Page 87 of Some Kind of Haunted

I’m on this wall, high above the ground, suspended between Cleo’s body and Jack, who’s known her all her life and doesn’t know this awful thing I know. Yet.

I remind myself I don’t know anything except a dark-haired girl with Doc Martens on her feet isn’t moving.

“Just stay still, okay? I’ll come up.” He’s surveying things, looking for the fastest way to get up on the wall and then all the way to me.

“We have to get to her. Cleo.” I keep pointing at her, but he can’t see over the wall. “She’s on this side. She . . . She must have fallen. She needs help.”

Jack looks behind him, back down the street. I see two people rushing toward us. Logan and Nora.

“Jack. Please.”

He looks back up at me. I’m high above him and the wind seems to be picking up every time I speak, but he hears me. Sees me. I have no doubt about that.

“Stay put,” he tells me gruffly, his gaze intense on mine for a moment. I nod.

Then he takes off running again, sticking close to the wall and heading in the direction I was originally going. I swallow down all my fear, all my worries. Jack will get to the other side. He will help. Everything will be okay.

It has to be okay.

“Lexi.” It’s Logan this time. He and Nora have made it to the base of the wall under me. “Keep coming this way,” he orders me. “All the way to the ladder. You have to get down from there.”

I shake my head because Jack has appeared on the other side of the wall—and he comes to an abrupt stop. He doesn’t move any closer to Cleo. He doesn’t kneel at her side.

“Call for help,” I call down to him, my desperation and panic hiding what I’m afraid I already know to be true. “A doctor, Jack. Paramedics. Something.”

I’m imploring Jack to fix this. To change what I can see but don’t want to believe. Jack looks up at me, and even from the long distance from the top of the wall to the base of it, I see it in his eyes. That there is no help. That it is too late.

That this is not a dream, and my friend is dead.

“Right now, we have to get you down,” he tells me. “We can’t do anything until we get you down.”

He says this very calmly, very seriously. He is giving me an anchor to hold on to. There’s just one problem. “How?”

“Keep heading for the ladder. I’ll follow along with you, okay? Just stay on all fours and crawl toward the end.” He starts moving back toward the end of the wall, like he’s showing me where to go.

Cleo is dead. And I don’t know how to accept this, absorb this, deal with this, no matter how it pounds in me like a terrible heartbeat.

So I don’t. I focus on Jack, on Nora and Logan on the other side.

They all want to help me get down, and I have to let them.

Because this isn’t a dream. And I can’t do this all alone, no matter how the hell I got up here.

I crawl, balancing myself on this narrow ledge for what feels like forever. Everyone is calling encouraging words at me. Telling me I’m close and doing great.

But Cleo is still dead.

I choke on another sob, but I keep going forward until I reach the ladder. Jack is already on the top, waiting for me. He holds out a hand.

“Jack. She . . .”

“I know.” His voice is hoarse, affected, but he holds my gaze. “But we’ve got to get you down.”

He’s right. I can’t stay up here. It’s cold. I’m covered in blood and I don’t know what happened. I don’t know anything that happened. The last thing I remember is being in bed.

Jack makes room for me and I manage to get my leg onto the first rung. I’m not sure my muscles will hold me, but Jack wraps himself around me. He’s keeping me supported.

And warm. The heat of him floods through me, reminding me of the diner earlier. Of this connection of ours that might make him mad, but right now feels like everything to me.