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But I do what she says, aligning myself with my physical body and lying down.
She nods her approval. “Now break it.”
“What are you?” I whisper.
“Break it.”
The wendigos inch closer, almost close enough to touch. I crush the glass in my fist, covering my hand in the others’ blood. I squeeze my eyes shut, clutching the book to my chest, and chant along with the rest of them.
I just need to wake up. I just need to wake up. I just need to—
* * *
I wake up screaming.
Voices surge around me, but I hinge at the waist and spit a mouthful of blood into the grass. Hands pull back the hair from my face, rub circles on my back, clasp my shoulders.
But I’m alive. I’malive.And when I open my eyes, the world is in color again…
I gasp and lurch back into something hard. Hands circle my upper arms as I look around us frantically. But everyone is here. No one seems hurt.
The wendigos are gone.
Or at least, I can’t see them anymore.
But the shadow version of me is still there.
She stands behind the others and smiles, flashing bright white teeth.
“Wendigos,” I say, or I try to say. My voice cracks, the word scraping along my throat.
Reid’s voice, by my ear. The heat of his chest pressing against my back registers next, his hands around my arms. “Let’s get her inside,” he says. “Come on. You’re okay.” He scoops me into his arms, and the movement makes the entire world spin and blur and blacken—
* * *
Something soft has replacedthe ground when I wake again. A bed—sheets tangled around my legs. I stir, my sharp intake of breath filling the silence. My heart rate jumps as my eyes adjust to the darkness, trying to make sense of where I am. The yard—the wendigos—
“Shh, it’s okay. You’re safe.”
I whip to the side to find Reid’s blue eyes staring back at me from a chair beside the bed. I search the rest of the room, but there’s no one else here, shadow people or otherwise.
Had I imagined her? Some weird byproduct of the exhaustion and stress?
Slowly, I turn back to Reid. He looks exhausted, like he hasn’t slept at all. His hair is tangled like he’s run his hands through it a million times, and he’s in a wrinkled suit he must have been wearing yesterday, the tie and jacket discarded on the ground beside him.
How long has he been sitting here with me?
God, he must have thought I was dead. I can imagine what he’d been feeling all too well, every moment from the night I found him staked to the floor permanently seared into my memory.
I had no idea something like that would happen. Maybe it was naïve to think we’d be able to pull off a spell of this magnitude without a hitch, that he wouldn’t need to know about it until later. But the risk seemed necessary.
“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. “I didn’t mean to worry you.”
“I know.” He forces a smile that couldn’t be less believable. I don’t miss the way he keeps his hands in his lap despite his entire body leaning forward like he wants to reach for me. “How are you feeling now?”
“Not great,” I admit. “But not terrible.”
He rolls his shirtsleeve up to his elbow. “You should drink some of my blood. It’ll help.”
