Page 38 of Mate Night Snack
Not running. Not hiding.
Waiting.
She wasn’t sure how she knew it was him, but she knew. This was the shifter Emmett had told her about.
He didn’t look like a monster. He looked like a memory stretched too thin, too dark. Jet-black hair slicked back like glass, pale skin that didn’t glow but swallowed light. His eyes were what stopped her. Yellow and hollow at the edges, like something old had taken up residence behind them.
He turned toward her like he’d felt her watching. He didn’t blink. Didn’t smile. Just whispered,“Katniss.”
The sound wrapped around her name like smoke. It didn’t echo. Itsankinto her.
Her knees locked. She couldn’t move.
He took a step forward. And then another. And her feet still wouldn’t work.
The wind started up again, but it wasn’t natural. It howled across the square like a scream trapped in a bottle.
Ashwin tilted his head. “You see too much,” he whispered. “And still… not enough.”
His mouth didn’t move the way voices usually shaped words.
Then the lanterns blew out one by one.
And he was gone.
Katniss woke up gasping, her fingers twisted in her blanket, heart pounding so fast she thought it might rattle right out of her chest.
She sat up and rubbed her face hard with both hands, trying to clear the dream like it was just static. A leftover image from the journal entries or Emmett’s voice or the attic air that still clung to her skin.,But the air in the room had changed.
The inn usually smelled like lavender, old books, and baked sugar. But now the air tasted scorched. Like iron and smoke.
That was when she saw her charm.
Twyla’s protective bundle of wolf fur, silver thistle, and red thread lay on the nightstand where she always kept it. But the wax paper was curled in on itself. The fur had blackened at the tips. And the thistle was singed through the center.
She picked it up carefully, holding it between her fingers like it might break.
The thread crumbled at the knot.
“No,” she breathed. She looked at her door. Then the window. Half-expecting to see someone standing there.
Nothing.
Just the wind brushing against the glass. Just the moon casting stripes across the floor.
She sat back down on the edge of the bed, charm clutched tight in her hand.
It had happened in the journals. The girls Twyla had tried to protect. Mabel. Eliza. They’d worn charms like this. Thought they’d be okay. And then they vanished.
She didn’t want to be the next girl added to a town's unsolved history.
Not a footnote. Not another whisper.
And yet…
Her hands were still shaking. Not from fear. From knowing.
This wasn’t just a dream. Not just a flicker of worry. It was avision.Clearer than any she’d had before. Sharper than even the one with Emmett bleeding in the woods.
