I couldn’t remember how long I’d run between trees, over grooved ruts of the ground, no distinct way out, every turn seeming the same. Was I running in circles? The woods seemed to morph around me, taunting me as my legs burned, but thoughts of Julian kept pushing me farther.
“I’ll come to you,”he’d said ...
My foot caught on a protruding root, and I was thrown face down against the hard earth, something crunching beneath me. Dried, crusted blood and velvety wings and bone fragments painted the forest floor. A scream caught in my throat as I shuffled back to my feet, swiping at my hands, my arms, my legs, my hair, trying to get the stench and remains of death off of me.
It had all been real. My gaze darted around the raven graveyard. The birds’ eyes had turned white like cataracts, and their bodies were shredded apart in pieces and scattered.
It was all real. Julian had killed them all, the wild and desperate look in his eyes, his crazed pulse in his fingers beating against my neck, the blood, the way his lips skimmed across mine, then the dark void in his face. The terror.
It had all been real, and memories of it slammed into my skull.“Death is coming …”he’d said, and it was his voice that followed me all the way out of the woods.“… And I can’t stop it.”
Chapter 11
Fallon
For hours,I’d paced my bedroom as the cold nightly breeze played upon my cheeks, which braced my already startling nerves. I’d seated myself over the edge of the bed, talked to Casper, pulled a magazine from my bag, tried to read, but nothing could calm my restless mind. In a few hours, the sun would rise without a sign of Julian.
Casper sprawled out at the foot of the bed and watched as I walked about, the planked floors creaking under my bare feet. One green eye and one blue eye remained fixed on my every move as Casper listened intently with his ears twitching to my voice.
“It was real,” I said through a sigh, then sat beside him and ran my fingers through his soft white mane. “A dream would have made things easier.”
Casper meowed, as manly as a boy cat could meow, then arched his back against my palm.
“No, it wouldn’t have,” a voice said, and my head snapped to the sound.
Behind the thin veil of the light woven curtains, Julian stood over my balcony, away from the railing, looking out into the ocean. Though the moon’s light illuminated over him, he cast no shadow.
“You saw me kill all those birds, and you still went back to the woods to find me.” He turned, and through the shadows of the night, his cold silvery eyes assaulted me. “I told you—crazy.”
A shot of adrenaline forced my muscles to jerk under my skin, and Casper jumped from my bed to his favorite spot over the armoire. My throat went dry as he walked closer, and a turbulent desire tumbled to the tips of my fingers down to my toes.
I cleared my throat. “I had to make sure what happened was real.”
Julian stood over me—the night sky through the opened French doors behind him—and my palms began to sweat from gripping the edge of the mattress I was sitting on.
“Did you tell anyone what you saw? What I did?” Only his eyes were visible, two silver slits above the mask line.
“No, I wouldn’t do that,” I clipped out, and my shoulders slacked in defeat. “But whatdidhappen last night between us? And why did you kill those birds?” I had so many questions.
Another quietness swept the room. I grew impatient, but just when my mouth opened to speak, Julian crossed his arms, looking down at me through his hollowed eyes that popped in silver against his thick black lashes.
“I snapped,” he said, resolved, remembering as his gaze remained distant. “No matter how many I—” his words stopped there, and he shook his head, “—more come, more sing, more haunt me. It doesn’t stop. It only gets worse.”
“The ravens, they’re some kind of death omen?” I asked, remembering Marietta’s folklore about ravens and black beetles and white moths, the deliverers of fate. Julian dropped his head in a somber nod. Another question surfaced, and my chest ached from the mere thought of it, and I couldn’t understand why. I pulled my bottom lip between my teeth, but the words still escaped despite my fight. I had to know. “Are you going to die?”
Julian’s brows pinned together. “You see me kill birds because of a death omen, and you ask if it’smewho’s dying?”
My cheeks heated, embarrassed of my concern for him. Then his words hit me, and I felt my heated flesh turn into a white chill as if the blood drained from my feet. I tried to swallow down the unsettling panic. “Is it Benny? Me?”
“Someday, yeah. We’re all slowly dying.” He was blunt, a quick jab to the gut. He ran his hand through his black hair, probably noticing the horror on my face. “I don’t know who it’s for,” Julian finally admitted, then looked behind his shoulder and shifted in place before sliding his gaze back to me, “It doesn’t matter, it’s not the reason I agreed to come.”
“Then, why did you come?”
I took notice in the way Julian took his time responding. It was as if I could see the words flick rapidly in the cracks of his careful mind through his eyes.
“I’m not a fan of making assumptions until I’m sure of a thing. I’m the same way with people. But, based on your unwelcomed drop-ins lately, I can see you’re the type who doesn’t stop until you have all the answers, and in Weeping Hollow, there are no answers. Reality bends here. Same with time. Some days it’s hard to tell the difference between what’s real and what isn’t. This town can make you go mad the harder you try to figure it out. So, don’t. You have to stay away from the woods. You have to stay away from me.”
“And if I don’t want to?”If I can’t now?
