and down, and I have to clamp my hands together to force them not to tear at my hair, but it's becoming really damn difficult and my head is aching from all the noise inside it, and I want to scream, except I can't because no one else can hear any of this.

"We deserve better than this! Better than you!"

"... not even good-looking. The least you could've done is go for his hotter brother. If you're going to go and get yourself murdered by your own boyfriend, at least pick someone who doesn't look like a dog's--"

"Stop fighting us!"

"Shut up! Just shut up!" The words spill out of my mouth before I realise they're even in my head.

Annabel clamps her mouth shut, her eyes wide. Lucy says nothing, nor does Ava. Or Tom. Everyone's just staring at me, all bug-eyed like I just screamed in the middle of a complete silence without any forewarning or something.

"Sorry," I mutter, my eyes on Ava and Tom. "Sorry, Annabel--I just, she's--Yeah, don't worry."

Wow. Convincing. Well done, pal.

"What did I do?" Annabel snaps back.

"Nothing," I mutter to her beside me. "Don't worry."

"Huh? You're not making sense. What did I do? I don't--"

"Oi! Felix!"

I snap my head to the front of the car at the sound of Tom's voice. His body is turned towards me in the passenger seat, and there's an expectant look on his face. It's blank, really, but by Tom's standards, there's expectancy there.