White

Chapter Five

"My name is Tyra." I whisper, terrified.

The man with the blue suit laughs again and leans close to my ear. "I am never going to be able to understand you, Melantha."

Adrian looks confused. "Why not?" She asks.

I am trembling, with both fear, and anger.

The man has a knife to Adrian's neck. I stare, I glare so hard that I think if I stare any harder his hand will catch on fire.

The man opens his mouth to answer Adrian, but I cut him off.

"My name is not Melantha." I say, "And you have not caught me."

I grab the hand that holds Adrian and pry the fingers off of her with all the strength I could possibly muster. The man grips my neck tighter, and it hurts, but my friend is free.

She stares at me.

I stare at her, telling her to run.

She doesn't run. Instead she grabs the hand that is holding me, and the man catches her again.

Most of the others are laughing at me. Adrian's friends are holding them back, but they cannot stop them from laughing. But one of the others isn't with the rest. She is next to the man.

Why can't she touch him? She can touch me.

I see her scowl of frustration, her determined focus as she stares at her hand and at his. She grabs him and rips him off of me.

I smile at her. Maybe she is still my friend. I grab Adrian and pull her out of the man's grasp.

I run.

She still can't keep up with me.

"You're too slow." I tell her.

"No," she says, "You're too fast. Slow down."

"If I slow down he'll catch us!" I say. "You speed up!"

But I know she can't. She is panting, and exhausted.

We are running through the town, through the snow, through the cold. White noise fills my ears. People are staring. I look around for some place we can go.

Then I realize: They are staring, but not at the man with the knife chasing two children. At the two children running away from the man with the knife.

Adrian called him Officer Carson.

Why was an Officer chasing us?

I remember my friend, the woman that freed me.

The sheer focus it took to touch him.

How excited she was to see him.

How angry she was to see him attack us.

She was wearing blue as well.

She could touch me, and not him.

He couldn't see her.

I could.

Adrian could.

Adrian could see ghosts.

I remember again how difficult it was for her to touch him.

Every horror story I had ever heard before they put me into that awful building comes flooding back to me.

She is dead.

I stop.

The woman is dead.

Am I dead?

"Why are you stopping?" asked Adrian. "He's coming!"

I blink back into reality and out of my thoughts. There is a building in front of us. I don't know what building it is, but the door is open, and there are no windows. And I can see from here that it has a lock.

But it is so dark in there, and anything could be lurking within.

I turn and see the man running toward us. He is close. I grab Adrian again and run inside, and shut the door.

It clicks closed.

We rush to the lock and latch it. The man bangs on it.

We are safe. For now.

I look around into the group of the others, the ghosts, I realize, and notice that the woman is gone.

My friend is gone.

Now it's only me, and Adrian, and a room full of ghosts.

Ghosts that hate me.

I am leaning against the door, and I slide down onto the floor. I stare in horror at the group of ghosts.

"I killed them." I whisper.

"What?" Adrian asks, sitting next to me.

"Do you think that's why he hates me? Because I killed his friends and made them mine?"

"What do you mean?" Adrian asks.

"There are twenty three of them." I turn and face her. "Fourteen of them are wearing blue, like he is."

She nods.

"You said he was an officer?" It's a question not a statement, and Adrian nods again.

"So were they." My voice has shrunk, so small and weak that I wonder if I am a mouse, or a ghost like them. A human being doesn't have a voice like this. "I killed them, Adrian."

A third time she nods, this time slower and sadder. She knew?

I look around the room and see that she is not the only one nodding. The ghosts are sitting cross legged on the ground, and they are all smiling and nodding. The smile is not a friendly, reassuring smile like the one's Adrian gives. They are dark, and sinister, and ugly.

I wonder how I never noticed how awful their smiles were, or how pale and translucent their skin is.

I stare at them and say, "I killed his friends, and now he wants to kill me."

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A/N: OH NO. ANOTHER CLIFFHANGER. Sorry, guys. How else am I supposed to keep you interested enough to keep reading. Speaking of being interested, how's this for an awesome factoid: WE ARE PARANORMAL NUMBER NINE!!! THAT MEANS I AM ON THE FIRST PAGE OF THE PARANORMAL!!!

I'm so happy right now. Thank you for not being ghost readers. You can't remain ghost readers. Those of you who aren't voting: IF YOU DON"T LIKE IT, COMMENT AND TELL ME WHY. IF YOU DO LIKE IT, THEN VOTE. AND FAN. AND DO THOSE THINGS THAT WILL MAKE IT MORE POPULAR.

Also, and this is something that just crossed my mind, I have subconciously been putting a certain word in every single chapter. I'll bet that itit's easy to guess which word, but I've decided to have a contest concerning it. If thirty people can comment and tell me what word it is, I will update three times....in a day. Sooo, whaddaya think? If you know it, tell you friends what it is so that they can comment and tell me so that you can get three updates in a row. Any takers? If yes, go through the chapter and find the word that they all have in common. (It is not anything like the or I or and or or, so don't get smart alecy).

Anyway, I want you to click the magic button that turns from gray to orange so many times that it malfunctions and starts a magic button rebellion and takes over human kind. Seriously. Click that button.

And click the comment button too.

Sorry for the long author's note, but in closing:

VCF!!!! (vote, comment, fan)