Declan
One second myhand’s wrapped around Emery’s fingers and the next I’m grasping at air and hay.
The fog closes behind her like a door.
“Declan!” Raw fear bleeds into her scream.
My body surges forward, throwing myself over the rail so hard, wood digs into my ribs. My boots scrape for purchase on loose straw.
I reach again, stupid, useless, clawing at fog that gives me nothing back.
“Emery!” My voice rips out of me.
The horses let out startled whinnies. Leather snaps. Harness bells go wild.
Daphne yells, “Whoa, easy!”
The sleigh shudders beneath the weight of bodies shifting, laughing, and yelling.
“This is amazing!” someone shouts.
A cheer follows. They think this is all part of the show.
Iknowit’s not because I’ve lived it before. I saw him once.
I was too young to make sense of it and too young to stop it.
But my body remembers.
Cold knifes down my throat.The Rider. He’s not a family curse, or a town legend. He’s real and he just took Emery.
I shove myself upright and nearly land on my ass as the sleigh rocks again. Hay skids under my boots. My hand shoots out, finds the railing and grips it hard enough to splinter wood.
My gaze cuts into the fog.
For a split second, I catch it—black shape moving fast, lower than the lantern glow, too smooth to be human. The flash of a horse’s flank, a ripple of darkness. Something tall and seated.
Then the fog swallows the road again.
Emery isgone.
An image of my sister flashes in my mind, so real it steals my breath. Her face, clear and exactly as I remember. Her low laughter. The way she’d complain about babysitting me when our parents went out but then always made popcorn and snuggled on the couch to watch movies with me.
The way she disappeared into the fog and never returned.
The way my father stood silent, watching her get carried away and never even attempted to go after her.
My stomach heaves.
I brace my hand on the hay bale Emery had been sitting on. Something glints in the light. The key. The pendant I gave her for protection. It lies in the straw like a broken promise.
Behind me, someone laughs again. High. Excited. “Best one yet!”
The sleigh jolts as someone stands to look over the side. Daphne barks, “Sit down!” but it comes out shaky and high-pitched.
Lucy’s voice cuts through the noise. “Okay, okay! Everybody stay seated. That’s—” She pauses, then continues in the bright, customer service tone she uses to talk guys out of getting a girlfriend’s name tattooed on their forehead. “That’s another local legend come to life.”
I whip around, meeting her terrified eyes as she stands gripping the rail with one hand and the microphone with the other. Her lips are stretched into an awkward smile.
