Smoke Show (Emerald Bay #3)

Sky Blue

FRANKIE

EMERALD BAY, WASHINGTON

All I can see are stars.

Bright, twinkling stars calling me home.

Am I dreaming?

This looks like my neighborhood, but there’s something…

Different.

The houses are the wrong color; the trees glow golden.

Warm sun splashes against my skin, and from behind me, I hear Daphne’s rich, velvety laughter.

“Are we having pizza tonight?”

“You’renothavinganything,” I chuckle.

Suddenly, a sharp burning pain in my side makes me double over. It feels like someone’s sitting on my chest, and I start to cough.

Uncontrollably.

“He’s conscious!”

My breath comes rushing into my lungs in short bursts, and everything smells like burned rubber and smoke.

“Who?” I rasp.

“Shit, he’s coughing up blood!”

“Check the airway!”

All of a sudden something’s covering my face.

It smells like plastic, with a thick layer of bleach.

When I try to pry it off my arm gets wrenched away.

“Son, this is to help you breathe.”

My vision is blurry, and my bones ache. I can’t move my legs.

How the fuck is this supposed to help me—

Why can’t I move my legs?

I keep trying to blink but it feels like everything’s getting further away.

“Is he still conscious?”

I don’t remember anything. I turned left down one of the back roads, and now… this.

The burning rubber smell comes back with a vengeance, seeping out and poisoning all my other senses.

My mouth tastes like a dirty penny.

Someone touches my cheek.

“Son, I need your name.”

“Fra— Frankie.”

“Frankie, all right, good. That’s good.”

The noxious blurs are almost overwhelming, and I close my eyes against the stinging afterglow. And then the stars come back, swirling in the sky above me.

“Frankie, you were in an accident, and you’re very hurt. Do you know where you are?”

It’s so hard to focus on anything but the stars.

“I don’t…”

Swimming in the black. Calling me home.

“Frankie! Come inside, sweetheart!”

Mom’s standing on the porch. Her favorite song floats through the neighborhood, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. Not from the house.

Hounds of Love by Kate Bush. She used to dance to it. We danced to it while she repainted the living room.

Sky blue.

It’s the same color as your eyes.

“Dinner’s getting cold, slowpoke!” She laughs. “Come on, I made chicken casserole!”

But mom’s standing.

“She made biscuits, too.” Daphne hands me one, a gentle breeze billowing through her red hair. “The Pillsbury ones you like.”

I don’t remember the last time I saw her get up out of her wheelchair.

Suddenly, the sky goes black and my veins are rushed full with ice. My mom is gone.

The warm golden lights in the house have gone out.

But the door is still open, inviting me in.

Beckoning me into… nothing.

“It’s time to go, Frankie.”