“Rae,” December said. “It’s working.”
My eyes stayed closed. I spoke faster. Octavia and I were in the living room. She was nodding off to my voice. I read her my book, and the words became powerful enough to build a fortress around her. She was safe.
“Fucking dare,” the distorted voice continued. “Interrupt me.”
A gust of icy wind shoved against my chest, a thunderous clap. I fell, opening my eyes in time to ensure I didn’t land on anything.
The barn door hung off its hinges; splinters of wood landed in the soil outside the pentagram. Our fire was dying, but across the yard another sparked, bigger and brighter than ours.
The horses neighed in panic. I was the first to sprint toward the stable. Its doors were no longer sealed shut. I flung them open with ease, gaze scanning for Octavia, but she was no where in sight.
“Get Kat!” I ordered Jonah, who’d been the first one inside behind me.
Flames stretched across the ceiling, lapping like waves. I went for Frog, unlocking his pen. He whined, backing up into the farthest side of his stall. His eyes were wide enough for me to see their whites.
“I need you to get out of here,” I said.
He refused, huffingout heavy breaths.
“If you don’t, I can’t save her because once I find her, she won’t leave unless I guarantee you’re safe.”
Frog whined, still not budging.
“We both need her,” I tried to level. “And I can and will get her back. It’s why I’m here. I can’t leave; I’d never leave.”
Frog moved closer to me after my voice cracked at the mention of leaving. I backed up too, giving him enough space to step out of the stall. He huffed once more, a warning to keep my promise before he galloped outside, following the familiar presence of Kat in the yard.
The flames continued to burn the ceiling. I craned my neck up at the loft after the spaces between the boards darkened with shadows.
“She’s up there,” Nico said right before I bolted for the ladder. Just as my hand gripped the steel bar, the loft above us cracked. Nico grabbed December’s hand before part of the roof and loft came barreling down. I covered my head, bracing for some impact.
The boxes and old farm equipment spilled out onto the stable floor. I held my elbow over my nose, coughing from the rising smoke and dust. The fire died, leaving behind thick clouds. Something moved in the pile, caught underneath a gray tarp. I scrambled over the debris, feeling the pull towards her.
Octavia yanked the tarp off her face, coughing and clawing at her throat. I dug through the charred wood, cutting my thigh on something sharp. My body registered nothing but the need to get to her.
Her skin burned against mine when I pulled her into me. Octavia rested her forehead on my collarbone. Hot tears traced lines across the caked-up dirt on her face. She continued to claw at her throat, wordless as she took ragged breaths.
“What’s wrong?” I pulled back to meet her gaze. “What is it?”
“I’m…” She sounded like herself for only a moment before another voice took over. “Here, too.”
THIRTY
Every blink flickeredfrom extreme darkness to the brightest light. Sleep and consciousness. Or maybe it was death and whatever happened if I survived to see another side.
He was inside now, flipping through my memories like folders jammed into a rusty file cabinet. I was helpless as he rummaged for images I’d long forgotten.
Here, he murmured.And here.
The memory he found was of me at five years old. My plaits had come undone. Knees patched with dirt. And fingernails stained with pink chalk. I’d been drawing. Nonsensical shapes that meant something to a child and absolute gibberish to an adult. The adult now was me, but at the time had been my Uncle Anthony.
“He’s here, too,” I said to the demon in my mind and Rae out loud.
I could barely see her after I woke up on my back in the stable. She was a blur of light I only sensed because of the gentle hint of vanilla underneath my nose. Rae held me in her arms, eyes rimmed red as she took me in.
“Who?” Rae’s voice floated a million miles away. Maybe even a million years. Time stretched, challenging me to a tug of war. I tightened my grip around her, but the more I squeezed, the farther she got.
Look. Forget her and look, he willed, clawing his nails into the back of my head and forcing me to focus on what laid in front of me. In front of us.
