The Ghost Files 3 by Apryl Baker Read Free Book Online Page B

hands. I’d been a very good artist before then, but afterwards, the doctors figured I’d never draw again. That’s mostly what pushed me into the spiral of self-destruction I’d been on before New Orleans.
    “Mattie…” This time it’s Eli getting pushy.
    Telling them the rest would be hard, but necessary —how it was while in New Orleans, Demon Silas—who’d visited me through my dreams—healed my hands. Dan and Eli won’t be very understanding about this. I’m still pretty freaked. “Maybe we should talk about it when we get home?” I hedge.
    “Mattie…” they chorused.
    I hear the warning in Dan’s voice, which causes me to sigh. “It’s not that big a deal.”
    “ What’s not that big a deal?” Eli asks, almost giving me the stink-eye.
    Just say it, Hathaway . “Well, um, while I was in the hospital, my hands sorta got healed.”
    “Sort of?” Now Eli sounds suspicious. “People don’t just ‘sort of’ get healed, Hilda.”
    “Stop with the Hilda stuff.” I totally hate that nickname. “Don’t get your panties in a twist about the healing, either,” I say. “It’s not as bad as you both think.”
    “Let us be the judge of that, Squirt,” Dan says, glancing quickly to the right and back at the road. “How exactly did you get your hands healed and by whom? Or are you claiming divine miraculous intervention?”
    “No, the divine had nothing to do with it,” I sigh. “More like…well…”
    “Spit it out, Mattie!” Eli sounds irritated.
    Nothing like having them both pissed at me at the same time. “Do you remember the painter I’ve been dreaming of, Dan?”
    “The same painter who slit your wrist not once, but twice?” he demands.
    I wince. So not the reaction I was hoping for. “Yeah, well, there’s more.”
    “More?” Dan exclaims. “Worse more?”
    “Maybe.” I lean away from the anger emanating from Dan and snuggle against Eli. I love the heat his body generates and sigh. Yep, I probably should have told Dan about my hands before we left New Orleans. He’s mad I didn’t tell him. But I needed time to come to grips with it myself before I started blabbing to everybody.
    “Hold up a second,” Eli interrupts. “The painter cut your wrists in the dream, right? I remember Dan saying something about that in New Orleans.” He glances at the scar on my wrist. “I don’t understand.”
    “I carried the wound out of my dream and into the real world,” I explain. “Not something I’m happy about, either. Yet another reason to distance myself from the dreams and the visions.”
    “I’m still waiting on the worse part of more, Mattie,” Dan says, his voice thick with anger.
    Jeez, who put a bee up his bonnet? “The painter is the one who healed my hands,” I say quietly.
    “Didn’t you say your mom was talking about protecting you from…the painter ?” Eli asks, now wearing his thoughtful face.
    Holy crap. “Yeah. I’d forgotten about that.” I’d been so focused on everything bad that happened recently, I’d forgotten all about Mom’s craziness. “I had no idea the painter was Silas.”
    “SILAS!” both men shout in unison.
    I cover my ears at the explosion. I knew this wouldn’t be easy. Yes, both of them know that Silas is a demon. He’d made a deal with the woman who used to live in the haunted house we’d visited do wn in New Orleans. Elizabeth…something. I’d found her diary, which told the story of how she’d bargained with a demon to escape her evil husband, Jonas.
    The drive continues in silence. I’m not so sure it’s a good silence. One peek at Dan’s clenching jaw muscles shows he is sooo pissed. Nope, not another word out of me. Not yet. He’ll hate it.
    Finally, Dan takes the exit and heads toward my new house. He’s still fuming. I’m in s-o-o-o much trouble.
    When we pull into Mary’s driveway, I waste no time getting out of the truck to separate myself from the testosterone war about to be unleashed. I make it as