“I know,” she whispered, squeezing my hand. “I know, and I believe she understands this too. Just breathe.”
My eyes burned from keeping all my tears hostage.
Something inside me wouldn’t let me drown in them.
It was as if a part of me knew that once I started, I may never stop—
“It stopped!” Crazy Jasper shouted beside us, interrupting my thoughts. “The clock stopped!”
Fable and I darted a look in his direction, and a crowd gathered around him. “I knew it. I’m not crazy.” He grabbed Gus Hobb’s shoulder and spun him around. “How many times did I tell yah? Yah see that there? An entire minute went by. I counted. Sixty seconds, but the clock didn’t move. Not a single tick. Time stopped. It’s the end, folks. We’ve reached the end,” he rambled on. A collective gasp erupted from my neighbors.
Then just as quickly, everyone fell silent.
So quiet you could hear snowflakes falling.
From the corner of my eye, Beck Parish emerged from the crowd.
One of the Hollow Heathens from Norse Woods Coven.
Unmasked and in Town Square, with an angry vein pulsing down the side of his neck. Sharp cheekbones and narrowed eyes that flared gas-flame blue. His hair was growing out, with chocolate sideburns squaring off at the ears.
The back of my chair collided with brick when I jumped to my feet.
I yanked Fable behind me.
“That’s Beck Parish,” she whispered over my shoulder.
“I know.”
The crowd broke apart in fear of him, giving him a direct route to Milo Andrews, who was crossing the street from the other direction.
“They really did it. They broke the curse,” she said with years worth of suppressed emotion in her words.
I looked back at her, and tears rimmed her eyes.
“Fable, why are you about to—”
Beck jumped the curb, stealing my words as he intersected Milo’s path, cutting him off. He grabbed Milo by the shirt collar and slammed him against a storefront. Tattoos adorned his fingers and the tops of his hands, and they moved like living artwork when he tightened his fist.
“Just the man I wanted to see,” Beck growled in his ear, pressing his forearm into Milo’s neck. “Have I not made myself clear?”
If Fable and I weren’t standing so close, we wouldn’t have been able to hear what he’d said or the ferocity woven into his tone.
Beck’s jaw flexed, and Milo couldn’t look him in the eyes.
“Is this about money?” Milo said, voice low.
“Oh, you know exactly what this is about.”
Milo tossed a glance around at the crowd. “Not here. Not now.”
Beck whispered something else into his ear, then he let Milo go.
Milo shrugged off the sudden intrusion, and Beck retreated into the crowd. I stared at the back of his denim jacket until he evaporated. Here and gone. The first time a Heathen had been spotted since their curse broke.
“We’re doomed!” Crazy Jasper shouted, stealing back our attention.
All eyes soared back to the clock in Time Square, waiting for it to start again.
