Haunted Destiny: A Midnight Dragonfly Bonus Short Story by Ellie James

idiot? That because my grandmother homeschooled me I’m stupid?”
    “No—I didn’t know—”
    “Save it.” I spun and started toward the front of the house, my flip-flops crunching down on broken glass.
    I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have noticed if any had sliced straight through.
    “Wait!”
    From his voice, I knew that he was right behind me.
    I kept going, didn’t turn back.
    “You can’t just—”
    This time I did stop, spin. “Don’t.”
    From beneath a sweep of bangs I’d once fantasized about brushing from his forehead, he stared hard at me. “Let me take you home.”
    I laughed. I really did. It was a hard sound, ugly. “Not in this lifetime,” I said as I noticed Jessica strolling toward him.
    I didn’t wait. I twisted back around and made my way to the street. The cars we’d come in were by the cemetery around the corner.
    I walked in the opposite direction.
    The night settled around me, darkness broken by puddles from the streetlamps. The house on Prytania Street was deserted, but around me manicured lawns and cars parked in the street told me life went on. I wasn’t scared. Not for me, anyway. Walking down the old cracked sidewalk was peaceful in an odd sort of way. A major intersection was only a few blocks away. There I could find a taxi.
    Instinctively my hand went to my back pocket, but my Black-Berry was gone.
    I was so not going back for it.
    Away. That was all I could think. I had to get away from them, Jessica and Amber, Chase…
    My heart gave a cruel little thump. Especially Chase.
    From that place—the ugliness.
    From what I’d seen.
    Because while the frantic search for Jessica had been staged, while me being locked in a small pitch black room had only been a joke, the strobe-light images I’d seen were real .
    They always were.
    I’d been seven years old the first time. It was my earliest memory. We’d been in Colorado by then, living in a nice little house on a huge piece of property. There’d been lots of trees, pine and aspen, towering up toward the always-blue sky. I’d been outside playing with our golden retriever, Sunshine. She’d run into a thicket after a pink ball—and I’d started to scream.
    The flashes scared me, like a lightning storm dancing around me. I remembered falling, blinking, crying for Sunshine. Through the flashes I’d seen her lying on her side, so horribly still. I’d heard the whimper…
    That’s how Gran found me, curled on my side, crying. I dove into her arms and held on tight, clung to her as I tried to breathe. I was trying to tell her about Sunshine when the big dog came bounding out of the trees, running up to slobber us with doggie kisses.
    Two days later we’d found her dead.
    Even now, all these years later, the memory made me shiver.
    The things that I saw…happened. They always, always happened.
    I didn’t notice the headlights until the car was right beside me. I tensed, prepared myself to tell Chase or Jessica or whoever it was exactly where they could go.
    The shiny black Lexus stopped me. One darkly tinted window lowered, and Aunt Sara looked like she wanted to cry.
    She also looked like she’d rolled straight from bed. Her long dark hair, so like my own, fell softly against a face with no makeup, making her look much younger than thirty-three. I could tell her shirt was the huge New Orleans Saints Championship tee she always slept in.
    “Hey,” was all she said. Maybe it was something in her voice—or maybe something in her expressive eyes—but my throat got all tight. I don’t really know what I felt. Surprise, maybe relief.
    “How did you know?” I asked.
    Her smile was sad. “Chase called me.”
    I hated the sudden salty sting in my eyes. He must have called the second I walked away. The Ware house District where she lived wasn’t that far, but still, she must have come for me the second she got the call.
    “Come on, cher ,” she said. “Let’s go home.”
    Home. I wasn’t sure where that was anymore.