Page 8 of Avelina

In that spotlight stood Rogue.

I sucked in a breath. “Rogue!” I looked around the room wildly for my hiking pack. It still had the leash in it. I saw it sitting on the porch bar, grabbed it with my good hand, and burst through the porch door without a second thought. It made a loud slapping sound as it closed behind me.

“Lina!” Drew shouted.

“Go get my dad!” I screamed. I never found out if she did it. I ran toward Rogue. I kept my eyes on him, as if losing sight of him would make him vanish again. I got to within ten yards of him before he bolted.

I guess I’m going to need that leash after all.

Before he tore down the road, he’d been silently staring at me, like he’d waited for me to see him so that I could follow. He kept a little distance ahead of me on the driveway, then turned down a footpath to the right, straight into the woods. He wasn’t running full tilt but just fast enough that I could keep him in sight without catching him.

“Rogue!” I shouted again. Between the fog, which was thicker than usual, and the dark, I couldn’t see a damned thing. I didn’t care. I had to get to him.

I cried as I ran, letting the branches scrape and slap my face, confused about what was happening. Just as I began to despair of ever catching him, nature decided to make me its bitch and created a nice hole for me to step in.

To be fair, I was still a little drunk, which is absolutely the only reason why I twisted my ankle and tumbled to the ground like a cheerleader in a 1980s slasher movie.

I still held the pack in my left hand, and so I thoughtlessly thrust out my injured right hand. When I landed, I heard a disturbing crack as the weakly supported injury took the brunt of the impact, likely splitting even farther down the bone. Pain blinded me for a good ten seconds, shooting up my arm all the way to my shoulder. I dropped the pack and instinctively pulled the injury to my chest, screeching and curling up like a roly-poly.

When the initial pain subsided and became a merely nauseating throb, I uncurled and looked up. Rogue had stopped within a few feet of me, waiting. I heard him whine. His amber eyes, always so impossibly aware, glowed in the darkness.

“Rogue, what are you doing?” I pleaded, still clutching my wrist to my chest. He didn’t move. I managed to get the pack and pull it all the way onto my back, then used my good arm to get up, limping a little on my now-sprained ankle. Tears streamed down my face from both pain and frustration.

“I can’t run after you anymore, Rogue. Please just come home.” He stared at me, motionless. His eyes flicked past me, over my shoulder, then back to my face. His ears were bright pink.

I listened for voices coming after me from the house, but I heard nothing. It was dead silent. Even the frogs and toads had stopped singing.

“Please, Rogue. What do you want?”

Then, as if in answer, a swarm of light blue fireflies appeared between us and flew around in a little circle.

No, not fireflies, my brain informed me. Not the right color. Flecks of light.

They were an aqua color and ethereal, like swirling bits of dust that you might see floating in a beam of afternoon sunshine. It was beautiful, but my brain couldn’t process what I saw.

The lights swirled until the circle became a sphere, then it made a loud and unexpected whooshing sound. I jolted back and stared, transfixed.

The sphere slowly expanded, the pinpoints of light becoming brighter and more numerous until it was essentially a raging ball of blue fire.

It was so bright that it lit up the surrounding area, coloring everything with a peculiar blue sheen, as if we were in an ice cave instead of the middle of a forest. The light cut a tunnel through the fog, and I recognized a familiar clearing.

I squinted and used my good hand to shade my eyes. Below the sphere, set into the ground, was a stone with a large X carved into it. I knew this place. It was my treasure spot from a childhood game.

“X marks the spot,” I said to myself, remembering the last time I was here.

Finally coming to my senses, I backed up and looked around for Rogue. I stumbled backward, just barely keeping myself from falling again. A pain shot up to my knee from my sprained ankle, but I gritted my teeth and ignored it.

The light expanded slowly enough that I had no trouble escaping, even in my condition. When it reached about the size of a small car, it stopped.

I searched my pockets for my phone to take a video. I couldn’t find it. After some fumbling, I finally remembered that it was stuck in my bra. I pulled it out, but the screen wouldn’t work because it was covered with sweat. I wiped it on my shirt and hopped back a couple feet so I could get the whole sphere in the frame.

I bumped into something. I expected a tree, but when I looked over my shoulder, I saw a woman with a crooked smile and red lips. I flinched away from her.

“Lina,” she said in her husky voice. “It really is a beautiful night, isn’t it?” She laughed, and I would have recognized that laugh anywhere.

“You’re the ghost,” I said, my heart pounding.

She laughed again. It gave me a chill despite the ball of fire not six feet from me. I wanted to back away from her, but I also didn’t want to be incinerated. I was trapped. “Who are you? What do you want?”

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