All the Pretty Ghosts (The Never Alone Series Book 1) by Jamie Campbell Page A

lungs. I wasn’t going to cry anymore, it was pointless. If I told myself that enough, it usually worked. After all, it was just one dead girl. Out of all that had already died, what was one more?
    I knew the answer. It was because of my sister. I had to find her, I just had to. I hadn’t seen her as a spirit child, not even when I had seen so many others. She had to be out there somewhere.
    “So, back to the house?” Oliver asked. He had been so patient and perfect with me all day. If he wasn’t here, I would still be a mess on the floor, hunched over with nothing to go on for.
    The thought of being at my house on the hill suddenly didn’t seem as attractive as it did. Would I suffer the same fate as Lilia? How long would it be for someone to discover my decomposing corpse? It wasn’t like the forty-three ghosts that lived there with me would be able to dispose of my body. They probably wouldn’t even notice I had stopped listening to them.
    Or perhaps someone would find me.
    Taz and Jet and all those boys could track me down. They had asked me where I lived. Even though I tried to be vague, they could piece it together. They could find me.
    Would they have any more mercy for me if they found me again? I somehow doubted they would. My death would probably be long and drawn out, made to suffer for embarrassing them by escaping the first time. They wouldn’t risk it a second time.
    “I don’t know where to go,” I admitted.
    “You could stay.”
    “For what? There’s nothing here for me anymore.”
    Oliver shifted his weight between his feet, summoning up the courage to say what he wanted to. I wished he would just spit it out. I knew I wouldn’t like it.
    “Well?” I prompted.
    “You could stay and help,” he finally said. How many times did we need to have that conversation? I was no closer to understanding how I could be of help to a broken city. I was just one girl.
    And I was just as broken.
    I threw up my hands in frustration. I felt like I was on the verge of insanity with nothing making sense. I was so close to tipping over the edge that I could see the fall. “How could I possibly help? Tell me specifically what I can do. Please, Oliver, because I’m totally lost here.”
    If he was affected by my outburst, he didn’t let it show. Cool and collected, that was Oliver. He was a good guy to have around in an emergency. “You could be more aware. Open up your mind to the spirits and listen to them. They have knowledge that we need.”
    “They say nothing but garbage. It’s just chatter, it doesn’t mean anything.”
    “But are you really listening?”
    What the hell was he talking about? I had ears, of course I was listening to the ghosts. It was all I could do to not listen to them sometimes. It was harder keeping them out than letting them in.
    I turned around and started walking. I didn’t know where I was going and I didn’t care either. Let Taz find me, he could do his worst.
    “Where are you going?” Oliver called out.
    I didn’t turn around to answer him. “I need some time alone. I have to think.”
    “Be careful.”
    No amount of carefulness would be good enough in the city. I thought I was careful before Jet’s boys took me. Now I knew there was nowhere to hide from them.
    Oliver let me go and every step I took led me further away from him. He had no right telling me what to do. He had no idea what the spirits were like. He couldn’t. He had to be only guessing, grasping at straws like everyone else still hanging onto a spark of hope in the city.
    There was no destination to my walk so I didn’t know when I would get there. Darkness was still a long time away, I could walk for hours before I needed to find somewhere for the night. At least that was a small mercy.
    I stomped until my feet hurt and I couldn’t walk any further. I looked around at my surroundings. I was in a residential neighborhood. A few kids were sitting on the curb, some clutching onto the small railings up