“Yes, but he’s in a bad way,” Josh’s voice cracked.“You need to get here.You need to get here fast.”
Romeo wanted to ask more, but he couldn’t.Pressure built in his chest, squeezing his lungs.
“Hurry, Frank.”
He ended the call to Josh, and went down on all fours, wheezing as he tried to slow his breathing.His heart thundered, rushing blood through his ears, and he didn’t know whether he was closer to passing out or throwing up, but he pressed his forehead to the ground, needing the cold and hard concrete to anchor him.They’d been here before.After Marc, Chad had been in bad way, but he was a survivor.
But Romeo had heard it.
The tone of devastation in Josh’s voice.
His insistence that he needed to get there fast, implying if he didn’t, he’d be too late.
Too late for what.
To say goodbye.
“No,” Romeo growled the ugly thought away.“There is no goodbye between us.”
He sat back on his heels as his breathing eased.
And that was when he saw it.
On the very edge of his vision, black wings fluttered as the raven disappeared onto the outhouse roof.
There was every chance he’d imagined it.It might not have been real, but it wasthere.
This shadow.This dark omen.
It was a monster, like him, a god in its own world, and it was there, watching him.
He got to his feet and unlocked the outhouse doors.
Chad was a survivor, Romeo told himself, whatever had happened, he’d make it through to the other side, and if he didn’t, Romeo wouldn’t wait long to join him.
He yanked off the sheet covering the car, pulled on a black hoodie and slipped on his gloves.
Romeo took off down the dirt track, adjusting his mirror so he could see the outhouse roof, but the raven, or what he’d thought was the raven, was invisible in the darkness.
