Page 50 of Wraith

Thirty-Two

The classroom buzzedwith low chatter, the occasional scrape of a chair against the floor, the rhythmic tapping of fingers on keyboards. I sat slouched at my desk, exhausted beyond comprehension.

I hadn’t slept. She wouldn’t let me.

Every time my body drifted toward rest, something pulled me back. A whisper in my ear. The phantom drag of fingers down my spine. When she did let me sleep, my own paranoia made sure I didn’t get far. The moment my breathing slowed, my body betrayed me with jolts awake, the fear that she was there—watching, waiting—never leaving me.

But here, in class, I felt a moment of reprieve. She never tormented me in public.

Right?

My fingers hovered over my keyboard, my notes half-finished, my mind barely functional. I blinked at the screen, my vision blurring in and out. I just needed to make it through this lecture. Just one hour.

Then, the shift.

A chill crawled up my spine, a ghost of breath against the shell of my ear.

No.

I straightened, my heart knocking against my ribs, my breathing suddenly too loud in my own ears.

It was nothing. It had to be nothing.

And then, the softest press of lips against my jaw.

I went rigid.

I didn’t move, didn’t react. If I ignored her, she would get bored.

My laptop screen flickered.

The notes I had been typing vanished.

New words scrawled across the page in real-time, as though an invisible hand had taken over my keyboard.

Aw, are you ignoring me?

My pulse slammed against my throat. I erased the words quickly, my fingers clumsy with adrenaline.

Another breathy giggle right against my cheek.

Fuck.

I swallowed hard, my fingers shaking as I tried to refocus on the lecture, to pretend I wasn’t losing my grip on reality.

That’s okay,she typed.Ignore me. See if you can stay quiet.

My blood ran cold.

Then—the soft scrape of a zipper being undone.

My stomach dropped. No. No. No.

My hands gripped the edges of my desk, my knuckles turning white. I didn’t move. I didn’t dare breathe. She wouldn’t?—

She did.

I felt the ghostly slide of fingers wrapping around me, familiar, cruel, unrelenting. My entire body locked up, my breath shuddering out in a barely restrained exhale.

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