Forget Me Not (The Ceruleans: Book 2) by Megan Tayte Read Free Book Online Page A

watches over you all the time!’
    ‘And yet you turned up right on time today.’
    ‘Luck, Scarlett! Luck! I checked in on you at the cottage. I
heard Chester barking.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘Yes, oh. So you must take more care.’
    ‘Of what – cliffs? I do, Jude. But I can hardly help
accidents, can I? Like you said: Death’s coming for me.’
    Jude was shaking his head. ‘It doesn’t work like that,
Scarlett. There’s no Grim Reaper stalking you, setting you up to fall off
cliffs, throwing bricks at you. You’ll get sick – like Sienna did. Your body
will shut down.’
    I shifted away from him and pushed up to stand. He was on
his feet at once, reaching out to steady me, but I stepped back, away from him.
    ‘Look, I appreciate you pulling me up. But I’m not ready to
talk to you, Jude. I haven’t finished Sienna’s diary yet.’
    ‘When?’
    ‘I don’t know. The weekend, maybe. I’ll call you when I’m
ready.’
    Jude was shaking his head. ‘It has to be soon, Scarlett –’
    ‘End of, Jude,’ I growled. ‘Back off.’
    He sighed. Frowned. Nodded. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll respect
your wishes. But you can’t keep running from me, Scarlett. You and I, we have a
future ahead. And the sooner we talk about that, the sooner I can make sure
you’re safe. I need to keep you safe.’
    I took a step back. ‘I’m dying, Jude, so you say. There’s
nothing safe about that.’
    He opened his mouth, ready to say something, but when he saw
the hard expression on my face he thought better of it.
    Grabbing Chester’s collar, I led him away, down the path.
Carefully. When I reached the turning to the cottage garden, I looked back just
in time to catch a blur in the air behind me – a Cerulean dematerialising. The
conversation was over. For now.
    *
    I cancelled dinner with Luke that evening; I told him I had
a headache, which was no lie. I wanted nothing more than to be with him and
tell him all about my brush with death, so he could soothe away the trauma. But
I could well imagine how that would play out:
    Me: Hey, babe. Good day?
    Luke: Not bad. You?
    Me: Well, the falling-off-a-cliff bit kind of sucked.
    Luke: You what?! Are you hurt?! What happened?! You could
have died! I nearly lost you! I’m never letting you out of my sight again! How
are you still alive?!
    Clearly, sending Luke into a spin wasn’t fair, especially
when I couldn’t be entirely honest…
    Me: Jude pulled me up. Which was kind of pointless as I’m
going to die.
    So instead, I put on pyjamas, dragged my quilt down to the
living room and sought solace in an evening of brainless television viewing.
    In retrospect, I really should have stuck to BBC One. A spot
of bird-watching in Countryfile and then a squabble over a fruit-and-veg
stall in EastEnders , followed by a sedate period drama in which the most
violence on offer was a fencing match watched by swooning women. But while
channel-flicking I happened upon an oldish teen film I hadn’t seen with a
rather attractive male lead.
    I realised fairly quickly this film was dark. But by the
time it registered that it was a gory horror movie about a bunch of young
people being stalked by Death, some sick, masochistic part of me couldn’t turn
over. You know when you’re crawling down the motorway in an almighty traffic
jam and blue flashing lights signal an accident ahead and you know, you know you shouldn’t look, but you do anyway – taking in the twisted metal and
scattered glass, fascinated, compelled? That was me. I sat, with mounting
revulsion, through a strangulation, an RTA, an impalement and a decapitation.
    By the time the final credits were rolling, I was a
gibbering wreck. I had imagined every possible permutation of my own end, each
more implausible than the last: drowning in the bath, electrocuting myself on
the toaster, choking on a chocolate raisin, getting a t-shirt stuck as I pulled
it on and suffocating. Jude had told me it wouldn’t be that way. I would be
sick, was