This isn’t like the last time.
Juniper is different.
She can’t have Juniper.
“Pack!” Juniper finally gets the dog to sit between her legs. “My house is just there. I don’t know what she sees. Come on?—”
Juniper manages to get Pack to walk with her to her lawn. I’m following behind, but squinting down the street for any sign of them, any movement against the lights…
Son of a bitch.
What looks like a firefly is swirling around a tree branch up ahead, right where Pack is looking.
“I’m going to go check it out,” I tell Juniper.
“What? No. Nick! Don’t you know you’re not supposed to walk toward the thing your dog is barking at? That’s like Horror Movie 101,” she argues.
“Juniper, get in the house. It’s okay. I’ll be right there,” I tell her.
I don’t wait for her to give me permission, and instead keep walking on, one ear fixated on her getting into the house as I approach the flickering light.
I hear the screen door snap closed, hear Pack’s bark get muffled, and the moment I’m sure Juniper is behind it, too, I walk into a shadow. Darkness shrouds me. I stride the rest of the way to the sprite without her seeing me, and once I’m close, I reach out of the shadow to snatch her by the wings.
However, I’m not fast enough.
She disappears into thin air.
“Dammit,” I curse under my breath.
The shadow around me evaporates. I look up and down the street again for any others. There’s always more than one, but if she noticed that I saw her, it means the others did, too.
I’m pissed.
Even more pissed that I won’t be able to leave this alone. I have to find them. I need to know if they’re just on the island for shits and giggles, or if they’re working for her.
My mind is reeling as I walk back to Juniper’s house. If there are sprites, who the hell knows what else could be here. And ifthey go back to tell my mother… Memory floods my head, and I nearly trip into a pothole in the road.
Juniper is standing in the screen porch door, concern in her eyes as if she just thought I walked into war without a last kiss, and the mere sight of her might heal my broken soul.
“Please don’t do that,” she says as I ascend the steps.
“Do what?”
“Go toward danger like a crazy person.”
I pause in front of her. “Baby, something scared you. It scared your dog. That something doesn’t get a free pass if I find it.”
“It was probably a squirrel. Or a possum,” she says, though I don’t think she believes that.
In the back of my mind, I’m already thinking about what tomorrow is going to bring—whether it’ll be a warning in the form of a letter or much worse.
It could beso much worse.
I have to take care of this.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Juniper asks, her hand on my cheek.
I lean into her calming touch and close my eyes. For a brief moment, everything is as okay as it was earlier today. There were no sprites on Drifter’s Island. I was falling for someone new, remembering what life is supposed to feel like, and now…
