She didn’t hide.
She stood right out in the open, where anyone—or anything—could see her.
Twenty-Six
Claire’s mouth felt dry. Her hand holding the phone shook, and the light danced over the rocks and the roots. She felt chilled, and not from the lingering dampness of her clothes. She heard the sound of dirt and pebbles tumbling down from the cave opening.
She couldn’t see the wild man yet, but she felt...
She couldn’t describe what she felt. Enveloped. As if the darkness was eating at the light from the phone and wanted to consume all of her.
She would have told herself not to get carried away, that it was her overactive imagination, except she knew this time, it wasn’t. The darkness truly was coming to consume her. She forced herself to stand still.
Don’t run. Don’t hide.
It was the hardest thing she’d ever done. She’d always been the kind of person who hid, who tried to choose the palatable thing to say, who tried to disguise what she wanted and what she feared—all the while never letting herself get close to anyone, out of fear of, as Mariana had said, their judgment. But now...there was no more hiding. Not from Reyva or Mariana. Not from herself. Not from the evil that lived here.
“I’m here,” she said out loud. “It’s time to keep your promise! Let the others go, and you can have me.”
He’d take the bait. She was sure of it. He’d done it before with their parents and Arthur. He’d do it again. He’d stop chasing Reyva and come after her.
Claire stared up at the hole, and then she saw his feet, climbing down. He was coated in dried mud and blood, and she could see the bone poking through flesh in the wild man’s broken leg. It didn’t slow him, though. He continued to climb down.
As her heart thudded in her chest, she tried to remind herself that this was what she wanted.It’s going to work, she thought.
He was mumbling to himself, wordlessly, happily. The darkness around her seemed to swirl, and she thought she saw shapes in it: a wolf, a bear, then the branches of a tree swaying in the wind, impossible under the earth—and then only nebulous shadows again. She started to shake as he climbed painfully slowly down the rocks, muttering meaningless syllables in a singsong voice.
Then worse: the words began to make sense. “Keep them all,” he was saying. “Yes, yes, yes. All four. Put the spares in the cage and never fear again.”
That was, of course, the flaw with her backup plan that she’d tried so hard not to think about: he had to keep his promise. If he didn’t plan to do that...
All it means is plan A has to work, she thought.
Her brain whispered:And if it doesn’t?
Count, she told herself.
She started the times table in her head. Simple, with two, like she had way back in second grade, when everything was easy and there wasn’t an undead horror hunting her.Two times one is two, two times two is four, two times three is six...Faster.Three times five is fifteen, three times six...He continued to climb, spiderlike, down the rock face to the cave floor.
She kept herself motionless, her breath even, as he reached the ground. He straightened, turned, and looked directly at her with cloudy eyes. She raised the light to his face in time to see a smile stretch his lips until they cracked and bled.
Then the light died.
She was plunged into darkness and all her hard-won calm fled. She felt a scream building in her throat. Whispers circled around her, and she felt wind on her neck.
Don’t move, she told herself.
Don’t move. Make him come to you.
He had to drag his feet through the snares, catch them on the wires, and tangle himself in her traps. She had to make him cross the cave.
She listened as hard she could. Only her own breathing. “Where are you?” she whispered. She couldn’t make her voice louder than that.
“Here.”
His voice sounded as if it was everywhere.
What if she’d miscalculated? What if the spirit wasn’t in the wild man anymore? What if it was all around her?No, she thought.It needs a body to live.She wasn’t going to invent newthings to be afraid of. There was plenty real to fear already.
