Suddenly Taylor had the feeling someone else was in the room. It made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. “Okay, who is there?”

  No answer. Could it be Bug? She would know if Bug had been brought out to the island.

  Nothing. She was letting her imagination—

  Something moved. Right in front of her. For just a second the TV screen had blurred. Like something transparent but distorting had moved in front of it.

  “Hey!” She was poised, ready to bounce out of here in a heartbeat. She listened to the room. Nothing. Whatever had been there was gone now. Or maybe had never been there to begin with; that was most likely. She was imagining things.

  Taylor reached for the remote control and saw that her skin was gold. Her first reaction was that it was a trick of the light from the cartoon. But after a few seconds she decided, no. No, this was weird.

  Taylor climbed out of bed and went to the window. In the moonlight her skin was still gold.

  Crazy. Not real.

  She searched in the dark and found a candle. She clumsily thumbed a lighter and brought fire to the wick.

  Yes. Her skin was gold.

  Carrying the candle, she went to the bathroom to look at herself in the mirror.

  She was gold. From head to toe. Her black hair was still black, but every square inch of her skin was the color of actual yellow gold.

  Then she leaned close to look at the reflection of her own eyes. And that was when she screamed, because the irises were an even deeper gold.

  “Oh, my God,” she whispered.

  Shaking, she switched out of her bed shirt into jeans and a T-shirt. Because maybe she was just hallucinating, so she needed to have someone else look at her.

  Taylor pictured Lana’s hotel, the hallway.

  She bounced.

  The pain was instant and unbearable. Like nothing she had ever felt or imagined. Her left hand and the outer meat of her left calf felt as if they were pressed against red-hot steel.

  Taylor screamed and thrashed and the pain only grew worse. She was hanging from her hand and her leg, just hanging, not standing on anything, just hanging from… She screamed again as she realized she was not at Clifftop. She was in the forest, hanging from a tall tree. Her left hand and the outer edge of her left calf had materialized in the tree.

  In the tree.

  She dangled, screaming, right arm and left arm reaching, grabbing, wild and out of control.

Fear, Chapter 9