“Not so fast—something’s happening.” His eyes snap to mine, sharp and urgent, silently ordering me to look. I obey.
Part of me wishes I hadn’t.
At the head of the barn, the darkness is no longer content to crawl. It rises. It seeps from the floorboards, pooling, stretching, branching upward—until it begins to resemble a body. A shape. Something almost human.
My breath catches, and my mouth falls open, disbelief freezing me in place.
I have never seen anything like it.
Ryder shifts instantly, stepping in front of me without a word, his body a shield. The figure drifts through the space, inspecting its captives—tilting heads, tracing cheeks, threading its fingers through the hair of the entranced students as if choosing.
My hands begin to shake as the darkness glides toward Nala.
I stop breathing.
Those fingers—too long, too thin, like twisted branches—reach out and brush her cheek. The black of them is deeper than shadow, darker even than her hair, as if it swallows light instead of reflecting it.
It doesn’t walk so much as float; its movements are wrong, disconnected from the floor beneath it. But that isn’t the worst part.
No.
The worst part is its face.
Or the lack of one.
Where its mouth should be is only a hollow pit, sunken and endless, a void that makes my stomach lurch. A gasp escapes me before I can stop it.
Ryder’s hand clamps over my mouth, and he drags me down with him, forcing us into a crouch. His eyes lock onto mine, wide and urgent, and he raises his brows sharply.
Quiet.
As if the darkness might hear the thought itself.
After a minute—maybe two—Ryder finally releases me.
“Did you see its face?” I mouth, my eyes wide, my pulse still screaming in my ears.
He nods once. Slowly. Like he wishes he hadn’t.
He lifts himself just enough to peer through the cracked window again, movements careful and deliberate. I stay frozen beside him.
“Do you think it saw us?” I whisper, the words barely leaving my throat.
“I don’t think so,” he murmurs, then gestures for me to look.
I shouldn’t.
But I do.
The figure still stands at the front of the room.
Up close, it’s even worse. Taller than anyone there—unnaturally so. River is at least six feet two, and this thinglooms overhim, a pillar of living shadow. The darkness inside it feels… aware. Curious. It pulls at me, urging me closer, like gravity.
“What’s it doing?” I breathe, my heart hammering so hard it hurts.
The creature begins to shake.
Not stumble. Not sway.
