Throwing herself backwards away from the book, she tripped over a chair and crashed into the floor. But the darkness that was emerging from the book was spreading like wildfire. Faster than she could process. Unstoppable.
Tendrils, like the limbs of some deep sea monster, were crawling along the walls—like shadows cast from monsters she couldn’t see, from light sources that didn’t exist, spreading over the floors and the ceiling.
She couldn’t breathe. Sidney was screaming her name from her phone, but Sasha couldn’t respond. This wasn’t fake terror. This wasn’tplayfear. This wasn’t making herself afraid of pretend ghosts on the screen and squeaking at teenagers wearing rubber masks.
This was real.
One of the tendrils snapped around her throat and cinched tight.
She couldn’t even scream as it cut off her air.
It lifted her in the air.
She had told her twin Sidney that the book wasn’t going to eat her.
But as it pulled her toward the center of the darkness, the empty nothingness where the book had been only moments before?
She knew she had been very, very wrong.
CHAPTER TWO
Sidney stared at her phone in disbelief as the line went dead. Sasha had said she opened the book and then…
It wasn’t like her sister to play stupid games. Sasha was a prankster, but she never played pranks onher.And never like this. Never when it involved believing someone could be hurt. Whatever this was, whatever was happening, it was real.
Tears streamed down Sidney’s cheeks. She quickly dialed Sasha back, but it went straight to voicemail. Wherever Sasha was, she didn’t have a signal. But that wasn’tpossible.She had been at work—she was on Wi-Fi!!
She texted her sister.
Sash, call me! RIGHT NOW.
Her hands were shaking so badly she almost dropped her own phone. Backing up, she leaned against the dresser underneath the television in her hotel room, and tried not to panic. What was she supposed to do? What washappening?Should she call the cops?
She didn’t have a phone number for any of Sasha’s roommates. She cursed herself for not having them.Damn it.Her sister was sucha fucking hermit. No friends she knew of that were local. All her sister’s friends were online and lived scattered all over the world. That didn’t help her in the slightest.
Screw it, she was calling the police. Flipping over to the browser on her phone, she started searching for the Somerville, Massachusetts police phone number. They’d send someone over to break the door in and?—
Movement out of the corner of her eye snapped her attention upwards.
The freaky-ass book on her bed had moved.
It wasopen.
Like a deer in the headlights, she froze in place, staring at it, wondering if it was about to murder her like whatever had happened to Sasha.But she didn’t have time to worry about that.
There was writing on the page. Big and black. Large enough that she could read it from across the room.
You can save your sister.
This had to be some kind of elaborate trick, right? Magnets? Special effects? She swallowed the rock in her throat. “This can’t be real.”
The page turned right before her eyes. Moaning in fear, she shook her head frantically. But it didn’t stop what she saw.
This is very real.
Another page turned.
We can save her, together. She’s in danger.
