Page 25 of Shadowed Whispers

My hands flail as I struggle to breathe, trying to grasp for anything to help me. My hand closes around a sippy cup left by one of the littles.

I crack it over his head again and again.

“You little bitch.”

Again!

I strike him with it, dislodging him, and he rolls off me. “You’re not even worth it.”

All the anger from every adult who has ever failed me boils over in that moment, and I attack him. I scrape my nails down his face and across his chest. He stumbles backward.

That’s when the whispers intensify.

Fight him.

Let us have him.

Give him to us.

We will make him pay.

With a cry born from my soul, fueled by desperation and fear, I hit him again. His head snaps back, and that’s when something extraordinary happens. The darkness on the floor creeps up and ensnares him, like black ropes springing to life.

“What is this?” He looks at me with wild eyes. “Call them off. Help me,” he pleads, his fear resonating with my own.

I can only lean back and watch in fascination as the shadows pull him down, his body partway in the floorboards.

“Francesca,” he warns, fear genuine in his voice. “Call them back, tell them to stop.”

“Would you have stopped?” I whisper into the stillness of the night. In his eyes, I see the truth—he wouldn’t have stopped. He would have relished my cries, tears, and pain.

I will savor his.

I echo his words back to him. “Didn’t think so.”

As if awaiting my consent, the shadows tighten their grip and whisk him away. In mere seconds, he’s gone. His body is no longer here, at least not in this plane of existence.

As the last echoes of his screams fade, a deafening silence fills the room, then, a timid, confused voice cuts through the darkness. “What did you do?”

Trembling, I turn to find a wide-eyed boy standing in the doorway. “Bishop,” I whisper, my voice a mix of relief and despair.

His presence isn’t just unexpected—it’s a lifeline in the chaotic aftermath of what I unleashed, but as his gaze shifts from me to where the shadows performed their deadly waltz, I realize the nightmare isn’t over. It has only just begun.

Just like that, the nightmare ends, and I wake up to a new one.

Chapter 9

Frankie

The same dream that haunts me night after night is vanquished by a sharp sting on my cheek. “Frankie, dammit, why won’t you wake up?” Tori’s voice, laced with urgency and frustration, cuts through the lingering fog of sleep and the odd, eerie whispers echoing from the shadows, like the distant cries of ghosts.

“You have five seconds to explain why you hit me before I destroy you,” I grumble, my voice muffled by the pillow as I wiggle underneath it to avoid an escalation with my roommate. My words are heavy with the remnants of sleep and a lingering irritation that makes my tone more biting than intended.

Tori doesn’t listen. Instead, she smacks me again, harder this time. “Girl, your alarm has been going off for ten minutes now. Turn it off.” Her voice is sharp, a clear reflection of her annoyance.

I reach out blindly, swat at her hands, and finally grab the little clock on my bedside table. With a growl of frustration, I yank the damn thing out of the wall and toss it in Tori’s general direction. The clock sails through the air with a satisfying swoosh before landing with a thud.

“Frankie, I’m just trying to make sure you don’t miss the first day of classes,” she grumbles, her voice softening slightly, revealing her concern underneath the stern facade.

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