Foretold Read Online Free PDF

phone.”
    He took it. “Thanks. I’ll call...” His voice trailed off and his face crumbled. “We’ve been friends since the first grade.”
    “I’m so sorry.”
    He blinked at me as if trying to bring me into focus. “I’ll call my uncle. He’s the sheriff.” Vanir dialed, then cursed and looked at the phone. “No signal. I always get a signal up here.”
    “I just called my sister. It worked then.” I took the phone, looked at the lack of signal bars. I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t matter. Nothing I said would help him or make this any easier. Everything took on a surreal flavor again, like I floated outside of the situation, watching it from a place where I could deal with the tangled emotions ripping me up. I looked at my hands, surprised they’d stopped shaking.
    Funny , I was still cold.
    When I went suddenly airborne, I yelped, “Hey! I can walk.” I grabbed his shoulder with one hand, the other clutching my phone.
    He’d taken two steps, but he stopped to look down at me. “You’ve had it. Adrenaline is probably all that’s keeping you going. I’m scared hypothermia is setting in. Your hands were shaking—then they stopped. That’s bad. Where’d you put those gloves?”
    “I forgot. Stuck them in the pockets.” Stretching my neck to see over his shoulder, I stared in the direction of his friend. I didn’t want to leave him alone in the woods. On the wet ground with snow covering him. It seemed so wrong.
    And the guilt eating at me should have been my mother’s.
    “What about him?” I whispered.
    “We can’t move him. It’s a crime scene, which means we don’t want to be out here, anyway. I’ll get the sheriff, come back here—” He broke off, his arms tightening around me almost painfully.
    His anguish tore through my heart. “Why don’t I wait by him? The wolves can keep me warm again. You can get the authorities and I could make noise to lead you back.”
    The moonlight showed me the slight upward tilt of his mouth. A smile that tried to break through his grief and failed. “I know exactly where he is. Spent most of my life running this forest with Geri and Freak. And Steven.”
    I shivered. Took that as a good sign.
    He tightened his arms. Heat poured from him. Pain and cold had scrambled my brain, but I could swear something else seeped into me. A hint of relief from the pain in my head, like a sneaky narcotic attached to his warmth.
    Nerves zinged with the effort it took to hold in my grief. I’d really hoped we’d been wrong—that Mom hadn’t come here to hurt someone.
    Kat and Coral were going to be devastated. Pain washed over me again and I didn’t say anything else. Couldn’t. I still didn’t know for sure. Maybe I’d hallucinated the lavender scent.
    He didn’t talk, either, as he carried me to his house. His anger and confusion was so thick I could taste it. I had nothing to offer him, not when I was such a mess myself. We passed through a few more thick stands of trees, crossed a clearing, and once he had to turn and take a new route. I kept my eyes closed throughout most of it, trying hard to conserve what little warmth I had left without sucking all his away.
    “My house is up this driveway. It’s just me and my brothers.”
    I felt the moonlight on my face before I opened my eyes to see we’d cleared the trees and were now on a gravel road. I turned my head to get my first glimpse of his home. It was hard to make out the exact shape of the house since it was nestled deep into the trees, but I could tell it was two-story and either white or some light tan color. A porch ran the length of the first floor with an old-fashioned white railing. The eight front-facing windows all blazed yellow. Smoke poured from the chimney and television noise blared through the screen door as the front door opened.
    Vanir’s shoes made very little sound as he climbed the four steps leading to the porch.
    “Wait,” I said, pushing on his chest and wiggling my