Resurrected (Resurrected Series Book 1) by S. M. Schmitz

another; she was a hell of a lot more thoughtful than I was, but she had the same sense of sarcasm that permeated almost everything we touched in life. It was one of the reasons she and Jamie had become friends in the first place; Lottie and Jamie had bonded over a shared sense of humor, even if Jamie’s often veered toward the mean-spirited side.
    Lottie shook her head as soon as Lydia asked me, but it was too late. Full recognition suddenly hit her, and her smile disappeared, that friendliness in her expression shifting to utter horror. “Oh, God, Lottie, what have you done?” She backed away from me as if I had suddenly become dangerous. I don’t know why, but I felt the need to defend Lottie.
    “It wasn’t her fault,” I started, but it kind of was. She started it, anyway.
    Lydia’s eyes were still wide and terrified and she looked from me to Lottie, waiting for her to explain that this was … what? Even with the remnants of the Lottie-as-E.T. denial quickly crumbling around me, I didn’t have a fucking clue what was going on. And I didn’t even know how Lydia had recognized me, let alone why she was scared of me.
    “Ok, but … please, don’t freak out. Just … here.” Lottie reached over to the table and handed Lydia the entire bottle of unopened wine. Lydia just stared at it dumbly.
    “Um. Do you want me to open that for you?” I asked. I didn’t want to miss any of this conversation but if Lottie thought Lydia needed to be drunk for it, who was I to argue? Lydia looked up at me, that same dumbstruck expression still on her face. Whatever Lottie had done, I was guessing it must be pretty bad.
    “The corkscrew’s on the table,” Lottie murmured to me. As I reached for the bottle of wine, Lydia flinched away from me, and I watched her expectantly, waiting for some accusation or insult, something to explain her sudden fear of me.
    But she just backed away from me again and moved closer to Lottie, repeating, this time in a whisper, “What have you done?”
    Great. If they were going to start whispering, I was going to miss half of this.
    “I didn’t mean to do anything, I swear. Look, you know how I told you I was going to Biloxi a few weeks ago? Well, I didn’t.” Lottie glanced over at me. I had the bottle open and was pouring wine into their glasses. When I stopped, she motioned for me to keep going. Apparently, this conversation required a great deal of alcohol consumption. “I didn’t go to Biloxi. Obviously. I went to Houston.”
    “Lottie!”
    At least she wasn’t whispering anymore.
    “Lydia, I promise you, it wasn’t to meet him or anyone else! It was just the city,” Lottie sighed and slumped down into one of the seats at her table and took the wine glass closer to her. “Remember those dreams I told you about when we first …?” Her eyes swept up to me, then dropped back down to her wine glass. She took a long sip.
    “Of course, I remember,” Lydia offered kindly, despite being clearly terrified of some Jabberwocky in the room. I still wasn’t sure how I had turned into that literary monster.
    “They weren’t dreams … exactly.” This was news to me as well. I took the other chair at the table. It didn’t look like Lydia was going to come anywhere near me anyway. “The thing is, from the beginning, ever since I woke up, I had these … memories . They felt just as real as mine. But they weren’t mine. They were hers.”
    “Lottie, that’s impossible,” Lydia’s voice was gentle, reassuring, the way a mother might talk to a child who was scared of the boogeyman in his closet. At least, I imagined that’s the way a mother would talk to a frightened child. Mine had hardly ever talked to me, let alone to reassure me of anything. She had once assured me the milk in the fridge wasn’t sour. I supposed that was close enough. If it hadn’t actually been sour.
    “I know it’s supposed to be. But I just felt so … alone. And then as time went on, I realized it