All The Pretty Ghosts (The Never Series Book 1)

by Jamie Campbell

  I started sobbing. Their pain was seeping into my bloodstream, making me ache inside. It was too much to take in as my brain started shutting down. I wanted to scream and run away from them but they would only follow me.

  “No, no, no.” If I begged, perhaps I could get through to them. Perhaps I could convince them to listen to me. But it was useless. Nothing ever worked.

  Suddenly, two strong hands gripped my arms. The ghosts couldn’t do that, not even if they tried. My hopes lifted, it had to be Oliver. He must have followed me so he would know I got home safely. That was something he would do.

  Without opening my eyes, I let myself be pulled through the throng of ghosts. Of course, nobody else would be able to see them except me, but they would feel them. They would be able to feel the sudden drop in temperature, the inexplicable chill in the air for no apparent reason. They wouldn’t give it two thoughts, but for a moment they would wonder what had caused it.

  I tripped over, unable to see where I was going. Oliver’s grip never wavered as he kept me from falling over. My eyes sprung open, hopeful the spirits were no longer following me.

  But it wasn’t Oliver who had me.

  It was much, much worse.

  The hands belonged to two people, two boys around the same age as me – one either side. They were covered in dirt, their hair was matted against their faces, and they were just as thin as the rest of us. They weren’t rescuing me from the ghosts, they were dragging me somewhere I was certain I didn’t want to go. I started struggling against them.

  “Let me go,” I cried out. Their grip tightened around my arms. They wouldn’t look at me, not either one of them. That wasn’t a good sign. “Where are you taking me?”

  “Shut up,” the one to my right ordered. His breath reeked of death and decay. I doubt he had eaten a decent meal in many weeks.

  I flailed my arms, trying to remove myself from their grip. If I could twist the right way, perhaps it would be just the amount of leverage I needed to escape. I tried and tried, but their hold never faltered.

  “Please let me go. I promise I won’t come back.”

  Without any warning, one of the guys slapped the back of my head so hard I saw stars. They swam in front of my vision, teasing me to pass out from the impact. I cried out from the sudden pain, more from the shock of it than anything else.

  “Shut your hole,” he growled at me. “There’s plenty more of that where it came from.”

  I couldn’t let them take me. Wherever they were going, I was certain it was not a pleasant place I wanted to linger. I tried kicking at them, going for the knees to knock them to the ground. I only needed one moment to be able to get away, just one moment where they were distracted.

  That moment never came.

  I was dragged into a hole in the brick wall. The room inside was pitch black. I couldn’t see a thing but they obviously knew the place well. We passed through a room that echoed our steps before a light started to flicker in the distance. We headed straight toward it.

  As the light grew brighter, it revealed more details of the place. They were taking me to a room, small compared to the dark one we had gone through. And we weren’t alone.

  The room was filled with about a half dozen boys, ranging in age from eight to eighteen. They were each as filthy as the boys who had my arms. I didn’t think it was a Tupperware party they were going to.

  “We found this one out in the alley,” boy to my left declared as every face in the place turned to us. My throat was already sore from yelling at them, I figured now was probably a good time to shut up. The chances of them letting me go because I begged and pleaded was zero to none.

  Probably even less.

  “Is she anyone?” The oldest boy spoke with a commanding tone, the leader I guessed. Every group needed someone to make the decisions and my bet would be on him. His dark brown hair was in need of a good wash, as was the rest of him. But he seemed to take more care of his appearance than most of the others. He had found a bar of soap somewhere along the line.

  “I am no-one,” I replied. “Just let me go and I won’t come back.”

  The guy walked closer to me, inspecting every inch of my body from head to toe. I felt completely naked under his gaze, vulnerable beyond comprehension.

  Now he was closer, I could see him better. His eyes were as black as the building had been as he studied me. There was intelligence behind his gaze, something the two thugs beside me clearly lacked. Once upon a time before the Event, he was probably a fairly decent guy, good looking, too. I hoped some of that decency still remained, even if he hid it most of the time.

  “What’s your name?” he asked me.

  “Everly.”

  “I’m Jet, it’s nice to meet you.” He held out his hand for me to shake. Considering my arms were held out to my sides by my captors, there was no chance I was touching him. He took his hand back and crossed his arms over his chest. He was thin like the others, but there were still muscles on his body. “What are you doing down here, Everly?”

  “I got lost, I didn’t know where I was.”

  He came in close to me, his face only an inch away from mine. It was uncomfortable staring into his eyes but I wasn’t going to look away. I didn’t have my freedom, but my dignity was going to stick around for a little while longer.

  “You should have left while you had a chance,” he warned. Like that wasn’t already quite clear in my current predicament. You didn’t need to be a genius to work that out.

  “She had this with her,” the thug to my right said, holding up the food Oliver had found for me. “We’ve got dinner for an entire week in here.”

  All the other boys were suddenly a lot more interested in me now with the mention of food. They all approached, making a circle around us.

  “What should we do with her, Jet?” thug to my left asked.

  Jet was still studying me like I was some sort of freak at the circus. I didn’t want to know what was going on in his mind at that point. It was probably not something I would be pleased about.

  “Tie her up. I want to have a nice, long chat with Miss Everly here,” Jet ordered, managing to make every hair on my body stand at attention with fear.

  I didn’t make it easy for them. I thrashed about with the remainder of my energy until they held me down and tied me to a broken wooden chair. It leaned dangerously to the side and creaked every time I managed to move. I didn’t trust it to hold my weight for very long.

  I probably wasn’t going to last very long.

  So we had the same life expectancy.

  While my food was equally divided amongst the group, Jet pulled another chair in front of me. He spun it around backwards and sat down, leaning on the back with his head on his arms. “So, Everly, we don’t get many visitors.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” I replied sarcastically. My mother used to warn me about my smart mouth getting me into trouble. I probably should have listened to her and developed better habits.

  Too late now.

  Jet laughed, snorting through his nose. “How long do you think you’re going to last here if you talk to me like that? Huh?”

  “Let me go and you won’t have to hear it anymore.”

  “When we’re getting along so well? What’s the rush?” He pretended to be offended. I doubted anything I said would offend him. Little girls wouldn’t even register on his radar. “So where’d you get the food? It’s a sweet haul.”

  “From the hall at the school. They give away food every day.”

  “Not to everyone,” he pointed out. For just a second, there was something else besides malice in his eyes, hurt? Disappointment? A memory he had tried to forget? I couldn’t tell. “How old are you?”

  “How old are you?” I shot back. I didn’t even care, I just didn’t want him knowing anything else about me. He didn’t deserve to speak to me like we were making new friends when I was tied up and at his mercy.

  “Old enough to know better. Now, your turn.”
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  “Go to hell.”

  He fell into a new round of laughter. He was just playing with me, like a kitten would a mouse. It never ended well for the mouse. I doubted I would fare any better.

  “Everly, Everly, Everly,” he started, shaking his head. “When are you going to learn, princess? I’m the one in charge here. I can do absolutely anything to you and do you know who’d care?” He held up his hand and made a zero with his thumb and index finger. “Now let’s try this again. How old are you?”

  “Why does it matter?”

  “Because I’m bored and you’re my new toy. Answer the question.”

  Did I really have any choice? “Seventeen.”

  “Seventeen… you look younger.”

  “So you like girls young, huh?” I half expected him to backhand me for being so insolent. It was stupid of me but the words were out before I could stop them. Perhaps if he hated me, he would let me go so he didn’t have to put up with me anymore.

  Of course, he could also kill me for the same reason. It wasn’t like there were any police or courts to punish murderers anymore. The law no longer existed.

  But instead of inflicting pain onto me, Jet ran his hand down the side of my face. It was so gentle and tender that it completely threw me off guard. “There are only young girls left,” he whispered.

  I was frozen in place as he took his hand back. A new possibility for them deciding to keep me around occurred to me. This one was a fate worse than death. Half a dozen boys, one girl. The older guys were probably missing female company.

  I needed to get the hell out of here.

  Jet continued to stare at me. “Where do you live?”

  “In a house.”

  “Where?”

  “In the city,” I lied. If I managed to make it out alive, I was not going to compromise my house on the hill.

  “You live by yourself?”

  Why did it matter? We weren’t going to be best friends, my life was of no interest to him. I played along anyway, trying to delay whatever plans they had for me. I needed some time to think up a plan to escape. There had to be a way somewhere.

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “What school did you go to?”

  “All Saints Girls’ Grammar.”

  He chuckled again before turning to the others. “We have a snobby girls’ school girl here. All Saints Girls’ Grammar.”

  “I hated those girls,” one of the other guys replied, spitting the words out. I guessed none of them were probably popular at their schools when there actually was such a thing as classes and teachers. Although, the Event had seriously changed most people.

  Jet turned back to me as the others still grumbled amongst themselves. “I bet you were a cheerleader too, right?”

  “No, I wasn’t.” That wasn’t a lie either. The cheerleaders and I had a mutual ignorance of each other. I didn’t bother them and they didn’t bother me.

  “So… what are we going to do with you, princess?”

  “Let me go.”

  “That’s not going to happen, not when we’re only getting acquainted now.” Jet’s vocabulary was speaking volumes about who he used to be. Ordinary street thugs didn’t use words like acquainted. “Sit tight, princess. We’re only just getting started.”

  He patted my knee before getting up and walking over to the rest of the group. He said something which made the rest of them laugh, I couldn’t hear what it was.

  My eyes searched the room, trying to find some ray of hope that I would be able to get out alive. Oliver wasn’t going to come for me, he thought I was going straight home. Perhaps, in a few days, he might visit my house on the hill and find it empty.

  But I didn’t have a few days.

  If I even lasted for the rest of the day I would have been surprised. My time was ticking down like the red flashing lights on a bomb and it wouldn’t be too long before I expired. Somehow I didn’t think Jet and his minions would be good hosts.

  The slap to the back of my head left me with a horrible headache. I forced myself to stay awake and breathe through the throbbing in my head. My resolve was growing dimmer as the minutes went by. The pain was intense and it never relented.

  “She’s in here,” the voice was familiar but I couldn’t quite place it. To look around and see who it was would have made my head throb even worse. I continued to focus on the ground instead, the pain stronger than the curiosity.

  “Oh, she’s tied up.”

  “That can’t be good.”

  “Not around here.”

  “What was she doing here anyway?” I placed the voices, they were the ghosts from outside. I chanced a slow glance their way, making sure I wasn’t going crazy and hearing things.

  I was surrounded.

  There had to be twenty of them now, all adults and all staring at me like I was the freak in the circus. I should have sold them tickets, I would have been rich.

  “Those boys are bad news.”

  “They weren’t always like this.”

  “So what, they deserve a gold star now?”

  The conversation went on around me without any acknowledgement of my participation. They were making my head throb worse, the pain shooting through my temples like a dart gun. The nausea was growing in the pit of my stomach, rising into my throat and threatening to choke me.

  I swallowed it back, along with my tears. To be surrounded by so many people and knowing they couldn’t help me was frustrating. To anyone else, the room would have been quiet with only the murmurs of the boys to break the silence.

  But not to me.

  I was sitting in the noisiest room I had experienced aside from the school hall. The spirits babbled on, changing subjects like they would socks in their living life. I couldn’t keep up with them. Not when the room was starting to spin.

  I was either going to pass out or vomit, both scenarios seemed as likely by that stage. I would have preferred the former, however. Something told me the boys wouldn’t exactly help clean me up after I threw up my measly meal.

  My head flopped forward, taking away my consciousness as everything went black and quiet.

  Finally.

  Chapter Five

  Someone was slapping me. My cheek was stinging from each impact. It wasn’t hard, just enough to get my attention and really wish they would stop.

  “She’s waking up.” A male voice. Did it belong to the hand hitting me?

  “About time.”

  “What’s her deal, anyway? Who sleeps in the middle of this?”

  I didn’t want to open my eyes but I figured they weren’t likely to stop slapping me if I didn’t. They blinked open, hurting as even the dim light hit my retinas.

  “Everly?” The voice again.

  I blinked, trying to focus on the face looming in front of me. It was a guy, definitely a male of the species. He had dark brown hair, black eyes.

  Jet.

  “Is she drunk?” one of the figures beside him said, the one with the twitchy hand.

  After a few more blinks I could make out two figures close to me, another few looming behind. They were all looking at me but none seemed particularly worried.

  “Where…?” I started asking the question but the memories crashed back into my head like a speeding train. I was their prisoner, I was tied to a chair in some long forgotten warehouse.

  Yeah me.

  “How many fingers am I holding up?” Jet asked.

  “What are you doing?” his friend instantly shot back. “She’s not a baby, I’m sure she can count.”

  “Quit it. I’ve seen them do this on TV.” Jet elbowed the guy for his lack of faith in him before turning back to me. “Everly, how many fingers?”

  “Three.” I tested my head, holding it up a little higher. The intense throbbing in my skull was gone, replaced by a dim ache. I would take that over the pain any day.

  Jet nodded happily, like I had just given him the winning lotto numbers. “Good. You’ll be okay. You passed out or something.” />
  I risked looking around but only the living were with us. All the spirits must have given up on me and gone to haunt someone else. Good. It wasn’t like they could have helped me anyway.

  “When are we going to have our fun with her, Jet?” The question came from one of the guys behind him. The boy only looked about fifteen. My skin crawled at the thought of him being anywhere near me while having fun.

  The other guys joined in. “Yeah, she’s been here for ages. Let’s just get rid of her.”

  “We can’t let her go so easily.”

  “Do you want to clean up her blood?”

  “She’ll tell someone.”

  “Who can she tell? There ain’t no cops anymore.”

  “She’s pretty. I want some time alone with her.”

  Jet had been breathing heavily through the comments as he let them go by. Finally, he was tired of listening to them. “Shut up, all of you. I’ll decide what we do with her. Got it?” They instantly silenced and nodded their heads.

  So Jet really was the one in charge. Completely in charge if that little exchange was enough to go by.

  “Please, let me go,” I asked levelly, trying to gulp in some fresh air. All the oxygen in the place was musty and foul. The boys were probably used to it, me not so much.

  Jet’s gaze drilled into me. He was intense if nothing else and it unsettled me. I didn’t know what was worse, his look or the comments from the other guys. “Sit tight, princess. You’re not going anywhere.”

  Satisfied I wasn’t quite dead yet, he strode away confidently with the others in tow. I needed a plan to get the hell out of here. Sitting and waiting for them to kill me, or do whatever else they thought up, was torturous. Nobody was coming to my rescue so it was up to me to escape.

  Only me.

  If I could get out of the filthy rags strapping my wrists and ankles to the chair, I would be able to run. I didn’t have the advantage of knowing the layout of the building or any shortcuts, but I was small and quick. Plus, I would be running for my life, that always made someone go a little faster.

  My eyes scanned the room, trying to work out the best exit. They had centered me in the middle of the place, making sure I was as far away from any of them as possible. There was no way I could reach one of the exits without being seen by at least one of them.