Midnight Promises Read Online Free PDF Page A

bleeding heavily and if she stayed any longer, she wouldn’t have the strength to get out.
    Opening the door proved to be almost beyond her and for a moment she wondered how close to death she was if opening the door of a vehicle was so very hard. But it was a stiff wind beating against the door that made it hard to open. She finally put her weight against it, nearly falling out when the door finally swung open. By some stroke of luck, or the help of the goddess of nerds, the wind was at her back, blowing in the direction of Lauren.
    Go with the flow
took on a new meaning.
    Felicity carefully exited the ambulance but fell to her knees immediately, staying there for a full minute, head down. She lifted onto her haunches, like a sprinter—only she wasn’t ready to sprint. A hand to the ground, crunching snow beneath the palm of her hand, and she slowly stood up, shakily.
    The snow was four inches deep and muted all noise. It was quite beautiful, actually, on this quiet little street, dark and silent, snow only visible in the cones of light thrown by the street lamps. She rested a hand on the side of the ambulance and watched the scenery dreamily, until she suddenly focused and realized she’d been about to faint.
    She had to get to Lauren’s right now, or she’d fall to the ground and stay there.
    It occurred to her with a sudden fierce pang of doubt—what if Lauren wasn’t home? What happened if she’d gone shopping or to the movies or—God forbid—gone on a little vacation with her lover, this Jacko guy?
    Well then, she was dead. And Lauren would find her frozen body on her doorstep.
    No use thinking about that now because Felicity had zero options. None whatsoever. Her only option right now was to put one foot in front of the other, eyes slitted against the snow, and hope that she could walk four blocks and climb a couple of steps. And of course hope that Lauren was home.
    Because if she wasn’t, Felicity was dead.
    It was a nightmare trip. Four blocks was nothing, even for a geek couch potato. And yet it was the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. There were handholds along the way, otherwise she wouldn’t have made it. A fence, lampposts, the fender of cars parked along the street. She would lurch forward, clutch something, then use the handhold to propel herself forward again.
    If she collapsed without having made it to Lauren’s there was no way Lauren would know that the body found not far from her house was her, Felicity. Lauren would keep trying to contact her and email her and would be sad when her friend never answered, without realizing her friend had died feet away from her.
    Lauren couldn’t even check up on her because Felicity had never told her where she lived. She’d die anonymously, unclaimed.
    It was that, more than anything else, that propelled her forward, one trembling foot in front of the other. An anonymous death, her entire life lost, the same kind of death her parents had had. They’d died as if the entire first half of their lives hadn’t existed and she didn’t want that. Her death would be even worse—lying unclaimed in a morgue, no one knowing what had happened to her.
    God, no.
    Time stopped, became an endless now of trudging forward, swiping snow from her face, holding herself upright by sheer willpower. At one point, to her horror, her heart stopped pounding. Became slow, sluggish. Her heart wouldn’t hold out much longer.
    But by the time her heartbeat changed, Lauren’s house came into focus. Felicity had Googled Street View and knew what it looked like. Small, tidy, pretty. Blue trim around the door and windows. She held it in her mind as a goal and then finally,
finally
there it was.
    Safety. Or the closest thing to safety she had right now.
    And Lauren was home! Light shone through the windows, a soft welcoming glow. A beacon, that would lead her to safety.
    Once the image of getting to Lauren, seeing her, finding refuge penetrated her mind, it gave her an