She started snorting and struggling to free herself, but nothing worked.

Turning her cheek a little farther to the right, her gaze came upon the face of Cindy Shaffer. A scream rose in Kylie's throat, but stayed bubbled in her mouth that was still forced closed. Her heart thumped against her breastbone at the sight. The girl's facial skin hung loose, exposing some cheekbone. But the girl's mouth was covered with duct tape. Staring down past her own nose, Kylie saw she bore the same tape. And the decomposing body she was in was shackled with chains. Was this supposed to mean something? Or had the killer really done this?

Another loud clank came from above. Kylie's gaze shot up toward the noise. She saw a long iron spike being pushed through a hole in the slats that appeared to be decaying wood flooring. The piece of iron dropped on top of her, and the cold of it sizzled against her forearm, which was pinned at her side. On one end of the metal bar was some kind of ornament, a cross. Kylie recognized the emblem as being like the rusty fence and gate at the cemetery.

Footsteps sounded on the floor above as if someone was walking away, but then he returned, and another piece of rusty fencing was pushed through the hole. This time, Kylie saw the hand of the person shoving the iron inside. As the arm moved almost in front of her face, the cuff of the shirt rose slightly upward, exposing the edge of a silver watchband.

What am I supposed to learn from this? Kylie asked with her mind, and looked at the dead girl at her side. Another wave of panic filled her lungs when a fat snake at least two feet long slithered up her chest and then higher. The cold, damp feel of its underbelly muscles inching across her cheek had a scream building in her throat.

She had to get out of here.

* * *

"You're fine." The calm sound of Holiday's voice had Kylie opening her eyes seconds later. She took a quick look around. She was in Holiday's office. But why was she...?

The vision played in her head like a horror movie in fast forward. Panic flooded her chest. She jackknifed up, jumped off the sofa, and slapped at her arms, legs, and face, hoping to chase away the feel of death and underground creatures moving against her skin.

"It's okay," Holiday said again.

No, it wasn't. She'd been dead and had a snake crawling over her face and a bug playing peekaboo inside her nose. That was so not okay.

Kylie took a deep breath, then bent over and barfed-once, then twice. Barfed all over someone's dark pair of shoes.

"Oh, damn!" a deep voice said.

Kylie recognized the voice and the shoes.

She looked up at the disgusted expression on the badass vampire and started to apologize, but instead barfed again. She missed Burnett's shoes this time, but made a direct hit to the front of his shirt.

"Oh, fu-," Burnett muttered, but never finished the word.

Holiday wrapped her arm around Kylie. "Breathe. Just breathe. It's going to be okay." She guided Kylie back to the sofa. Burnett, holding his arms away from his shirt front, handed Holiday a damp cloth, which was quickly pressed to Kylie's forehead.

Kylie reached for it and wiped her mouth, and then looked at Burnett. "I think you need it worse than me." Tears filled her eyes and her whole body trembled. "Sorry."

He looked down at his shirt and back up at her. "I'm not mad."

She focused on Holiday's face, felt the calm flowing from her touch, and tried to remember exactly what had happened. How had she gotten ... Her memory started to fall into place one piece at a time.

But it only took a few pieces for her to start panicking again. "Please tell me I didn't go wacko in English class."

Holiday's gaze filled with empathy. "It's not your fault. And Della brought you here as soon as she got you out of the closet."

Kylie flopped back on the sofa and started to wish she could vanish, but stopped herself before it came true. "I hate this. I really, really hate this."

Kylie stared at the ceiling. Burnett left the room, but returned in record time wearing a different shirt. Obviously he didn't keep a new pair of shoes handy in his office because he now stood in his socks.

After a few minutes, Holiday asked Kylie, "Can you talk about it?"

"I was Hannah. But ... most of the time when I have these types of visions and I'm the spirit, the spirit isn't dead and ... in a grave with bugs and snakes." Kylie's breath shuddered.

"Hannah's trying to show you something. That's what visions are all about," Holiday said. "Tell me what happened."

Kylie swallowed a tight knot down her throat. "I don't know what she wants me to see. We were in the grave. There were snakes and bugs. I saw plenty of those." She wiped her face, remembering the snake slithering across her cheek.

"Tell me everything," Holiday said. "Everything."

Kylie started recounting it, from the footsteps sounding on top of the rotting wooden planks above her, to the herb smell and the scrap pieces of iron that looked like they came from the cemetery. When Kylie finished, Holiday's expression went white.

"What is it?" Burnett asked, not missing the look on her face.

"Someone knows Hannah is reaching out from the grave."

"How do you know that?" Kylie asked.

"The tape over their mouths and the chains. You said you smelled herbs and that you saw someone adding iron from the graveyard. In the past, it was called cold iron. It's basically iron, but some of it was blessed by practicing Wiccans. It was used to keep spirits from escaping, and ... the herbs, there are several that are used to silence spirits. That's what she was trying to tell you. That someone is trying to stop her from communicating with us."