Page 219 of Without a Trace
Sloane stepped into the doorway, holding something in her hand.
“I found this in your old box,” she said. “From the lake house.”
It was a black cord—braided, worn soft. I hadn’t seen it in years.
“You wore it every day that summer.”
I took it from her, wrapped it around my wrist, and pulled the knot tight.
“Thanks.”
She scanned me head to toe. “You ready?”
“No,” I said. “But I’m going anyway.”
Trace was waiting outside the room, leaning against the door frame. He looked at me like he already knew how this would end.
Alden passed by, grabbing a bag off the table in the hallway.
Zeke stood by the front door.
“This is one way,” he said.
I met his eyes. “Let’s go.”
He nodded back, and we walked out together, the door shutting like the end of something sacred.
Scarlett
The road stretched quiet between us, narrowing as we drove, trees leaning closer, thicker, older. The kind of forest that remembered things. The kind that watched.
Two trucks. Trace drove the first, Zeke up front with him. Rhett, Kane, and Sloane in the back. I rode in the second with Alden—he didn’t ask, I just climbed in.
The farther we got from anything normal, the quieter the world became.
Forest swallowed the world.
The trees grew closer, taller, older. Their bark scarred in places—strange symbols etched into the trunks, half-hidden under moss. A few I recognized from the Codex. Others made my skin crawl.
A chill rolled down my spine.
“I don’t like this,” I said quietly.
Alden glanced over. “Me either.”
The road dipped.
“Zeke said the Red Veil was sighted here two nights ago,” Alden added. “But no bodies. No footprints.”
“No sound,” I murmured.
And there wasn’t.
No birds. No wind.
Even the trees were quiet.
Trace’s truck slowed up ahead. Zeke stepped out first, motioning for us to do the same.
