“Attention students, you are now free to resume daily activities. Please avoid the courtyard—”
I didn’t hear the rest.
I was already moving.
I sprinted through the doorway, out toward the woods—where she’d run, where her glove had fallen, where the blood trail ended.
Behind me, I heard Dev follow.
And heavier footsteps—
K.
I’m coming, baby. I’ll find you.
And I will never leave your side again.
Chapter 22
Seph
I woke in darkness.
Not pitch-black, but the dim, flickering kind shaped by a fire someone had built nearby. A thin strip of warmth touched my cheek. Beneath me, a blanket softened the stone, and beside my leg the cave wall pressed cold through the torn fabric of my skirt.
My whole body throbbed.
My tongue was dry. My hands—bare. I yanked the sleeves of my jumper over them in a panic. My gloves… gone. My chest tightened.
Who brought me here?
My eyes adjusted slowly.
A bottle of water. An apple, perfect and untouched. My jumper drying near the fire. Someone had washed the blood from my skin. Someone had decided I wasn’t going to die in the woods tonight.
I swallowed, the sound loud in the stillness.
“…Hello?” I whispered.
The cave answered with a low, rumbling exhale from the shadows.
My head snapped up.
There—far at the back—something moved.
Not small.
Not human.
A shape uncoiled, shifting like a mountain waking. A breath rolled through the cavern, hot and slow, stirring my hair.
Then—
A single eye opened.
Amber. Huge. Ancient.
Locked on me.
