Page 66 of Death and Do-Overs

Why were they glowing? What caused that? Did it mean something?

I was definitely going to hurl.

“I’m a bodysnatcher,” Imogen volunteered. “What are you?”

No vomit came, but the taste made its way up my throat nonetheless.

Levi pressed his lips together, his gaze never leaving mine. “I’m not permitted to share that information.”

After everything I’d shared, after as open as I’d been, he still wouldn’t divulge his supernatural nature.

“That’s a weird thing to say,” Imogen said.

It was weird. And frustrating.

I forced myself to look away so I could think. I tried to remember the exact words Levi had used when I first asked about his supernatural nature. Something about it being a secret that belonged to someone else…or to a group of someones? I couldn’t remember.

He’d told me other things about himself, and I wanted that to be enough, but doubt still scratched at the back of my mind.

“Is someone threatening you?” Imogen asked. “Is it like if you tell us that you’re a werehodag, the council of werehodags will come and throw rocks at you or something?”

Thewerepart I understood, as in shapeshifting werewolf or werebear. But the rest…. “What’s a hodag?”

“It’s this giant frog thing with sheep horns and shaggy hair,” Imogen said. “They’re super gross.”

“There’s no such thing as werehodags. No one is threatening me. It’s….” Levi frowned and looked down at his hands.

The turmoil on his face suggested he wanted to share something, if only that “something” was the reason why he couldn’t tell me everything. Maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see. Still, I waited with bated breath for whatever it was he’d say next.

Imogen waved her arms in my face. Her eyes were wide, her lips pressed tightly shut. She pointed with so much emphasis, she appeared poised to explode.

Following Imogen’s direction, I peered through the gap between the cardboard boxes.

All I could see was the dead guy’s legs, exactly where they’d been.

I blinked.

Something moved, so quickly I didn’t catch what it was. A shadow, maybe.

A sharp breath filled my lungs.

I put a hand over my mouth, suppressing any sound.

I didn’t blink. I didn’t breathe.

All I could hear was the rush of my pulse.

Thin fingers wrapped around the dead guy’s ankle.

CHAPTER 16

MARNIE

Cackles echoed across the walls of the basement chamber, a cacophony of malice. Pitches varied, suggesting there wasn’t a single muckwart, but an army. No, that probably wasn’t right. There could be as few as three, an even match number-wise to my own group.

Wishful thinking? Definitely. But, if I didn’t lie to myself, I’d pee my pants.

I still didn’t know what exactly a muckwart was, but the grotesque giggles that bounced all around us had the hairs on my arms standing on end and my imagination running wild. Imogen had described them as swamp trolls who loved eating people as much as kids liked pizza, which hadn’t helped.

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