More like…pressure? Like the air thickened the farther we went, warming slightly despite the dropping temperature outside. My chest tightened as if the world was pulling me in a direction I couldn’t see.
Keegan glanced at me in the mirror. “You okay?”
“Fine,” I said tightly. “Just a weird feeling.” He nodded once, like he expected that.
We passed through Golden, the last pocket of civilization before the road narrowed and the mountains swallowed the world. Ignatius lifted a hand.
“Turn left,” he said. “Up toward Lookout Mountain Road.”
Keegan obeyed without question.
The truck began the switchbacks—those sharp, climbing curves carved into the rock face. The trees grew taller, the houses fewer. The night deeper.
Then Ignatius whispered, almost to himself, “Good. He’s still rising.”
Still rising?Keegan suddenly accelerated, trusting him without hesitation. My fingertips tingled. My heart skipped. Something inside me pulled tight like a thread winding itself.
I swallowed. “There’s…something up here.”
Keegan glanced at me through the rearview. “What do you mean?”
I had no idea. But the air felt warmer. The wind rushing past the car smelled like hot stone. Like the blast of heat from an oven when you open it.
I’d never smelled that in my life.
Yet something inside me whispered:Cole.
Ignatius didn’t turn, didn’t react, but a faint smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.
As we reached adarker section of road—no houses, no traffic, just forest and cliffs—Ignatius lifted a hand sharply. “Here,” he said. “Pull off. Take the service road.”
Keegan braked hard and looked out the windshield. “That road’s barely visible. It’s not on the GPS.”
I interrupted. “He’s close.” My heart lurched. Heat crawled up my neck, inexplicable and urgent. How did I know that?
“Phoenix,” Ignatius encouraged softly, “tell us which way.”
I froze. “I don’t… I don’t know.” But my chest did. My bones did. Instinct hummed under my skin like a fever.
I lifted a hand, slowly, embarrassed, pointing out the front windshield toward the black stretch of forest and rock.
“Up,” I whispered. “Higher. He’s higher.”
Ignatius merely nodded. “Good,” he said quietly. “Keep going.”
No one asked how I knew. No one questioned it, not even me.
And as the truck crawled onto the nearly invisible service road, the feeling only grew stronger. Cole was close. Close enough that my chest burned with it.
But I didn’t understand why I knew.
Not yet.
We turned the last corner and my pulse hammered. Against the sun, I could see his silhouette, all sharp shoulders and the line of his jaw against the sky. Cole sat cross-legged on a slab of rock, not even looking at the drop, just staring out into the sky like he was waiting for something to swallow him whole.
I didn’t wait for the others. I just scrambled from the truck and ran, feet skidding on the loose gravel, lungs burning. I couldn’t breathe, the cold air slicing through my ribs with every step, but I didn’t stop. If he jumped, if he even leaned forward—
“Cole!” My voice was thin, ragged. It sounded stupid, desperate. But I didn’t care.
