Page 25 of All Hallows Game

Branches. It was only branches from the trees on the edge of the graveyard whipping the window as the wind got hold of them. My shoulders sagged. But there was still someone outside. Stalking me. Watching me.

I’m so fucking sick of people terrorising me.

I reached past the lock picks in my pocket and closed my fingers around the knife Tor gave me. I refused to be anyone else’s victim.

“I’m armed,” I called, loud enough that my voice would reach my stalker but not loud enough to call any more attention to myself. “I have a knife. You have three seconds to fuck off before I bury it in your stomach.”

I took a step towards the door and let my boots scuff the polished wood so they knew I wasn’t fucking about. Relief weakened my knees at the sound of footsteps running away, my stalker breathing roughly as they fled.

I was only given four seconds of relief. I peered around the door at the hallway, making sure it was empty. I’d taken one step out of the administrative office when a deafening ringing blasted through the silence.

Oh, god.

The fire alarm.

I needed to get out of here before I was discovered with stolen medical records.

I kept my knife in my hand and ran for the door. I wouldn’t hesitate to slash it at my stalker if they confronted me. I wouldn’t kill again, would never take another life, but they didn’t have to know that.

My footsteps pounded down the old stone hallway, echoing like twisted percussion as I ran, not slowing until I reached the door I purposefully left cracked open. No light came from outside, only my dim torch lighting the hallway. I knew what I’d find before I grabbed the handle. I knew the door wouldn’t budge.

My stalker had locked me in.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

DEATH

Awhisper caressed my consciousness, like a stroke along my soul, and I jerked so abruptly that the pinking shears in my hand snipped off the rose I’d been pruning. Shit. My mouth tightened as I watched it tumble to the grass of my beloved garden, but that whisper came again, less like a caress this time than a wrenching tug.

The second I understood what it was, I threw down the shears and rushed to my feet, darkness already streaking the air around me. I needed to tell Tor and Miz I was leaving, needed to tell them so they wouldn’t panic, but common sense flew out the window the moment I realised Cat was calling my name.

There was a certain magic between me and anyone who knew my name, and it had a direct line to my power. The darkness thrashed urgently around me, making the tulips and peonies dance in its wind. Cat wasn’t calling for me casually—she was afraid. I felt it through my power, heard it in her voice when I reached for the thread of connection and held it tight.

“I’m coming, little bride,” I promised and hoped she heard me.

A single finger crooked at my power was enough to engulf me in darkness. I let it take me, following the call of Cat’s voice to a dark, foreboding corridor that made even me uneasy. A shrill alarm rang through the air, stabbing my eardrums, but I moulded my darkness into a dome to block out the awful din.

“Cat,” I murmured, a single glance at her telling me she was terrified. She shook from head to toe, pink-laced white hair shivering where it spilled down her back, her body locked in a fraught line beneath her black jeans and hoodie. I didn’t miss the knife in her hand, but it was clean of blood.

She spun at the sound of my voice, a heartbreaking cry in the back of her throat, small and whimpering. Her face was bleached by fear in the dull light coming from her phone, her eyes glassy with tears. I was already opening my arms when she threw herself at me, my hand coming up to cradle the back of her head when she collided with me.

Finally, every part of my body and soul cried. Finally, she’s back where she’s supposed to be.

“Can you take me to my room?” she asked in a small voice, trembling in my arms.

I pressed her face against my shoulder and wrapped the darkness around us, sweeping us from one building to another. I hated her new room, hated the emptiness and lack of Cat in it. It was blank and uninviting, and I worried its depressing appearance mirrored her mental state after losing Byron.

When the shadows fell away, I brushed a strand of tear-damp hair from her face and peered into her eyes. “What happened?”

Her throat bobbed, reluctance crossing her face with no small amount of panic, but she didn’t pull away. “Someone locked me in. They followed me there. I don’t know who.”

Rage darkened my vision for a moment, and I had to physically rein in the urge to hunt whoever had scared my girl and rip their head from their neck. I wasn’t supposed to deal death personally, just handle those who died, but it hadn’t stopped me before when it came to the people I loved.

Loved. Did I love Cat? I wished the answer was easy, wished it was clear. I knew my feelings before that night on the moors, but the curse had changed us. It made her my wife, connected us in ways I didn’t quite realise at the time. With it gone, that connection was gone, too. And if Cat had never really cared for Tor and Miz, how could I be sure I cared for her?

“Why were you in the building in the middle of the night?” I asked, dragging myself out of the dark mire of my thoughts. “It’s not safe, even with the curse dropped.”

Her pale throat bobbed as she pulled away from me, slumping onto the edge of her bed. My hands flexed, missing the warmth of her. “I left my laptop in a lecture hall.”

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