How could those words on those documents lie? I knew what they meant.
Still, warnings that I was off base and in peril screamed at the back of my mind as I pulled the car off the side of the drive at an angle.
Shutting off the engine, I sucked for the missing air.
Gripping the door handle like it held the answer to all life’s secrets.
You can do this.
You can do this.
Sweeping my tongue over my dried lips, I clicked it open.
Terror locked my muscles as I climbed out of the car. Night hung heavy, cut by the dull glow of a half-moon.
A gust of wind blew through the trees, the high branches thrashing above, though in it was an eerie silence that crawled across my flesh like a premonition.
I looked around. Into the sinister silence that echoed back.
This was wrong.
Completely wrong.
I had no plan, no idea where I was, and no clue what was waiting for me on the other side of those walls.
Did I really think I could protect Dereck myself? From whatever this nightmare was?
It all came crashing down on me in that moment. I should never have done this. I should have found Silas. Demanded the truth.
Looked into his eyes and found the truth for myself.
Because what he was.
My truth.
I didn’t care what those stupid documents said.
I was missing something.
I had to be and the panic had clouded it.
I turned to run back to the stolen car, set on calling him. Confess what I’d been planning to do and beg him to keep the promise he had made to me this morning.
One that he would bring Dereck home.
Only a figure stepped out from the shadows, stopping me in my tracks.
My heart cracked like thunder. A splintering of lightning as it was severed in two.
I might have never seen his face, but I would recognize the vileness anywhere.
The stench of that night when I nearly lost my life. Where a part of me had died in that vacant, dilapidated house.
But what crushed me was when Dereck appeared at his side.
No.
No, no, no.
