Page 4 of Gather the Storm

I dropped my phone in the leaves that had fallen to the ground under the trees.

“No no no… What the…? Blake?Blake?!” Adrenaline flooded my body, panic coursing through my veins like the river behind me.

I needed to call someone. Needed to find my phone, see if I had a signal.

And then I was aware of something else — sirens, far away at first, then drawing closer.

But they had to be for something — someone — else. I hadn’t called anyone.

I fumbled in the leaves, trying to find my phone. I thought I felt it, closed my hand around something hard and cold, lifted it off the ground.

Not my phone, but a knife, covered in blood.

Blake’s blood.

The sirens were silent now but I could make out the flash of red and blue lights through the trees.

My mind was on overload, trying to process everything that was happening: Blake dead by the river, the sirens and red and blue lights, beams of white light cutting through the woods as voices called out to each other.

And then, Jace, Wolf, and Otis stepping through the trees near the river.

“Daisy, don’t— ” I barely had time to notice the panic on Wolf’s face, in his voice, as his gaze dropped to the knife in my hand.

Then the first of the police were bursting through the tree line, their flashlights arcing over the scene until they landed on me.

“Help!” I called out. “My brother…”

But the two cops standing near the trail didn’t hurry over to help. They drew their guns and pointed them.

At me.

“Drop the knife!”

Five Years Later

Chapter 1

Daisy

The candle flickered on the writing desk, casting an eerie glow over the peeling wallpaper and high ceilings of what had once been the parlor.

I could have gone to the basement to turn on the lights — the electricity in the old house had worked the last time I’d checked, when I’d let Willa and the Kings stay here a few months before — but I didn’t want anyone to know I was here.

Not yet.

The house was deserted, but it was almost summer and a new crop of high school kids still gathered at the base of the falls to party, Blake’s murder slowly becoming legend, a story people told for its entertainment value by people who hadn’t known him. The last thing I needed was a bunch of curious teenagers seeing the lights on in the house and deciding to take a look.

I understood the appeal of Blake’s story. It was a ghost story of sorts, although I had to say, it didn’t hold the same appeal when you were living it.

I stared at the three blank pieces of paper in front of me, each one with a single line at the top.

Dear Wolf…

Dear Otis…

Dear Jace…

It was as far as I’d gotten. What did you say to the three men who might have killed your brother?

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