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My door is locked. I have no phone. No radio. No television. The walls are so thick, there’s not even an echo whenever Emma screams at night and, on her bad days, she has some awful dreams.
I shouldn’t be able to hear a damn thing—
“Riley.”
—and then I hear it again.
I almost stop breathing. It catches in my throat, my heart starting to race so fast—beat so loud—that it almost drowns out the inexplicable whisper. Inside my gloves, my hands grow clammy, slick with a sudden sweat. There’s no way I should have heard that, I’d only be proving everyone in Black Pine right if I admit that I did, but I can’t… I can’t deny it.
That voice? The one I shouldn’t be hearing?
It’s eerily familiar, a voice I know all too well.
Even if I haven’t heard him call my name in almost forever.
“Riley…”
It’s a mistake to open my eyes. The room is dark; I can barely make out anything. A weak stream of light fills the gap between my door and the floor. Between that and the faint, hazy moonlight breaking through the almost purple cloud cover, inky, black shadows bounce off of the end of my bed. Anyone could be hiding in my room and hell if I’d know. I’m as good as blind and, suddenly, I wish I hadn’t realized that.
I squint. “Hello?”
My voice comes out strangled. Unsure. A second later, I’m not positive I said a word at all.
Nobody answers. He certainly doesn’t.
I pull my thin blanket up, kissing my chin while keeping my eyes narrowed at the darkness. My attention is yanked toward the far corner of my room. Where the two walls meet, the shadows are deeper than they should be. It’s not just dark there—it’s pitch black.
And that’s when I see it.
Call it my overactive imagination, wishful thinking, or a trick of the shadows. Whatever it is, I’m still staring when I catch a flash of silver from the depths of the shadow. Silver—
The Shadow Man had eyes of silver.
That’s it. I’m not going through this shit again. Gulping, I close my eyes so tightly that I create bright sparks dancing across the inside of my eyelids. My heart skips a beat, my fingers trembling as I slip my left hand over the edge of the bed. I lean over, searching the floor.
Where is it? Where— there.
My slipper is right where I left it.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. I don’t even care which ones I grab. Scooping a couple of pills from my stash, I fumble in my self-imposed darkness, managing to toss them into my mouth after a few false starts.
With the memory of that silver flash fresh in my mind, I swallow the pills dry.
Anything to go to sleep right now.
“Tell me about Madeline, Riley.”
At Dr. Gillespie’s opening comment, I stiffen.
He’s just going straight for it, isn’t he?
Normally, I would brush him off. Every single one of my doctors, my psychiatrists, my counselors, and my psychologists learn before long that there are two topics that guarantee I’m gonna clam up: my mom and Madelaine.
Thing is, I’m still kinda shaky from last night, from the voice I shouldn’t have heard and the wave of fear that hasn’t quite subsided yet, so when Dr. Gillespie mentions Madelaine so easily, all I can mutter is, “You’re saying it wrong. Her name was Madelaine. And there’s nothing more to tell.”
Dr. Gillespie nods, then makes a note on the upgraded journal lying flat on his desktop.
