Page 141 of Visions of Darkness

Light footsteps padded, and water ran in the sink.

Their voices were soft as the woman helped the little girl wash her hands.

A second later, there was a light tapping at my stall. “Are you okay in there?”

Wiping more tears, I sucked down the emotion the best that I could. “Uh, yeah, sorry, my mom’s just really mad that I lost another phone.”

I unlatched the stall and stepped out.

Sympathy pulled through the woman’s expression, and the little girl swayed at her side as she held her mother’s hand.

“These silly things cost an arm and a leg, don’t they?” the woman said.

My nod was choppy as I handed her the phone. “Yeah. Thank you for letting me use yours.”

“No problem at all. I’m happy to help. Hopefully, you can get yours replaced soon.”

I forced a brittle smile, and the woman led her little girl to the door. When she opened it, she called, “Good luck.”

The little girl shifted to look back at me.

My heart seized because it wasn’t the blue eyes that stared back.

They were the palest gray eyes.

Wide and curious.

No longer the same face as the little girl who’d been standing beside her mother a moment ago.

It was the same child who’d peered at me through the car-door window at the rest stop.

Good luck,the little girl mouthed.

I blinked, and she’d morphed again.

Right before the door swung shut behind them.

Chapter Thirty-Four

Pax

Aria’s spirit crushed me in a fucking fist as I stood outside the bathroom in the hallway, doing my best not to lose my goddamn mind as I waited. I would have stormed right in there if I hadn’t known there was a mother and her little girl inside.

But fuck me.

How the hell was I supposed to stand out here when I knew Aria was distraught? I had felt the shift the second we’d stepped out of the motel room fifteen minutes ago. The way the air had gusted with a current of cold.

It was different from the effects of the temperature, though.

It’d been like touching down on Faydor.

It had seemed as if there had been a sudden break. A snipping of the thread of sanctuary we’d managed to find ourselves cocooned in last night, even though every fiber had been frayed, the fabric we were forming so fucking tattered that there was no chance it wasn’t going to fall apart.

Pacing the hall, I listened to the sound of a flushing toilet, then the running of water, and I yanked at my hair to try to tamp down some ofthe anxiety that lit through me; then I was heaving out a flurry of hot air when the door finally swung open.

“Good luck,” the woman called as she pushed through, leading the little girl out by the hand.

There was no focusing much on either of them. Not when Aria stood in the middle of the bathroom, all the blood drained from her head and her skin so fucking white there was no chance she could remain standing.

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