The Dead Girl: Book 1

Shockwave

The five friends were all sitting together under a great willow tree. Amelia was snuggled up against her girlfriend, Kathleen. Julian, Theodore and Aaron were all arguing about who would make a better demigod. Then someone ran up to then.

"I've been...looking.....for you," the mailman said, out of breath. When he caught his breath, he reached into his bag and got out five identical letters. Each one was addressed to one of the five.

"Is that all you needed from us?" Amelia asked politely.

"Yeah, I guess so," the mailman started to walk away, but not before he gave them all a weird look.

"What do you think it is?" Julian asked.

"I don't know what it is; I'm not psychic," Aaron says.

"What are we waiting for?" Theodore says impatiently.

"Yeah, let's open it!" Kathleen says, agreeing with Theodore; and with that they all tear open the envelopes, rip out the letters and begin to read.

"Holy guacamole!" Theodore shouted.

"Don't ever say that again! And yeah, what the heck! This has to be a joke," Amelia mutters.

"I don't think it is. Do you guys remember how Lilith was acting all remote and depressed a few weeks ago? I remember her saying something about 'Vaughn' but I thought she was just yawning mid sentence. What if she was actually trying to tell me something about this mysterious Absinthe Vaughn?" Kathleen says.

"Julian! What's wrong, you've gone white as a ghost." Aaron says.

"Um...I-I knew."

"Knew what?"Amelia questions.

"I knew Lilith was dead," Julian mumbles.

"What?! How did you? How could you?" Theodore shrieks.

"Absinthe contacted me and told me to stop you guys from figuring out, so I bribed the mailman to stay away from us as long as possible," Julian says.

"How could you! I thought we were friends. Why would you even think of working with her? Actually, I don't want to know. What I do want is for you to leave!" Kathleen says.

When Kathleen finishes, Amelia nods her head and Julian looks around trying to get someone on his side but everyone avoids eye contact.

"Theodore, please can you talk some sense into your sister?" Julian pleads.

"No Julian, you lied to all of us about something extremely important. We..." Kathleen looks around the room "We will never be able to trust you again!"