Page 168 of Visions of Darkness

Aria

Attempting to not make a sound, I pushed down on the door latch. It clicked, and the metal gave without any resistance. I felt it like an extended hand from the sinister.

A foul invitation.

I swallowed around the knot in my throat as I carefully stepped inside and quietly shut the door behind me, trying to keep myself concealed.

Darkness reigned like an oil slick, heavier than it should be when a light glowed from the kitchen off to my right. I crept forward, my footsteps muted as I slunk through the shadows of the room toward the disturbance I could feel emanating from that side of the house.

Where normally the house was filled with laughter and the commotion of the day-to-day, now it was silent.

So silent I could choke on it.

My chest arched against the suffocating weight, and my mind whisked to Pax in his car outside, parked on the street, my spirit reaching out to discern where he was.

Drifting.

I didn’t know how I could feel it, but I could. I could sense him as he floated.

The man was caught between sleep and awake, hovering in that shimmery plane of nothingness. I swore that I felt the moment he slammed into Tearsith one second later.

He was asleep, which meant he would immediately descend.

A shiver rolled the length of my body as I forced myself to move forward, through the swaths of gloom that crawled across the floor. The only sound was the faintest swish of the soles of my shoes as I moved across the carpet.

Still, everything screamed. The walls and the ceilings and the toxic air.

The disturbance flailed the closer I got to the opening to the kitchen, and the barest sound breached the atmosphere.

A whine.

A moan.

A plea.

Chills lifted the hairs on the back of my neck before they spread out and rushed, skimming just beneath the surface of my skin, and my pulse that had already been thready sped in frantic beats.

Erratic and out of control.

From where I was hidden at the side, I quickly stole a glance through the threshold and into the kitchen. It was lit by a single dull light above the dining table. Stillness echoed back, no sign of anyone around.

Inching through the opening, I kept my breaths as shallow as possible.

I flinched when my shoes made a squeak against the gray plank tiles, and I completely held the air in my lungs as I tiptoed deeper into the kitchen, moving between the island and the dining table that sat beneath the window.

My gaze swept from side to side, searching for any trace of my family.

Alarm scattered through my senses, and a whimper crawled my throat when I broached the far side of the island and my attention moved to the left.

My mother was there, sitting on the floor with her back tucked into the corner of the kitchen cabinets. Her hands and feet were bound, and a piece of duct tape covered her mouth.

Even though I’d known my father was being led by the Ghorl, I was pummeled with aggrieved disbelief that he could do this to her. After all the years of loving each other? How? How could it come to this?

Horror blew her eyes wide open when she saw me, and she thrashed like she was the one who thought she needed to save me.

She released an agonized wail against the barrier of the tape and fought to break her bindings.

Panic zapped through my nerves, and I started to rush for her, to beg her to stay quiet so I could get her out of there, only I froze when I felt the movement from behind.

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