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And she screams.

Noemi screams, a high wail as her hands fly to her eyes, nails clawing, and I grab her hands as Henry catches her elbows. And then the thing that was Caleb roars. It rears up on its hind legs, front ones clawing the ground, Caleb’s eyes wide with shock and confusion as the creature falls onto all fours and charges.

TWENTY-NINE

Henry pushes us toward the bar, shouting, “Go!” We stumble, and I grab Noemi and run. Henry kicks at the creature and then follows, right at our heels. We rip up the stairs to the porch and yank the door and it opens—thank God, it opens.

We all tumble through, and Henry whirls, slams the door shut, and locks it.

I’m walking Noemi to a chair when I see Raymond at that broken window, staring out as if frozen there. For a second, I think he actually is frozen, stopped in time. But then he inhales, and I snap, “Get the hell away from there!”

Raymond doesn’t move. He stands, as if trapped by the horror of what he just witnessed.

Witnessed from inside the bar. Looking out. While we were experiencing it, trying to save Caleb.

I tamp down my anger, and once Noemi is seated, I stalk to Raymond, grab his sleeve, and pull. “Get away from there. We need to—”

A black mass lunges at the broken window, and we both fall back. Then Henry grabs a chair and shoves the thing back. I can’t see what it is. Can’t tell if it’s the creature that was Caleb. It’s just a black, writhing mass, and I run and grab the metal rod we found in the forest, but when I get to the window, the creature is gone, and Henry stands there, breathing hard.

“We need to barricade it,” I say.

“You do realize all the other windows are glass, right?”

That’s the bartender, and when I spin on him, he shrugs. Then he motions at Noemi, huddled on the chair, knees drawn up.

“Seems like she had a bad—”

“Shut up.”

“I was just going to offer her a drink. On the—”

“Shut the fuck up!” I fly at him, and he has the sense to step back. “Yes, I know what happens to me if I touch you. And I don’t care. You say one word to her? You say one word about him? I swear I will rip into you before you can do anything back, and I will accept the consequences. Is that clear?”

He tilts his head and looks at me. Really looks. And something like heat flares in his eyes as his lips twitch, not in mockery but in appreciation, and that heat in his eyes, it’s as if—

Oh God, it’s as if I’m flirting with him.

I want to vomit, and I want to scream.

Instead, I just meet his gaze and say, “Nothing. To her. Or about him.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I back up, ripping from his gaze and striding to Noemi. I bend beside her chair.

“That wasn’t Caleb,” I say. “He’s gone. I’m sorry, but he’s gone, and what you saw wasn’t him.”

Her chin bobs, teeth chattering. “I—I know. A trick. Illusion. That’s all.”

“It was.”

Do I believe that? I want to. I absolutely do not want to think that was Caleb, conscious inside that monstrous thing, that he’s still trapped in there—

Not him.

An illusion.

I comfort Noemi until she retreats into shocked silence. Then I go to help Henry. Raymond has collapsed on a chair and stares wide-eyed into nothing, as if still seeing the horrors playing inside his head. All his bluster from earlier has evaporated, leaving this harmless—and useless—shell.