Your Number Read Online Free PDF Page A

her sister’s name, in different voices, repeating again and again. Thousands and thousands of voices. Millions, probably. All saying Eva’s name. Kate shook it from her head, but the thought remained. Because of those bogus news reports, people all over the country, all over the world were saying Eva’s name, bringing her closer and closer to the death number.
     
    A flash of clarity brought home a sinking feeling in her gut. Her dream, the one where she saw herself lying in a coffin. The more she thought about it, the more she began to realize it wasn’t her. It wasn’t Kate in that casket. It was…
     
    “Eva!” she called her sister on the phone immediately, number one on her speed dial. It rang and rang until, finally, voicemail picked it up.
     
    “Hi! It’s me!” her bubbly tone disarmed Kate. “You know I wantcha!” she giggled, and then the beep.
     
    “Eva! This is Kate! Where are you! Have you watched TV lately? Your name is all over the news! Eva, call me back, right away!”
     
    Kate threw her phone onto the couch and paced a groove into her floorboards, biting her nails. All she thought about were those slanderous news shows, repeating Eva’s name again and again, and the ripple effect that had to be causing. Then a vision of Eva’s face in that casket, lined in white satin, the room filled with victims of the death number.
     
    The phone rang and she about jumped to the ceiling. She fumbled with it, stumbled to accept the call, and stuttered when she saw her sister on the caller ID.
     
    “Eva…Eva, where are you? Are you okay?”
     
    Silence.
     
    “Eva!”
     
    Scuffling. Low, deep, slow breaths. “Kate?” Eva’s voice was a gravelly whisper . “Kate, help me…”
     
    “EVA!”
     
    Before she knew it, Kate was in her Ferrari Spider, screaming down Melrose Avenue, to Eva’s rental in the heart of Beverly Hills. She left her car still running in the street after coming inches from ramming a parked Ford Bronco. After three flights of stairs, she reached Eva’s floor, and sprinted to her door. Locked. She dug in her pocketbook for the key. She had a key, she knew she had a key…found it!
     
    Inside, the apartment looked normal, nothing disturbed, everything in place. Eva was a neat freak and her home always looked immaculate. It made Kate sick.
     
    “Eva?” she called. Silence. Stillness. Then she heard something from the master bedroom. Running water. Kate found the room just like the rest of the house. Spotless. The bathroom, though, told a different tale. At first, Kate thought she was seeing things. Maybe Eva had painted her bathroom without telling her. Then she saw handprints on the shower walls, stained in crimson, deep and dark, the color of death.
     
    Her heart felt like it stopped when she found her sister on the floor, water still raining down on her, giant gashes in her wrists pulsing red, gushing like a geyser.
     
    “Eva! NO!” she threw open the shower door and sat in the puddle of bloody water, pressing her palms over her sister’s wounds. Then, in a shaking panic, she searched and found two towels and tried tying them around Eva’s wrists. Blood soaked through instantly. She took Eva in her arms and shook her gently. Her sister garbled incoherently, and her eyes rolled in the back of their sockets.
     
    Kate called 911 and somehow got the words out that her sister was dying, to send an ambulance, and do it quick. Within minutes, she heard sirens. Soon after, two EMTs were beating on the door. Soaked from head to toe in her sister’s blood, she let them in and rushed them to the back. There, Eva lay lifeless except her jaw, opening and closing as if she were trying to say something. The medics worked fast, removing Kate’s makeshift tunicates and applying ones of their own.
     
    “She’s not responsive!”
     
    “Hurry!”
     
    “What’s that?” a medic pointed to the shower stall. Kate had to look twice, and didn’t want to believe her own eyes.