Page 22 of Pareidolia

The tendrils pulse so hard I can feel my skin ache as it stretches above them.

Broken…

Broken.

Broken, just like he said.

And like I’m caught up in those threads—in a web—I start to move forward… until the creaking of footsteps on the stairs behind us makes Nox’s eyes narrow.

“Knock, knock. Don’t want to startle you,” a familiar voice calls out. Apparently, it’s not just familiar to me, because Nox snarls.

“Think about it, little monster. I’m the only creature that can show you what should exist in that hollow you call a soul.” He steps forward and presses one clawed finger against the center of my chest. It makes the things beneath my skin squirm like they’re trying to find their way back to him—like he wants them to eat me alive.

A home in my hollow. I didn’t come here looking for a home, and I’m certainly not going to be one for a monster. Not when it can manipulate me into forgetting myself. Not when it’s obvious he’d just as soon carve me open from the inside out.

Not when some part of me liked the way it felt.

I shake my head and step back, toward the sound of footsteps and Noah Daniels’s voice. “Not interested.” Before I can talk myself out of it, I snag my leather jacket from the hook on the wall and pull it on, hiding the pulsing of black and red beneath my skin. I barely have time to drag out my gloves and cram them onto my fingers before the door opens.

I whirl, wondering if I’m about to watch a ranger die… but Noah’s expression is friendly when he looks at me, warm and a little curious.

“Thought I could help you measure the broken boards and head into town with you to get the replacements.” He holds both hands up, offering me a white cup that smells like coffee. “And figured you might need this.”

“Thanks.” I take it, aware that my voice sounds faint… but I have no idea how he’s acting so normal when there’s a giant-ass moth monster behind me… unless…

I turn and frown.

There’s nothing behind me. No Nox. No wings. No soft humming lure.

Just an open window, a cool breeze, and the memory of what it felt like to have shadows crawling beneath my skin.

CHAPTER 8

ASPEN

I have no idea how I went from being lured—seduced? hunted?—by a potentially hallucinated moth monster to drinking coffee in a fucking Jeep while the brother of a man I murdered chats with me about the way this fall seems to be leading into a hard winter, and how he really hopes I find somewhere warmer to stay before the snow starts falling.

All of this is fucking weird, and if it weren’t for the way my arm still has a faint red glow when I pull my jacket up as we park at the hardware store, I probably would have convinced myself that I’d made it all up.

There is still a chance I did, and I’m just imagining the red now… even though something about seeing it in the sun, watching in morbid fascination as the black veins squirm and settle under the light before I yank my jacket back down, makes everything feel more real than what happened from the moment Nox showed up until he’d disappeared.

It all felt like a fever dream—like some haze of an idea I’d made up and hadn’t quite managed to wrap my head around to write down.

I’ve known my whole life I don’t react the right way. I don’t feel things the same way other people do… but fucking hell…

I didn’t know it extended to having zero survival instinct and a blanket acceptance that monsters are real when faced with one.

“Aspen?” Noah’s voice drags me out of my thoughts and I turn to him, plastering a smile across my face that I’m hoping doesn’t look too blank.

“Hm?” When I realize it was more a grunt than a response, I force out more. “What’s up?”

“I asked if you were set for everything else you need? Groceries? Gas? I know the tower has a generator if you’re planning on using that.”

I actually hadn’t thought about the latter. My van was stocked up with nonperishable foods, and I had my backup for writing in case my laptop died during the night—one of those ridiculously priced travel writers that lasted for weeks at a time on one charge.

“I guess I could grab some snacks and a can of gas.”

If I got back to the fire tower and had to face the fact that I really had made Nox up and I was losing my mind, I might just need it to pour on my head so I could set myself on fire.