It starts as a prickle beneath my skin. An itch in the back of my mind. A wrongness in the air, like the hum of an off-key note that I can’t quite place.
Then the air thickens.
Nathaniel is the first to react. His head snaps toward the window. Cassian’s grip tightens on the wheel. Talon, who’d been pretending not to brood, suddenly goes still, his attention shifting toward the back of the car.
I sit up straighter, pulse spiking. Oh, fuck.
It’s not paranoia. It’s not nerves.
She’s really here.
“You feel that?” Talon mutters, his voice a low, warning growl.
Nathaniel swears under his breath.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “We need to move faster.”
Cassian doesn’t need to be told twice. His knuckles go white around the wheel as he stomps on the gas with a thud. My body slams into the backseat with the force of a watermelon exploding under a thousand rubber bands, and I have to physically remind myself that now is not the time to astral project out of my own spine.
But the feeling doesn’t fade. If anything, it gets worse.
Just like I could see into Nathaniel’s soul, or later just know what kind of life choices Laura Collins has made, I can feel her now. The wraith. And whatever tiny sliver of humanity she had while alive? Yeah, that’s gone. She’s not a soul anymore. She’s not even a person. She’s simply a monster.
“Where is she?” Talon asks next to me. “Can you locate her?”
Well…
I don’tneedto try.
I don’t need to search.
I already know where she is.
Outside.
Right next to us.
I whip my head to the window just as the darkness moves. A blur of shadow, surging alongside the speeding car, keeping pace with us like it’s nothing.
No more sickly sweet smiles. No more whispery, amused little giggles.
No. This time, she’s fucking furious.
Her form is jagged, flickering too fast for my eyes to fully process. Her mouth is open in a snarl, teeth bared in some impious display of rage, as if she’s pure ire.
“She’s right outside!” I shout, lurching away from the window. “She’s following us!”
Nathaniel spins just in time to see her, his face going pale. “Shit.”
Shitis an understatement.
Talon curses, reaching for the dagger made out of the Grim Reaper's scythe, while Cassian grits his teeth and somehow stomps on the gas even harder.
“Hold on,” he grinds out. “We're gonna lose her.”
Except, I don't think we are. Because you can’t exactly outrun something that doesn’t obey the physics of the living realm. She’s not alive. She’s like me—dangling between worlds like a goddamn ghost-flavored fruit snack.
And worse? She’s a hunter.
