I shouldn’t have left after seeing the woman. I should’ve had the guts to confront my friends directly. They would’ve caved and let me stay, in all likelihood. We would’ve patched things up. They wouldn’t have had a choice.
We could’ve faced whatever killed them together.
I should’ve died out here too.
My friends are dead because ofmyidea. They might’ve been shitty friends I should’ve cut off years ago, but it doesn’t negate that fact.
I should’ve died.
I should’ve died, I should’ve died, I should’ve died.
I’ve felt dead since I first saw that headline.
Maybe I should just let this witch-obsessed stalker take me. Maybe it’d finally bring me peace. Maybe—
I stop moving.
In the middle of the road.
I wait for the witch. I wait for the woman who’s followed me since this nightmare began.
I want to see her. I want to see what my friends saw.
Two bright eyes fill my vision.
A heartbeat, two, three…
The light stings my eyes, but I can’t look away. It’s peaceful, somehow. I feel the pain, but it’s so far back in my consciousness that it doesn’t matter.
I hope my friends felt this way before they—
And then—the blaring of a horn.
My mind snaps awake. The dull pain of the lightsburns. My heart pounds in my chest, every nerve in my body buzzing.
A semi barrels toward me.
And I jump out of the way, dropping onto the foliage with a clack in my teeth and the taste of metal bursting into my mouth.
I lie in the dirt for a few seconds, ears ringing and blood pumping. Bones aching, muscles quivering, everything sharp around me. The smell of pine, the asphalt, the—
I’m alive.
I was seconds from not being alive just now.
I’m alive and I don’t want to die.
I push myself back to my feet and turn around.
I’m alive.
I walk back to the watchtower. To Beck.
No one else is going to die in these woods.
I have no idea how long I was gone for, only that Beck throws down the ladders when I call up for her. I climb up with shaking legs and a trembling heart, so, so terrified of what Beck will look like when I see her again. She’s inside the room when I reach the porch, a light shining through. She’s got her back to the door, hunched over. Probably looking through her sister’s phone.
I open the watchtower door and go to her.
