The Endings #8

Name: Rachael Harrie

Title: FROM THE OTHER SIDE

Description:

When seventeen-year-old Verity Ronson learns her twin sister’s ventilator is about to be yanked out, she vows to stop it. When she runs out of options she turns to her ex-boyfriend and his freaky Dark Magick coven for help, only to find herself betrayed to her death.

Verity wakes as a ghost with one thing on her mind. Revenge. The coven members took her life and her only chance to save her sister. For both those things, they’ll pay. Naked and with only a voice in her head to keep her company—who cares if that makes her crazy—Verity sets out to cross her murderers off the face of the earth. But her world becomes darker and drenched in blood and Verity loses control of her powers. When innocent people start to die, she realizes that killing isn’t the hardest part. It’s finding a way to stop.

Ending:

I lay on the bed beside Audrey and slowed my breathing until my chest rose and fell in the same measured pattern. Once we breathed in unison, I reached out, found our connection, and followed it back to deep within her.

Light in a rainbow of colors rippling in waves. A joining. Completeness. A sense of coming home.

I opened my eyes. Light assaulted me but I blinked until the pulsing white of my vision changed to a softer, less-painful shade of pale gray. I waited more. The room materialized bit by bit until finally I could see again.

I gagged and tried to swallow but someone had rammed an iron rod down my throat. I couldn’t swallow, couldn’t breathe, started to panic. I needed the rod out, but when I tried to speak no words would form.

My mouth was dry. Thirsty. Had to get the rod out.

I was going to suffocate, was going to die, couldn’t breathe.

Help.

My heart sped up. Machines beside me beeped.

I turned my head in an agony of effort and saw Michael through a hazy cloud. He stirred in his sleep, turned his head from side to side, and sat upright with a grunt. Our eyes met and my heart beat faster. I couldn’t smile, couldn’t tell him I loved him.

Couldn’t breathe.

An alarm sounded somewhere above my head.

I tried to cover my ears but I couldn’t move my arms. People ran toward me, voices shrieking, too loud when my ears were so sensitive they heard the noise of Michael’s swallow as he jumped out of his chair. I couldn’t focus on any one voice, couldn’t identify what they were saying. A nurse leaned over me, one whose face I recognized from the hours I’d spent at Audrey’s bedside.

“Audrey? Can you hear me? Auds honey, stay with me.” Michael’s words were nearly lost in the babble of voices yelling about too much stress and comas and ventilators. Everyone was saying the same name. The wrong name.

Audrey.

My name now.

A gentle voice murmured in my ear—the nurse. “We’ll take the ventilator out as soon as we can. Just relax. Don’t fight it.”

I struggled to move, struggled to lift my hand, to reach out to Michael, whose face stared at me over one of the nurses. They’d shoved him in the corner and told him to stay out of the way. I could see how scared he was, and how hopeful, and how scared he was of being hopeful. One of his girls had come home.

I felt a light touch on my cheek. It took all my strength but I turned my head to the side. Just enough. Luke stood there, smiling at me, his eyes shining. He ignored the bustle in the room, the nurses who brushed unseeing by him while they worked to unhook me, and everything else except me. “You did it,” he whispered.

I smiled. Audrey smiled. I smiled.