Fuck.
I picked up speed, dodging the larger gravestones in my path, hurdling the smaller ones, fear and adrenaline pumping through my veins. My lungs heaved, my legs burned, but I kept on pushing, moving faster than I had in years.
“Hold on! I’m coming!”
The response was another bloodcurdling shriek, so close it sounded like she was just around the next tree. I skidded to a stop on the other side of it, shining my lantern all around, looking for her and seeing no one.
“Where are you?” I yelled.
Another scream, muffled, like I was standing right on top of her. I turned in a circle, the light swinging, still seeing no one. Hell, I even looked up into the trees. Nothing.
My gaze snagged on the nearest gravestone, and I froze.
Emma Broadturn.
“Help!”the voice shrieked.
Horror punched through me.
It sounded like I was standing right on top of her becauseI was.
I craned my head down in slow motion.
The screams were coming from Emma’s grave.
Chapter 2
Noah
I’d fallen asleep.
That must be it.
I had been so exhausted that I’d fallen asleep on the cot in the caretaker’s shed and this was some sort of lucid nightmare. Or I was experiencing a mental health episode.
Or it was ... something else.
I glanced around, my spine tingling. I wasn’t a superstitious man, especially since, in all my years working this land, I’d never once encountered a ghost—and if there weren’t any ghosts in one of the oldest graveyards in Louisiana, there probably weren’t anyanywhere. But if something was going to convince me I was wrong, it was standing on top of a fresh grave listening to the muffled screams of the woman I’d just put in it.
I was half terrified that her shadowy, transparent figure was about to float toward me out of the darkness, or worse, that her hands would punch out of the ground, but I saw nothing. The only other explanation I could think of was that it was a prank. That Beau Broadturn had put a speaker in his wife’s coffin. But as much of an asshole as Beau was, I couldn’tthink of a single instance of him playing a practical joke on someone, and I didn’t see him starting now.
“Help Meeee!”came a scream from right beneath my feet.
“I’m here!” I yelled, because if Emma was somehow alive and trapped down there, then she should know she wasn’t alone. “Emma, is that you?”
“Yes!”
Holy shit.
“Where am I?” she yelled.
I cringed. Nope. Not shoutingSix feet under the ground in a coffin!back at her, because she already sounded like she was in a blind panic.
“You’re stuck!” I yelled back. “But I’m gonna get you out!”
“Who are you?”
“Noah Evans! I need you to try and stay calm, okay?” I had no idea how much air she had left down there, but it couldn’t have been much. Typically, there was only enough for a few hours. The fact that she was still alive was a goddamn miracle.
