Page 69 of Kiss Slay Replay

“Willa!”

“I’m trying!” The door drips with blood, and with that dark, toxic substance. What will happen to me if I touch it?

I see you.

Red eyes float in the fog.

He’s here.

“Tick, tock. Tick, tock.”

“It’s too late,” I tell them. “It’s too late.”

The driver’s side door rips open.

I scream.

“It’s me.” It’s Ravi. “Get out. Come on. It’s not safe here. Let’s go.”

“Can you move?” Evan asks Wy. “Can you—”

“I got it,” Wyatt says, stumbling over the middle row, over Theo’s car seat.

“This way,” Ravi says.

I follow his voice, climb over the center console and fall into his arms. This is the first time we’ve touched in so long that I can’t even remember, and it’s déjà vu. The brine of his sweat is familiar to me. His deodorant, his cologne, his fucking pH—the scent of a former life, of a dead future.

He pulls me out of the car.

He lets me go.

He doesn’t want to touch me anymore.

“I’m sorry I lost you,” I tell him. “I turned around and you were gone.”

“Willa…” That feather-like pattern has taken over his whole face. His right eye is black.

Tick tick tick tick tick tick.

Evan and Wyatt are out of the car.

The ravens fly low; I catch glimpses of their dark wings through the fog.

We can’t outrun them. Wyatt won’t be fast enough, even with Ravi and Evan helping him.

If I stop running, is it giving up? Or is it a noble sacrifice?

Ravi’s back is to me. He doesn’t check to see if I’m following. Maybe he doesn’t care. Or maybe he just assumes that I am. Wouldn’t be the first time. We always assumed we were going the same way, headed in the same direction, and look where that got us.

My guilt, my doubt, it’s tormenting me, and I’m letting it. I’m surrendering to it. I’m not strong enough to hold it anymore, buckling under the weight.

“Your time is up.”

The tendril of fog coiling around my neck is slimy and cold. It lifts me into the air, spins me around so that I’m face-to-face with the phantom in the top hat.

His beak teeth are so much worse up close. So confusing. They go on forever. Rows and rows, spiraling back into his throat. There are bits stuck between them—pinkish ribbons of soul. His serpentine tongue laps at my chin. He exhales. His breath is a funeral.

I know what’s coming, and I know I can’t stop it.