Page 28 of All Ghosts Aren’t Dead (The Forgotten #1)

BLUE

A live.

Jonah was alive.

The words didn’t feel real. I heard them, I promise I did , but my brain didn’t know where to put them. There wasn’t a shelf inside me labeled miracle. Just ones for loss, and guilt, and things too ugly to say out loud.

Jonah was alive.

The words slipped sideways when I tried to look straight at them. Like maybe everything Ezekiel had ever said was still in the way, smearing the truth.

Jonah was alive, and I hadn’t been there.

I tried to remember the last thing I’d said before they came for him. Not the crying or the panic, but the part where he held my face and begged me to fight.

I fought, but I wasn’t so sure it was enough.

Not anymore.

Jonah had been locked up for five years, and I got to be here, eating candy, sleeping in real beds, and falling in love with Daddy.

My chest felt funny, too full but too empty, like something really important was leaking out of me and I couldn’t stop it.

I tugged on my ear—once, twice. Over and over and over again.

It wasn’t helping.

Everything was too loud.

Too loud.

Too loud.

Voices slammed into each other. The door kept opening and closing. Papers rustled, and someone kept saying my name.

Blue!

Every sound felt sharp, like they were all cutting into me.

Jonah was alive, and I was going to go save him.

I knew just what to do. He’d told me so.

Kill them, Bailey.

Kill them all.