No matter what, thisis right.
We belong together.
The three of us, no matter how deranged, how unhinged, how fucking weird, we belong?—
Thud-thud—thud-thud
We all freeze.
Four sharp raps on the front door sound out, barely muffled by the fading storm, each one reverberating in my chest like a fist slamming into my ribcage.
It’s too late.
They came looking…and they’ve already found us.
We all knew this would happen.
We just didn’t think it would be so soon.
Chapter 55
Thatcher
So much fucking snow.
There was too much of it in Cinderhart.
There’s too much of it here in Agony Hollow.
Everyone loves it. Thinks it’s magical or festive.
I fucking hate it.
I hate how it turns roads into death traps. Hate how it muffles sound, making everything feel muted and wrong. Hate how it reminds me of the night Credence was found. Drifts of it had piled up against our trailer while I sat at the kitchen table, waiting for headlights—but when they came, they belonged to a police cruiser.
It’s been years, and I still can’t look at snow without feeling like I’m back in that goddamn trailer.
…gonna need ya t’keep it together for me, Champ…
I white-knuckle my cruiser up Earl Avenue, its tires struggling for purchase on ice that has no business being this thick in November.
Visibility’s shit.
Heat’s barely working.
And somewhere in the back of my skull, there’s a voice urging me to turn around, go home, and forget all about Bastian Rooke and his cryptic bullshit.
I stopped listening to that voice a long time ago, but I can’t make it go away.
Now it’s just a constant, nagging reminder that there’s a part of me that’s weak and afraid.
The address I pulled from county records puts Rooke’s property another half mile up this godforsaken hill. Should have made the drive this morning when the storm let up for a few hours. But dispatch had other plans—a fender bender on the highway, some drunk asshole who couldn’t tell black ice from wet pavement—and by the time I was done playing traffic cop, the blizzard had kicked back up.
So I waited.
I’m good at waiting. Did plenty of it back in Cinderhart, staking out warehouses in Outbye and crack dens in Jackleg Valley while my partner complained about his hemorrhoids.
Seems waiting is all I’ve done since I got sent out here on time out.
