“Babies cry,” she said flatly. Then, slowly, her grin returned. “You cry, too, Matty.”
“I do not—” My voice cracked again. “I do not cry.”
Her singsong cut me off. “Matty screamed. Matty whimpered. Matty?—”
“Stop keeping a running commentary!” I shouted.
But she only giggled. High-pitched, melodic, and absolutely chilling.
Then she wandered to my dresser. Her pale hand traced over my trophies—the all-American plaques, the gold figures frozen mid-leap. She picked one up, tilting it toward the dim light, her reflection bending across the metal.
A muscle ticked in my jaw. Those trophies had always meant a lot to me, and now I was going to have to sanitize them about a million times to ever be able to touch them again.
In fact, my whole room was going to need to be fumigated.
“Shiny,” she whispered. “Shiny like your eyes when you beg.”
I slapped my palm to my forehead. “I don’tbeg, Emma.”
“You begged in your sleep,” she said simply, still rocking the trophy. “Ophelia’s name. Ophelia’s lips. Ophelia’s body.”
I made a sound halfway between a groan and another scream. “This is it. This is how I die. Death by…whatever youare. The coroner’s gonna be like, ‘Cause of death: creepy girl who doesn’t blink.’”
Emma set the trophy down with care. Then she drifted to my laundry basket.
“No,” I barked, pointing. “Do not touch that.”
She ignored me, plucking one of my practice shirts from the pile. She lifted it to her nose and inhaled deeply, closing her eyes for the first time since she appeared.
And just like that, the sight wasso much worsethan her not blinking.
“Oh, fuck me,” I whispered.
Her eyes snapped open again, back to wide…and unblinking. “Sweat. Grass. Fear.” She smiled. “Delicious.”
I gagged and shot off the bed so fast the sheet tangled around my legs, nearly toppling me. “Okay. Nope! We’re done here. Get out. Get out of my room before I call—I don’t even know who. Ghostbusters. The FBI. Somebody!”
Emma’s smile never wavered. “You wouldn’t call.”
“Iwould.”
“You wouldn’t.”
I froze, chest heaving.
Her grin tilted higher. “Because you like it.”
My eyes bugged out of my head. “Like it?!”
“You like being watched. You like being wanted. And nobody wants like I do.”
My knees almost buckled.
The door slammed open with a bang that rattled the wall.
“Matty, I’m coming. Don’t go into the light!” Jace barreled in, shirtless in sweats, his long blonde hair sticking up like he’d run through a hurricane. His brown eyes were wild as he looked around.
He saw Emma and stopped dead.
