Page 43 of Haunted By the Shadow of Death

I got to my feet, pacing the cabin, calling out their names, hoping someone would appear. Maybe it was the cabin? Or this place? Was there something about this building and location that blocked them somehow?

Maybe if I got farther away from here?

There were three men, all with their backs to the cabin, standing out front.

I went to Charlie’s room at the back of the house and was relieved to see no one was guarding that area. The cabin was on the uppermost border of the community, without any structures behind it. It was highly unlikely anyone was going for a hike tonight, considering what had happened.

I opened the window, the sounds of the river hiding any noise of my departure.

I hiked up into the mountain, my steps hurried, knowing Kicks would come looking for me as soon as he found the cabin empty. He’d be the only one who would. No matter what the pack thought of me, no one else would have the balls to track me alone.

I pressed harder, pushing myself to hike as fast as I could. This had to be done alone. A conversation like this could not be overheard.

It wasn’t more than fifteen or twenty minutes when I sensed something. There wasn’t so much as a crinkle of leaves underfoot, but I wasn’t alone. I spun fast, trying to spot her. I couldn’t see Death, but I could feel her presence.

“I know you’re here.”

I waited. The feeling of other screamed out its presence to some inner sense I didn’t used to possess. That small darkness I’d sensed within me felt like it was pulsing, as if it recognized the presence nearby, maybe even craved it. This feeling that had started after Zetti’s death and grown since was somehow linked to her. That realization nearly drove me to my knees, making me want to heave, except I couldn’t. Not with her around.

“Where are you? I know you can hear me. I need you to come out.” I circled, waiting for Death to appear, knowing she would after she finished toying with me.“What do you want from me?” I was nearly screaming, and I didn’t care who heard me anymore. My desperation had become palpable.

There was a chill in the air, a frost that was even colder than usual, hovering.

“Don’t you know?” Death said.

I spun and there she was, not even five feet away, her head tilted at that unusual angle, staring with those completely black eyes that sent shivers through me. It was hard not to be alarmed by what her stare alone might do to my soul.

“No. I don’t know. So why don’t you tell me and we’ll be done with this game you’re playing?” Even speaking to her unsettled me in a way nothing else could. To ask questions of her stole the air from my lungs, but the idea of life continuing on this way was unfathomable to me.

She was smiling, walking closer and shifting the angle of her head in an odd way as she looked me over.

“You’re an anomaly,” she said. “You’re not of my realm, but you aren’t of this realm, either. I don’t know where you belong. Maybe both. Maybe neither. You’re like me but not. I can sense you even when I’m not near you, the way I can sense the other parts of me—but different.”

I couldn’t stand the riddles anymore. I needed answers only she could give, and I’d get them today. “Did I kill Zetti and Louise?”

“I killed them.” She laughed.

“It was you? I didn’t do this. I didn’t just kill someone for no reason.” This whole time, I’d been sick with terror. That it was me. That I’d become some kind of freak. I wanted to laugh, cry, scream. Every possible emotion was pumping through me. Even if it looked like I was the cause, their blood was not on my hands.

“Yes.” She circled me, moving too smoothly to resemble anything remotely human.

“Why?” My joy was cut short as she smiled. It was like being doused by an arctic wave. I never wanted to see Death smile again, not like this, in her knowing way.

I’d dreaded her appearance since the moment I first sensed her, even though she’d even offered me favors in the past. Well, if that was how you categorized killing Groza. So why do this now? Why rip me apart mentally? Make me fear being near the people I loved? Kill those around me?

“Because I wanted them dead. They were a threat to you, and I’ve decided I need you.”

“For what?”

“They need to know what they did, what’s coming. They all need to know. They took something that wasn’t theirs to take. They took what was mine and used it.”

She was seething with rage so fierce the trees around us frosted over and the shadows grew darker, and then it was as if it were night. All sunlight perished and an arctic chill began spreading. A foreboding filled me, and I wasn’t sure I dared ask the question—but how did I not?

“Do you mean…Death Day? They used something from you to cause Death Day?” I wasn’t sure who they even were yet.

“Yes.” Her answer was like a clap of thunder, vibrating through me.

I didn’t budge. I was afraid to breathe as she stared, her normally black eyes shining red.

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