His fingers skimmed over my wrist, a feather light touch anchoring me in place. Maybe he wasn’t going to hurt me. At least not today, not now. He wanted something from me, and that, I had realised. He was going to keep me around a little longer until he got what he wanted. So even when his steps receded and fear curled tight in my ribs like a wicked twine, I knew that he wasn’t going to hurt me.
So I counted…
“One.”
Something shifted in the air, a flash of brightness like lightning augmenting the moody cloud.
My hands lifted, the instinct to protect myself causing me to wrap them tightly around my body.
“Two.”
A breath of wind combed fingers through my hair, the harsh and repugnant scent of damp earth and decay causing my nose to crinkle.
“Three.”
I heard a crunch of gravel and distant retreating footsteps.
“Four.”
Something wasn’t right. Something was happening. There was a strange presence.
“Five.”
My breath quickened, my body trembling.
“Six.”
There was silence, the type that felt alive, pressing against my chest.
“Seven.”
Graveyard?
‘This bloody wanker took me to a fucking graveyard!’The thought echoed in my ears.
“Eight.”
Cold fingers of dread skimmed my spine, whisking hair from my face and brushing against my cheekbone.
“Nine.”
My breath turned shallow as sweat coated my skin, my legs trembling.
“Ten.”
I ripped off the blindfold.
The darkness before me was vast, swallowing everything in its grasp as the graveyard stretched around me, quiet and still, a sea of headstones jutting out of the damp earth like jagged teeth.
Zaghan was nowhere to be found.
I was alone, at a graveyard, surrounded by ghosts.
Ghost. There were ghosts here.
A howl ripped from my throat, loud, raw, and shattering. My breath shuddered out of my lungs, a heavy weight on my chest as I spun, frantic, my pulse hammering against my ribs.
Then I heard it, a crunch of gravel beneath a movement. I gasped, spinning toward the direction the sound came from. And I saw it, a shadow flickering behind a gravestone, so fleeting I could have mistaken it for the trick of the light flashing across the sky. But it was there, I could feel it.
