Lead Me Astray is now published as a Wattpad Book! As a Wattpad reader, you can access Wattpad Books Edition upon purchase and the Original Edition for free.
"Ambitious and fiercely original. Sondi Warner is the exciting new voice we've all been wai...
Oops! This image does not follow our content guidelines. To continue publishing, please remove it or upload a different image.
September 12 | After Midnight
Seeing the girl in the hospital bed made me feel like I was in the topsy-turviest manga I had ever read. The experience was surreal. I stared into the unmistakable face of Aurie Edison. She was alive. Her eyes were closed. Her head was thickly bandaged, and her wrist was in a splint. One leg was elevated in a cast. Where the other should have been, there was nothing but empty space below the knee. Yet, her chest was slowly rising and falling. Definitely alive.
"It's worse than I imagined," Haley murmured with a studied frown.
"She's been here all along?" I was almost afraid to ask. As if asking would break the spell, and I would wake up again in the woods with everyone I loved gone. I glanced at Zyr who stepped up beside me.
"Yes," he replied, "which is why Tegan thought Aurie couldn't be a ghost. Aurie never died. Wallace confirmed what I suspected: crossing over might've led to her waking from the coma."
"You knew how to help her all along?" I breathed, hurt.
"Oh, she's beautiful, Mys!" Kittie Cad interjected as she read the room. "It's a miracle she survived the accident."
Wallace spoke up behind us, "Yes, Aurie was hit with such force that she had bleeding on the brain, several broken bones, and she suffered a compression injury that led to losing her leg. That was my doing."
My best friend peered at the Guardian in askance, and he unfolded radiant wings. Kittie's jaw dropped. "Uh-uh, I don't think I'll ever get used to your world, Mitsuyo," she whispered.
I grinned, but the mood in the room was heavier than expected for a happy reunion. Zyr had his eyes glued to the clock. Haley leaned against the bay window with the cityscape a backdrop to her worried frown. I was assailed by their uncertainty, a flurry of agitated emotions keeping us all uneasy.
"Why didn't you tell us, Senpai?" I turned to the detective.
"At first, I thought you knew." He flashed an apologetic smile. "Aurie's accident was covered locally, and no one ever said she died. I know I didn't. By the time I realized you thought she was actually deceased, I didn't have an opening. You had such a hard time trusting people...I couldn't bear to push you away."
"But you said you would be more transparent after we..." I blushed and shut up.
"Nahin, I promised I would keep you both in the loop if anything new came on the radar, which is exactly what I did. I couldn't spell out everything because of Haley's reaction to seeing her sister get up and walk away from that hit-and-run."
"You have no idea how scary it is to feel you can't trust what you think you've seen," Haley murmured. "Soon as I left the penthouse party and realized Aurie was gone, I dipped on Darcy's security guards. I ran out the hotel just as she got up and followed you, I think." She pointed at me.
