Scar by Kelly Favor Read Free Book Online Page B

teens.
    She could hear their laughter, but not much else. The laughter floated into the room, faintly, and Caelyn’s chest grew tight with emotion. She didn’t know what it was at first.
    For a split second, she actually thought that maybe she was missing her mother and father and sister. But that made no sense at all, and Caelyn realized after a short moment that she wasn’t missing her family at all.
    She was missing the family that she and Elijah might have had together.
    We still could , a small voice said.
    We could still have children some day, a family, a house just like that one. We could laugh together and play and our kids would be so loved. Why not?
    But she knew why not.
    Because we’ll never be married like that couple next door. They’re normal, and they don’t have parents who hate the husband or a sister who tried to frame him for a crime. They don’t have police chasing them everywhere they go.
    We can’t be like them because we’re never going to be allowed to have this love, to just be like everyone else.
    Caelyn felt the emptiness of her situation, the hopelessness of it, like a punch to the stomach. The laughter from the family next door had faded to nothing, and now they were gone—they’d all disappeared into their house.
    Caelyn lied back down next to Elijah on the hardwood floor and tried to imagine what that family was doing now.
    She closed her eyes and pictured the mother and father hugging and smiling at one another.
    Caelyn sighed, smiling along with them.
    And then she drifted into a sleep that was plagued by strange, impenetrable dreams where she was chased by faceless creatures with misshaped bodies. She screamed and ran and ran, but wherever she went, the creatures found her, as if they could smell her.
    Finally, one of the faceless creatures caught her, cornered her in the dead end of some wretched maze, and pinned her against a wall. Its hand was cold and the skin was green, smelly, like something dead and blackened.
    Caelyn tried to scream but now her voice wouldn’t work. That thing was squeezing her throat closed as it choked her.
    It smiled at her with a drooping grin, it’s dead fish eyes staring at her as its black, stringy hair swung in front of its face. And then, just when it seemed like the nightmare couldn’t get any worse, the disgusting creature shoved its fingers into her mouth.
    They tasted like black death , like burning smoke and rotting meat and ashes.
    Ashes. There were ashes in her mouth.
    “Caelyn!” It croaked, only now the croak was something else. It was someone else. “Wake up!” the monster said , only it wasn’t a monster. It was…
    Suddenly she woke up, her eyes snapping open as she sat up, blinking and confused.
    Elijah was standing up, staring out the window. “There’s a fire,” he said, his voice strangely calm.
    It wasn’t just some tiny fire, Caelyn realized, as she looked out the window and saw that the house next door was blazing, and flames were coming out the windows. Black smoke poured into the sky, billowing out, and actually some of it was seeping into their room, too.
    “Elijah,” she gasped, grabbing his arm. “Elijah, oh my God.”
    He looked down at her uncomprehendingly. “What? What is it?”
    “There’s a family in there,” she said.
    “Are you sure?”
    “Maybe they left by now,” she said. “They must have.”
    Elijah started for the doorway. “Come on,” he said, and she could hear him turning the scanner on as he made his way downstairs.
    “Elijah,” she said, hurrying to keep up with him. “We need to get out of here!”
    Elijah was out the front door, striding quickly. Caelyn caught up to him in time to see the fire blazing up close now, and the neighbors were all coming out of their homes to see it.
    Elijah looked at all of them, and Caelyn followed his gaze. The neighbors, maybe eight or ten of them so far, were hypnotized by the fire . Their faces were bathed in orange and yellow light as they