For Nevermore Season 1

whether or not he’d snooped through her archives and messages. She needed to get her laptop, check her browser history, and pull the splinter from her far-too-busy mind.
    She decided she’d wait to eat, then closed the fridge and went to Randy’s “man-cave,” where she suspected her laptop was being held prisoner.
    Randy’s room was as tidy as Mako’s house, but smelled like Old Spice. It was his playroom, and he may as well have put a “no girls allowed” sign outside. . He acted like he was the only one in the house who deserved a space for himself. It had a recliner he bought for himself on his birthday, a 60” Vizio, way nicer and bigger than the family TV in the living room, two tall stacks of video games, one for each system, and a desk where his Sony Vaio sat with the lid closed.
    Noella didn’t see her computer anywhere, though she figured it was probably in the bottom drawer of his desk. She had found a pink heart necklace in there two months before Christmas one year, back when he still at least pretended to be nice.
    Noella curled her fingers around the silver handle and pulled, but the desk drawer wouldn’t budge. It wasn’t locked when she found the necklace, but it was definitely locked now.
    Crap. Now I’ll have to wait to see him to figure out what he knows.
    Her stomach crawled, imagining his face going red as his siren, and the rancid stink from his drunken breath as his spittle splattered her face from the screaming just inches away.
    Noella left the man-cave, then went to her bedroom, closed the door, and locked it, wishing he kept his private time somewhere else. She’d be happy if she never had to see him ever again. If Randy came home, she’d pretend to sleep.
    Noella lay on her bed, then clicked the TV to an episode of Dr. Oz and the hidden dangers of vitamins and minerals, or something else designed to whip housewives into a needless frenzy. She stared at the TV, trying to focus on the blather, rather than the million questions and emotions colliding in her mind.
    If Dante is real, and I’ve never been to the other world, what did he mean when he said he’d known me for hundreds of years?
    That’s impossible.
    Yeah, but so are centaurs, right?
    But Tori had seen her appear, which meant that whatever was happening to her was now verified by at least one other person. Noella wasn’t sure if she felt relieved to find out she wasn’t crazy, or terrified to know she wasn’t, because if the other world was real, and she was really crossing over with no control of the trips, wasn’t she now in more danger than ever?
    How long until I vanish in front of my entire class?
    Noella changed the channel.
    Something wasn’t adding up. Why didn’t anybody notice her reappear when she crossed over in class? Had it happened so quickly that no one noticed her come or go? Or were those trips somehow different?
    Noella racked her brain and tried to find some explanation in her jumbled thoughts, but came up empty. She would have even settled for bizarre, so long as the ideas made sense in the context of the weirdness that had become her reality. But nothing she thought of seemed even remotely plausible.
    Breaking news on the television derailed her train of thought.
    Melissa Rayburn – a 27 year old woman who’d gone missing a few months earlier – had her picture plastered all over the screen. Beneath her pretty photo was the bold type:
    Missing Woman Found Dead.
    Noella’s feet swung from her bed and hit the floor as a chill shot through her body.
    Somewhere in her brain, a spider was weaving its web. A web that connected Melissa Rayburn to Katie, to Noella and her trips, and to the awful nightmares. Though she couldn’t remember dreams of seeing Melissa murdered, as she’d seen Katie, the feeling of connection was no less palpable.
    Noella couldn’t see the web, yet she couldn’t help but feel trapped in its center, with the spider circling her, waiting to strike.
    Death is coming for you, Noella. And it’s almost here.

    * * * *

CHAPTER TWO

    4:00 p.m.

    Sam was barely paying attention as the TV broadcasted the latest on the serial murders. He sat on the couch, staring past the TV and twirling his cell phone, waiting for a text from Noella, though he’d certainly settle for one from Mako.
    Noella was ignoring him; he was sure of it. He wanted to text Mako again, but she hadn’t responded to a single text since lunchtime.
    To make matters worse, his girlfriend seemed to be