Page 61 of Hellfire to Come
For a moment, she was still. The forest quieted with her as if listening.
And then she nodded. “Together,” she echoed. “I think you are right. I do need to see she’s okay with my own eyes before I stop panicking internally.”
We started walking again, this time with less silence between us. The wind picked up behind us like a sigh, and I felt, if only faintly, the shift in the world. Something waiting.
Whatever it was, we’d face it side by side.
Still, I couldn’t shake the unease tightening my gut. The same sense I’d had in the mansion, the feeling that something had touched us and left its mark. A presence that hadn’t shown its full face yet. It clung to my skin like shadow. Maybe it was Rowan’s lingering magic, or something worse. I didn’t know. But I knew better than to ignore it.
Brooklyn noticed my pause and looked over her shoulder, the early sun outlining her like firelight. “What is it?”
“Nothing,” I said automatically, then corrected myself. “Just... keep your guard up when we get there. I don’t think our troubles stayed behind.”
She gave me a tired smile, one that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “They never do.”
We walked the rest of the way to the waiting car with weapons sheathed but ready, hearts heavier than any sword.
The gravel crunched beneath our boots in a rhythm that should have been comforting, steady, familiar, but instead echoed like a countdown. Each step toward the vehicle felt like an inch deeper into something unknown. Brooklyn said nothing more, and I didn’t push her. We both knew the moment we opened that car door, the world would be waiting to bleed us again.
The reservation faded behind us with each step, the trees thinning, the powerful, watchful hum of the land giving way to the brittle tension of the human world. But the magic lingered. In our bones. In the silence between us. In the bruised sky above, just starting to flush with the heat of early sun.
The car was right where we’d left it, dust-swept and quiet, as if it had been holding its breath for our return. I opened the door for her, fingers curling once on the handle before I forced myself to let go of the hesitation clawing at me.
Brooklyn paused just before slipping into the passenger seat. Her hand hovered at the doorframe, her jaw tight with unspoken truths. She wasn’t just worried. We were past worry. She was preparing. Bracing. For grief. For questions. For the possibility that the time we’d spent away had cost us more than we could afford.
She glanced up at me. “This feeling… What if Alice is not awake...”
“Then we do what needs to be done,” I said softly, finishing the thought she didn’t want to voice. “One step at a time. If she’s not awake we go find Frederic and force him to help her.”
Her throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. Then she nodded and slid into the seat, her silence more eloquent than anything words could’ve offered.
I got behind the wheel, started the engine, and let the low rumble fill the void between us.
We didn’t speak for miles.
But the silence wasn’t empty.
Brooklyn’s fingers fidgeted in her lap, the only sign of the storm beneath her skin. I didn’t blame her for it. I felt it too. That unsettled edge like something was waiting for us, crouched in the shadows of the future, teeth bared. The kind of tension you couldn’t place until it pounced.
At one point, I glanced over at her.
She was staring out the window, but not really seeing anything. Her mind was elsewhere, probably curled up in the safe house hallway, trying to will Rowan’s chest to rise. Her knuckles were white against her thighs.
“I hate this part,” she murmured eventually.
“What part?”
“The not-knowing. It’s like being halfway through a nightmare, trying to decide if you’ll wake up or sink further into it.”
I reached over and laced my fingers through hers. “Whatever’s waiting…good or bad…we face it together.”
She squeezed my hand once before letting go, then exhaled. “I know. I just... I’m scared it won’t be enough.”
I didn’t say it, but I was scared too. Not of the fight. Never that. But of what it would cost her. What more the world might ask from someone who had already given so much.
The sun climbed slowly behind us, gilding the tips of the pines in pale gold. The kind of light that should’ve meant hope. But to me, it felt more like the quiet before the next scream.
When we finally turned down the familiar dirt road toward the safe house, the knot in my gut pulled tighter. The house came into view slowly, too slowly. And still, nothing moved.
