Ash and Darkness (Translucent #3)

Prologue

“I’m serious, take
it off,” she said.

“Megan, I’m
trying.”
Growing desperate, I raked at my knuckles, tearing off the top layer of skin. The dark matter only sank deeper, soaking into my flesh.

I pulled my hand back, and a panicky shiver slipped down my spine.

“I can’t get it off,” I whispered. “Megan, I can’t get it off.”

“What are you talking about?” She faced me. “Of course you can get it off.”

“No, I can’t.” Breathing fast, I picked at the tip of my nose. In the past, I’d been able to get it off at my nose.

“Did you try your nose?” she said.

“What do you think I’m doing?” I hissed.

“Are you pinching?”

“Yes, I’m pinching. It just feels like my own skin. It’s not lifting up like it normally does.” Suddenly frantic to get it off, I scratched harder, and my fingernail pierced the skin. “Ow!” I yanked my hand away.

“What?” she said.

Blood beaded on my upper lip and dribbled into my mouth, warm and salty. I touched my lip and held up my trembling finger. The blood was invisible.

A knife. I needed a knife. I scrambled to the silverware drawer and wrenched it open, and my fingers closed around a steak knife. I lifted it out.

Megan backed away. “Leona, what are you doing?”

“I’m cutting it off me.” Angling the pointy end against my forearm, I clenched my jaw and shoved. The knife sliced into me, and I gasped. At once my hand faltered and I nearly dropped it, but I had to press on, I had to get it off. Lightheaded from the pain, I slid the blade along under the skin, helpless against the shivers racking my body. The blade slid another inch, and a whimper slipped from my throat. I pried up a tiny flap and angled my arm to peek under the knife. Nothing. No blood, no wound. I was invisible all the way through.

“Let me try,” said Megan, stepping toward the knife. She reached for my arm.

Only her fingers passed right through me.

At the sight, my lungs constricted. I drew air in thin gasps.

Then the knife fell through my hand and clattered on the floor, making me jump.

“Wait, where are you?” said Megan, feeling around blindly.

“Megan,” I stammered, “I’m . . . I’m fading away.”

“Leona? Where’d you go? What the hell?” Her expression turned to alarm, and she turned around and felt along the counters. “You’re still here, right?”

“You can’t hear me,” I whispered.

“Leona!” she shouted, shuffling into the dining room to look for me.

“No, stay . . . don’t go,” I begged, chasing after her and reaching for her back. My invisible arm passed right through her like I was a ghost. With a sick feeling, I tried to touch my own torso. There was nothing there. Just empty space, where my body should have been.

I peered around my dark house, terrified.

I’d stayed invisible for too long.

I was disappearing.

I was being swallowed by dark matter.

The little voice in my head said,
And you taste good, Leona.

Chapter 1

Terror stabbed up
my spine. I spun around, but only a dark, empty kitchen lurked behind me. Nothing else there. No sound but the roar of raindrops pummeling the gutters. No sign that anything had spoken but the needle-like prickles reaching across my scalp.

Because the voice came from inside me.

It was eating me.

Dark matter was eating me.

I’d worn the stuff for over twelve hours, and it had molded to my skin, soaked into my flesh. It was
digesting
me.

Frantic now, I dragged my hand in widening circles through the area where my rib cage ought to be, but only grasped empty space. Nothing there. No lungs, no heart, no spine.

I tried to touch my face, but my fingers plunged into what should have been my brain, all the way up to my wrist before I flinched and yanked my hand back, gasping against a wave of nausea.

Where
was
I? Where was my body?

I could still feel my limbs—like they were floating—so I knew they were there, I just couldn’t see them or touch them. But if I couldn’t touch myself, I would never be able to peel off the dark matter and it would continue to eat me. An icy sweat broke out down my bare legs, leaving my heels cold and clammy against the kitchen tile.

Wait a minute.

The tile . . . the cold tile under my feet.

“Leona, where are you?” called my best friend Megan from my bedroom. Nope. Not there, Megan.

How was I feeling the floor?

Why hadn’t I dropped through the ground?

I wiggled my toes, and sure enough they scraped against a groove between tiles. Reaching down, I found the groove with my fingers, and the rough texture of grout scraped my fingernail. Yes, I could touch it!

My hope flared.

I followed the groove to the nearest cabinet, hoping to hop to the wood. Instead, my arm continued through the cabinet like it wasn’t there, and my finger ran out of tile and skidded onto a rougher surface beneath the cabinet. I extracted my hand, eyebrows knotted.

Something didn’t add up here.

I could touch the floor, but not the cabinets.

Megan circled the house and came back around through the kitchen. She planted her hands on her hips and stared around in disbelief. “Okay, this is really weird . . . Leona?”

“Here . . . I’m right here,” I pleaded in vain.

My words didn’t register.

I watched her, breathing heavily. How could I signal her without sound or touch?

Wincing, Megan touched the wound on her forehead and leveled a bloody finger in front of her eye, which she studied with a blank expression—from when Ashley’s evil double hit her with the baseball bat, probably giving her a concussion.

“Seriously . . .
ouch
,” she muttered through a grimace. Pressing a palm against her forehead, she headed into the bathroom. “Leona, if you can hear me, I’m going to put on a Band-Aid. I’ll be right back.”

“Megan, hold on,” I called, running after her. “You might have a concussion.”

A sudden idea hit me. A concussion . . . would a concussion explain why she couldn’t hear me or why I couldn’t feel myself?

No, that didn’t even make sense.
I
didn’t have a concussion.

Megan leaned toward the bathroom mirror to prod the bump on her forehead, and lurking behind her I glimpsed the reflection over her shoulder. Though I stood right next to her, she appeared to be alone in the bathroom.

Like I didn’t exist.

But I
did
exist. I was standing right here. Growing desperate, I swung my arms at her as hard as I could, trying to clobber her. The limbs whipped through empty space, jerking me sideways. I scanned the bathroom, chest heaving from exertion. What else could I do?

The floor . . . if I could stomp the floor—I raised my leg and slammed my heel down on the tile, but it didn’t give at all. Like I had zero mass.

Fighting a rising pressure in my sinuses, I cupped my mouth against her ear and screamed at the top of my lungs, “Megan . . . Megan . . .
Megan!
”

She didn’t bat an eyelash.

My voice broke into a hoarse sob, and I fell away, sucking down painful gasps. It was hopeless.

I was truly invisible. Invisible to
all
senses, not just sight.

Oblivious to my presence, Megan rummaged around in the medicine cabinet for a Band-Aid, tore it open with her teeth, and smoothed back her hair while she applied it to the split skin on her forehead. She adjusted her hair so it fell over the bandage.

Her eyes flicked down to her arm, and she prodded it, frowning, and tilted it up to the light. At just the right angle, a cascade of ticking alien symbols winked into view, almost too faint to see, before fusing back into her skin.

The timer on her arm. We still hadn’t figured that out.

Megan turned abruptly and walked right through me, leaving behind an unnerving warmth in my insides. I gasped.

An itchy tear slashed a hot streak down my cheek, and I tried to slap it away, but my palm sailed straight through my head without touching skin. The tear pooled in the crease between my nose and cheek and lingered there annoyingly. I scrunched my nose like a rabbit, trying to dislodge it, but it only tickled worse.
Seriously?

I stopped trying, but now I couldn’t focus on anything else but that stupid little tear and how it would drive me to insanity if I couldn’t wipe it off. Now I was getting scared.

I wouldn’t get stuck like this, would I?

I mean, if
I couldn’t touch myself . . .

One by one, all the tiny itches that lay dormant in my flesh flared up—the tingle on my left knee, the bristle on my scalp, the tickle next to my belly button—all the places I couldn’t scratch. Like a hundred little bugs skittering up my legs.
Uh-oh
. Dying to scratch, I raked my nails through my torso, teeth gritted and fingers curled into claws, but all in vain. Where my naked skin burned there was only empty air.

I couldn’t scratch, I couldn’t touch.

My brain spiraled into panic.

It’s in my head, it’s all in my head.
I took a deep breath and forced my limbs to relax, to quit trying to scratch. Slowly, the crawling sensation faded.
See,
a
ll in my head.

I breathed out my shaky relief and focused instead on my best friend. She barged from room to room looking for me again, calling out with growing frustration. “Leona . . . Leona! Okay, this is really freaking me out now. LEONA!”

I followed her, trying to think what to do, come up with a plan. But left on its own, my stupid brain went right back to Ashley.

The house still showed signs of the struggle—a broken window in the dining room whistling damp morning air, toppled furniture, a limp sugar bag spilling its last granules to the kitchen floor. Surprisingly little else revealed that only an hour ago the house had been a battlefield.

The blood and weapons were invisible.

By now the rain had tapered off, and a ghostly blue light slipped in through punctures in the clouds. Dawn, chasing away the grim shadows.

The fight was still so fresh in my mind, still horrifying. Ashley Lacroix, the girl we had murdered at the beginning of summer whose body had since risen from the dead as a puppet of dark matter, had come for my blood.

I had killed her . . . again.

The memory left me cold. Her body had just vanished in my arms like she’d never really existed. A phantom all along, no doubt sent to twist the knife in my heart until every last ounce of guilt bled out.

It had worked.

“Leona!” Megan yelled into my parents’ bedroom, then doubled back toward my bedroom in a hurry. “Leona, where are you!”

The apparatus.

Sarah’s apparatus! It was still set up in my bedroom. If I waved my dark matter hand through the split laser beam, it would register the interference, wouldn’t it?

“Megan—” I tried to catch her arm, but of course my fingers closed on air, “Megan, go into my bedroom!”

She paused and glanced behind her, and for an instant stared right at me.

“Yes, yes, I’m right behind you!”

“What the hell?” she muttered, scanning the hallway. Wide-eyed, she backed away from me, stumbled over her heels, and bolted toward the front door.

“Megan, wait!” I chased her.

Had she seen something? Could she sense me?

At a dead sprint, Megan skidded into the foyer and spun back toward the hallway, backing against the door. “Leona, I don’t know where you are and I don’t know what’s going on right now, but I’m really, really,
really
creeped out right now, so . . . I’m just going to go.” Eyes darting, she felt behind her for the door handle.

“No, no, no, don’t leave me . . . don’t go,” I blurted out, trying to hold the handle.

“Just . . . just call me later, okay?” she said to no one. She wrestled the door open and stumbled onto the front porch, and an icy breeze laden with the sharp odor of wet grass swirled around me, raising goosebumps on my bare skin and freezing me in place.

The door slammed in my face, and my heart gave a sudden, terrified lurch.
Trapped
. My hands grasped for the handle but passed clear through it. I couldn’t open doors.

Which meant I was trapped in my own house.

“Megan . . .” I whined.

Now it was my turn to peer behind me at the long, dark hallway, the shadows creeping toward me like long fingers. Oh God, was something still in here? A lingering remnant of Ashley?

Had to get out. Now.

The broken window? Surely I could pass through it without getting cut—W
ait, couldn’t I just . . . 

I plunged my arm through the door and felt cold, wet air on the other side. Up to my elbow, my shoulder. I took a deep breath, squeezed my eyes closed, and leaned forward. And then I was on the other side, standing on my porch. I drew in a sharp breath and straightened up, blinking against rays of pink morning sunlight. Aha!

So I could walk through doors.

Megan stood on the grass, gaping at me with a horrified expression.

“Megan?” I said hopefully.

She approached me cautiously, but then I saw her looking past me. I followed her gaze to the lumpy hulk wrapped in black garbage bags and duct tape slumped near my feet.

Ashley Lacroix’s body.

Her
real
body. Well, here was proof that whatever monster I’d slayed this morning had been more than a phantom. She’d been real. If not flesh and blood, then something.

This had been her taunt. She’d stolen it from the morgue and brought it here, still trailing the police identification tag.

Megan studied the body bag, glanced back at the street, and cursed under her breath. Her throat moved up and down in a swallow.

“Just leave it,” I said.

“I can’t leave it,” she whispered.

“It’s on my porch. What are they going to do? Look at me.”

“Crap, crap, crap.” She licked her lips and returned her gaze to the bag. “Oh Jesus.” She tugged out her cell phone and stared at the screen.

“Are you serious?” I said. “You’re going to call the police?”

She swallowed again and tapped out 9-1-1, moving her thumb over the call button. But she didn’t press it.

“Do it,” I said.

Her thumb started to shake.

“Do it, call the police,” I said.

Slowly, she shook her head. Instead, she navigated to her phone’s browser and tapped out a search. I read over her shoulder.

How do you send an anonymous tip to the police?

Um . . . okay, Megan.

But after tapping through a few forums, she actually found a link to a form on the Santa Barbara Police Department’s website for submitting anonymous tips. In the textbox, she tapped out a message.

Hi, I just drove by 3627 Chuparosa Dr. and I saw a body bag on the front porch. I think someone dumped a body there and I think an officer should check it out.

—A concerned citizen

Actually, that was pretty clever.

Megan submitted the form and let out a long sigh. With a final wary glance toward my house, she tucked the phone back in her pocket and whispered, “I hope you’re okay, Leona,” before she hurried to her car.

Then she was gone.

And I was standing all alone, naked and cold and invisible and untouchable with no idea what to do.

What if I
had to eat?

I sat on the steps of my front porch and mulled over this predicament as the dewy morning broke around me. No way around that.

I couldn’t touch or chew food, couldn’t drink water, couldn’t do anything. Well, at least that meant I wouldn’t be stuck this way forever.

Eventually I would starve to death.

Gladly.

A dark raincloud swallowed the rising sun and snuffed out what little warmth it had brought, leaving only a cold, dark gray. My teeth chattered.

It was still on me.

Dark matter. It was all over me. And every minute I didn’t take it off, it would get harder to take off. I could feel it creeping along under my skin, fusing with my flesh and consuming me while I was helpless to scratch it off. I clenched my jaw, all I could do to stop from screaming.

So my teeth could touch, I noted, trying to distract myself from the hideous sensation of being eaten alive. Somewhere at the back of my frazzled mind, that meant something. My teeth could touch, but I couldn’t touch my teeth.

I tried to bite my hand.

My jaw snapped closed painfully, biting only air. I ran my tongue along my incisors and pricked it on my canines, tasting blood. Yet I couldn’t lick my finger. Was there any logic to this?

This had happened once before.

No, twice before. Once in Emory Lacroix’s house, my hand had passed through a door. Then again last night, Megan had walked right through me.

Both times it had passed after a few seconds.

Maybe it just took time.

I pushed off the porch and walked a few steps out onto the lawn, feeling a spark of hope. The grass squished under my feet. But when I looked down, none of the blades had moved.

I literally could not interact with the world.

I forced my body to relax and focused on the feel of wet grass between my toes, the chilly air in my lungs, the sun breaking again through the clouds and warming my long hair—anything to anchor me to reality. I let out my breath and reached for my sternum.

Nothing there.

My heart plummeted.

No, this was stupid. There had to be a way to get this crap off. Megan. I just had to talk it out with her. We’d come up with a plan. We always came up with a plan.

I took two steps toward my car before I froze.

But I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t talk to people anymore. They couldn’t hear me. No one would even know I existed. To the rest of the world, it would be like I had vanished without a trace. I was as good as dead.

Megan would never see me again.

My parents. I could see it all play out. They would come back from Catalina Island to find their daughter gone. They would search and search and never find me, and then they would grieve for me, never knowing I was right next to them the whole time trying to get their attention.

Out of habit, my hand rose to my mouth so I could chew my fingernails, but all I could do was bite my lip.