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Tears filled her eyes but she nodded. “I love you too,” she said, kissing him hard once on the mouth. And then Scarlett took Millie’s and Haddie’s hands in hers, turned, and headed toward the stream.
God, please, keep them safe. Bring them back to me.CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHTCamden and his brother ran through the woods, the man next to him, though obviously mentally slow, was surprisingly swift and agile. Camden allowed him to take the lead, running a step behind so that his brother could show him which way to go.
Camden knew these woods relatively well, but this man had lived in them his whole life.
His brother. It was still almost too impossible to believe. But Camden didn’t have the luxury of examining his emotions now, on this topic or any, so he pushed them to the background. They would be for later, if in fact they got one.
He heard the men behind them, still distant, but coming from every direction now, fanning out to cover a larger ground. Hurry, Scarlett. Hurry.
When they’d gotten to a small clearing, Camden stopped, signaling his brother to put his hands over his ears, preparing him for the loud noise he was about to make. Then Camden let out a series of deep yells as though he’d injured himself somehow. A second later the men’s voices rose in pitch, bodies crashing through brush, coming straight toward them, though still a good distance away.
They ran on, faster now. The man turned left, racing through the trees, jumping easily over downed logs and rocks as though he had each one memorized. And maybe he did. As he ran, he chanted, low and mostly indiscernible, mixing what Camden assumed were Serralino words with garbled English, adding more credence to what Scarlett had said about him being raised by Narcisa Fernando. The horns he wore on his head bobbed and weaved as he ran and Camden had the insane urge to laugh out loud. He’d been afraid of this unknown “creature.” Afraid of the faraway drumbeat and the glimpse of animalistic features, afraid of the low grumbly chanting he’d heard coming from the woods. He’d been fearful not because his gut had told him to be scared, but because Ms. Wykes had made certain he was. Did she know? Did she know that the “thing” roaming the woods was just a shy, abandoned boy? He didn’t want to think about it. The awfulness, the pure malevolence of that was too big to hold.
The man slowed and Camden did too, as the dilapidated house once belonging to Narcisa Fernando came into view. “Hum,” his brother said, but he turned away, appearing not to want to enter. Home. Camden had understood that one.
This had been his home. Narcisa must have rescued him from the forest and raised him there. Then she’d died and he’d been alone. All these years, he’d been alone. Camden walked forward, looking back at his brother. His twin followed slowly, cautiously. Was he acting nervous because there was something Camden should be concerned about too? Or was he simply afraid of the place where he had perhaps found his mother—for that’s what she’d been—deceased in her bed? Voices. The far-off barking of a dog. He paused, listening. They had bloodhounds. Fuck. They had Roland Baker’s hounds, a younger guild member, part of the ten remaining original families, who lived on several acres on the hill above town. He’d seen him in with the sheriff on multiple occasions. Camden figured his father had been one of the men who chased Kandace into the woods that night. He wondered if the family had taken to dog training in case anything similar happened again.
We failed in our mission thirteen years ago. We let that girl get away. And because we fell short, evil gained strength.
No. They were the evil. They always had been.
Camden hoped to God the shouting had caused all of them to turn in his direction, away from Scarlett, but he had no way to be sure. Walk in the stream, Scarlett. Hear those dogs and walk in the stream. He hoped she knew that the dogs wouldn’t be able to catch their scent in the water but his ribs constricted with worry. He recalled what she’d said to him the night he’d helped her feed the baby bird.
I’m a city girl who never owned a pet. I know very little about animals, wild or otherwise.
Maybe she’d picked that information up in a movie or something though. He had to hang on to hope. It was all he could do. “Hurry,” Camden said, pointing into the forest where the hunters grew ever closer. The man blinked at him, looked back and then moved toward the house. He stopped at the doorway and rocked for a moment, doing that strange chanting again, a sort of self-soothing.
