Prologue
Six months ago
C
rimson blood stained the ground as I stared down at his lifeless body. Wiping a splatter of his warm blood from my cheek, a deep chill raced down my spine.
I could feel the loud, piercing screams vibrating through me as they emanated from my body, but no sound ever reached my ears.
It was as though I was floating above myself, watching the horrific events unfold in front of me, but I couldn’t fathom what was truly taking place.
He couldn’t be dead.
This couldn’t be his blood painting my skin.
We had fought so hard to stay safe-- to stay alive. It couldn’t be all for nothing.
Not now.
Not ever this way.
My heart broke into a million splintering pieces as I crumbled to my knees, taking his cold hands into mine.
Footsteps echoed all around me as everyone found the tragic scene before us.
After every plan and every day we had spent attempting to win, it was all ending with him as the casualty of our battle.
A white hot rage filled my body as I pleaded for him to wake, but knowing deep in my heart, mind, and soul that he was already gone.
Everything I had come to know was now lost in my sorrow.
All I could do was think; how did we get here?
Chapter One
New Girl in Town
A
round midnight, I felt the darkness tugging at my soul. Quiet, seething voices hissed at me as I scrambled to find a place to hide. My breathing was ragged, my heart threatening to jump out of my chest. If they caught me, it could result in catastrophic results. Tiny, golden eyes swirled all around, fighting me to let them in. I was a fighter and, right now, I was sure I was about to fight until my dying breath. Inching their way closer, the air began to leave and I felt suffocated, trapped inside a world in which I didn’t belong. As I opened my mouth to scream for help, my eyes suddenly shot open.
Panting, I sat up in the seat as the lulling motion of the car brought me back to reality. Outside our car, thick white fog rolled over the countryside, lapping at the side of our car like lost souls trying to catch us. A blood red moon hung low in the sky, welcoming us to the southern part of our country.
Seconds later, after my breathing had died down, my mom stirs, alerted to my now nightmare.
“Lizzie, are you alright?” my mom asked, turning in her front passenger seat.
Wiping a bead of sweat from my brow, I mustered a fake smile. “Sure, mom. I guess I had a bad dream,” I stated. All I could do was nod as I attempted an answer.
My dad, who kept his gaze focused on the dark highway, chuckled to himself. “I wish I could sleep like that in a car. Not since I was a teenager did, I sleep that soundly,” he mused.
If only he knew the truth. That nightmare had been haunting my dreams every night for the last two weeks. Just one more thing to add to my ever growing list of weirdness. When you are part of a family like mine, it’s hard not to panic when Demons haunt your mind.
“Are we almost to the hotel?” I ask dryly, finally catching my breath.
The images of the dream were still lingering in my mind, but at least I knew it was just that; a dream.
“About another fifteen-minutes,” my mom stated. “We are in Ohio,” she finished.
“Great,” I mumbled.
Rubbing my eyes, I folded my arms across my chest and allowed myself to fall back to sleep.
Of course, this was how I would spend my sixteenth birthday; traveling across the country with my parents. By car. To our new home.
Ever since my latest episode, my parents had decided it was finally time to move us out of the town where I was born and raised. They wanted to see the land and thought it would be fun and memorable to opt out of flying on a plane, and instead, decided to drive us from Salem, Massachusetts, to Kentucky. As with everything in my life, this wasn’t my choice. Trust me, if I had known what was awaiting me as I arrived in the small Town of Nicholasville, Kentucky, I would have fought to change my circumstances.
There were only two things in life that I was certain of; I wasn’t like most teenage girls and darkness always seemed to find me.
Most people had dreams filled with happiness, but not me.
I’d never planned on stealing the shadows of others, but that is exactly what I found myself doing.
However, that wasn’t the strangest thing about me-- not even close.
But to understand me, you have to understand where I come from.
My mom, formally Sadie Sanders, was a Mediator to the dead. And, her history became my reality. Because right now, my life is spiraling out of control as I struggle to find a way to survive in a world full of monsters and all things that go bump in the night.
Small towns get all types of reputations.
Being Boring, everyone is stuck in everyone else's business, and most importantly, news traveled fast.
Moving from a large, historical town like Salem, there were plenty of tourists streaming in and out of the city at all times of the year. This I enjoyed because I could hide away amongst the people that crowded into our old city. Here, people would know I was new. They would see me and I hated to be seen. I guess you could say, I had learned how to hide amongst the crowds. I wasn’t like most girls, I was different. And my differences caused everyone at my last school to believe I was a freak, psychologically impaired. Crazy. However, it wasn’t until I freaked out in Algebra, screaming that a dark shadow Demon was going to attack me, that everyone stopped assuming I was insane and finally believed it.
We had stopped for the night at a small hotel just outside of Cincinnati, Ohio. Waking the next morning, we had driven the last two hours to get to the small, southern Kentucky town in which I was forced to now call home.
A black Crow circled our car as my dad turned onto a small, gravel drive. With my face plastered against the hot glass panes of my passenger seat window, I allowed the heat to contain the numbness that had settled in. The white hot window should have burned my skin, but I welcomed the pain.
We passed by the stone, ‘Welcome to Nicholasville’ sign and I heard my mom sigh as she reached over and grabbed my dad’s hand. They had so much history here in this town. A history I still wasn’t fully aware of.
Noah and Sadie Bufford were major history fans. In fact, the Ghosts of the past seemed to be their calling and were never away from our daily lives. It was part of their own story and what made my family so unique and...wickedly twisted.
As we turned onto Main Street off the highway, I spotted my first glimpse into the tiny town. A Waffle House and Walmart greeted us as we continued to drive south down the small, two lane road. It was a huge contrast to the world of Salem, Massachusetts, where I had lived.
With each minute that passed, I noticed the town forgetting its more modern stores and styles for the rugged feel of an older time. Buildings which had been standing since the late 1800’s now lined the two lane street. We passed by a small dance studio and the massive courthouse with its high peaks and stone exterior. A statue of the founder of Jessamine County symbolically stood on the lawn of the courthouse, speaking to the whole city.
We turned right off Chrisman Mill Road and the car slowed along the side of the small, two lane road. My eyes searched the vast greenery outside my window, wondering and waiting for something, anything to happen.