I throw myself out of the confessional and nearly slam into Bram. Hiseyes widen, turn cold. His gaze catches on the wisps of hair matted to my forehead and slides to where Ransom is still wrestling with a button.
My throat tightens. “Bram, nothing—”
“The Haunts will be back.” He cuts me off, refusing to meet my gaze. His words are a punch to my gut.
“But we’re safe here. You said the church was hallowed ground.”
Bram drops a pile of kindling on the floor beside a makeshift firepit. He shrugs off his coat and stacks the wood with practiced ease. Rascal tramps over to me, nuzzles his nose into my side, but my eyes are pinned on Bram. A muscle feathers in his jaw.
“Something has changed.”
My stomach twists inside me. “What do you mean? What has changed?”
Bram crouches down beside the stacked kindling. He draws a flint from his pocket, the knuckles of his hands going white when he strikes a spark. “Did anyone else follow you through that door?”
His words are strange, sharp-edged in my mind, while I try to follow them.
“What do you mean? Nobody could have followed us. I alone used the bell.”
Bram blows a thin stream of air, coaxing flames to life. Ransom, fisting the fabric of his jacket, sighs and drops into a pew.
“I was there with her. No one followed us through that damn door.”
Bram stands, moves to one side of the room, and produces a small pot filled with water. “The night you came through…did the bell act strange?”
“It bloody opened a door to the world of the dead, Avery. What do you expect our answer to be?” The exhaustion is thick in Ransom’s voice.
But that is not what I focus on. The tips of my fingers and toes twinge with dread. “It shook.”
“What?” Bram looks back up from the fire.
“That night, after we woke in the wood, the bell was vibrating. I thought I caught a glimpse of movement, like something familiar, but—”
“Someone followed you through.”
No, that’s not possible. Who would have—
I reach into my pocket for the bell, and my blood runs cold. When I turnthe fabric wrappings out, heart racing, I come up empty, save for a few tufts of lint and dry leaves.
“It’s gone.” Sickness surges in my stomach.
Bram is on his feet. “What do you mean?”
“The bell.” The words crumble from my lips. I dig deeper into my pocket. “It was there a few minutes ago, and now…Bram, it’s gone.”
The fear in his eyes mirrors my own.
“How…that’s not possible.”
It shouldn’t be, but it is.
I can’t stop shivering. Not from cold, but from fear. I look to Ransom, watch his lips tilt in a smirk.
“Did you take it?”
He throws up his hands. “Are you joking? Adelaide, trust me. My thoughts were not on the bell when we were”—he clears his throat and points his chin toward the confessional—“in there.”
“I don’t want details,” Bram cuts.
