Shattered: A Shade novella Read Online Free PDF Page B

school – is lined with the BlackBox technology that repels ghosts. It provides peace for post-Shifters like Aura
and everyone younger than her, but also keeps out mobile phone signals.
    Martin
and I finish lunch, then stagger uphill towards home, unable to hurry despite
the threat of rain. The fish and chips lie in my stomach like wet concrete, but
it feels good to be full of something.
    We
pass a newsagent, where I pick up a copy of The
Skinny , our free entertainment weekly. I open to the music section. ‘Is it
just me, or are there lots of new Scottish bands?’
    ‘Tons.
Glasgow’s the best music scene in the UK, maybe all Europe. It’s the Brooklyn
of our side of the Atlantic.’
    Perhaps
Aura would love it here after all. I could take her to shows. We could dance
our legs off.
    But
what if concerts reminded her of Logan? Would she want to share that with me?
    ‘The
fact you even ask if there are lots of new Scottish bands’, Martin continues,
‘means you need a strict diet of nothing but. I’m making you playlists fuckin ’ pronto.’
    ‘Okay,’
I hear myself whisper, as if from a distance. In front of me, a musician who
looks like Logan stares out from the pages of The Skinny . My eyes fix on the spiky, black-streaked,
bleached-blond hair; on the eyebrow ring glinting in the camera’s flash; and on
the half-hostile, half-charming gleam in his gaze.
    The
longer I stare, the more his image sharpens and my surroundings fog, as if the
clouds have descended to street level. My vision begins to spiral.
    Martin’s
voice fades. Is he walking away? I should follow him, but my feet won’t move.
    The spiralling sensation overtakes me. The world narrows, then
turns to white.
     
    ‘I thought you passed on,’ I tell Logan,
knowing my captors are probably watching me right now, sitting alone on my bed,
talking to a … ghost? A voice in my head? Or what?
    ‘I did pass on,’ he says. ‘I guess this
is my new gig, keeping idiots like you from offing themselves.’
    Now I know he’s not real – my mind
lifted this from It’s a Wonderful Life .
‘So you’re a guardian angel now, then? Is this how you earn your wings? Are you
going to show me how crap the world would be if I’d never been born?’
    ‘First of all, I can’t bust you out of
here to show you anything.’ His disembodied voice wanders about my tiny cell,
as if he’s examining its contents. There’s not much to see besides walls, a
bed, and a wee desk that once held a stack of books before I tore out their
pages. ‘Second, you’re only seventeen, so you really haven’t done much. You
saved Aura’s life, but if it weren’t for you, she wouldn’t have been in danger
in the first place.’
    This is madness. I pull my blanket tight
around my body and press my back to the wall.
    ‘Third,’ he continues, ‘we don’t get
wings. That’s stupid.’
    ‘What do you get, then?’
     
    *WHAP!*
    With
a heaving gasp, I find myself standing on the pavement near the newsagent.
    ‘Mate,
wake up.’ Martin slaps the paper in my hands, making the same noise that just
pulled me out of – where was I?
    He
snaps his fingers in front of my face, provoking a blink. ‘There you are. What
happened?’
    ‘Skateboard,’
I whisper.
    ‘Sorry?’
    A new
skateboard. That’s what Logan said he hoped to get instead of angel wings. For
keeping me alive.
    Laughter
gurgles up from my throat. It doesn’t sound like mine. It sounds like a
maniac’s. I gag on it, feeling my stomach twist. ‘I-I think I’m—’
    ‘You’re gonnae boak . Here, this
way.’ Martin points me towards a low iron fence bordering a front garden. I
grasp the fence posts and heave my lunch onto a bed of pink and white flowers
(mostly yellow now, thanks to the fish and chips).
    Martin
pulls a lint-covered tissue from the pocket of his hoodie and hands it to me,
along with his cup of Coke. ‘Better?’
    I scan
the sky as I wipe my mouth, cold spikes of fear jabbing my spine. I’m