“We have to go after him,” Noelle was arguing. “Maybe he knows a way out?—”
“What thefuck,” Delilah whispered.
We all went completely silent again…and followed her gaze down the trail.
Then my whole body locked up.
Because something was standing at the edge of the trail.
Tall. Still. Backlit by something we couldn’t see—maybe the moon, maybe nothing at all—but enough to outline its shape in pale silver. Long limbs. Broad shoulders. A posture too elegant to be fully human and too grounded to be anything else. It had antlers. That much was clear. Curving,gnarled things that reached toward the canopy like they belonged there.
It wasn’t moving.
It didn’t have to.
The air around it shimmered, the way heat sometimes warps asphalt. Except there was no heat. Just chill. Wet, clinging cold and something heavier—like pressure against the base of your spine, telling you to kneel. Or run.
“The fuck…” Shane breathed.
The Gloamstrider.
I didn’t know how I knew that’s what it was…but I did. Same way I knew storms were coming in by how my knees ached. Same way animals sense earthquakes.
Noelle grabbed my hand.
The creature didn’t make a sound.
Didn’t blink.
Didn’t breathe.
Then…it turned.
“Ohfuck,” Shane said. “I didn’t…Jesus fucking Christ, what the fuck?—”
Delilah started whispering under her breath, praying not to God but to whatever forces she used to lock down the library and cast love spells. Whit moved closer to her, gripping her hand like it was the most natural thing in the world. Shane closed ranks with us, while Holden stayed completely still.
The Gloamstrider cocked its head, shuddering slightly…movements jerky, as if it wasn’t quite here. I heard its fucking bodyrattle.
Then…something else in the trees above it.
Moonstone eyes and inky black wings.
I didn’t quite make out whatever it was, but it was a like a shadow came alive, plunged from the trees, and forced the Gloamstrider off of the path and into the brush. Vicious snarls and tearing sounds came from the trees, and I grabbed Noelle.
“Run!”I hissed.
We all bolted in the opposite direction, back toward the campsite…to anything, as long as it was away from whatever the fuck was going on back there. We didn’t speak; everyone’s breath was ragged, desperate, fucking terrified.
It was going to get us. All my life, I’d seen that fuckin’ festival happen every year and never heard of anyone actually getting hurt, and now...now it felt like the woods were folding in around us, like maybe the people who’d been hurt didn’t disappear; they wereforgotten, and the world outside kept rolling on?—
“Fuck!”
Just ahead of me, Shane let out a grunt and a curse, stopping in his tracks. I stopped right after him, Noelle stumbling into my back, and I caught her before we both went down. My flashlight skittered to the ground, beam spinning wildly, but it didn’t matter; the path was lit ahead of us in warm, glowing gold.
We all froze.
Because it wasn’t a monster…it was a girl. Flora Hardwick, from Holden’s grade back at Ashmore County High, peering at us with a lantern held high in one hand.
