Page 23 of Splintered
Evan. What if someone had slipped upstairs? Had someone picked the lock, slipped into the house and sneaked behind him without him knowing? Was his primal mind picking up the sensations, the disturbances in the air and space that his eyes could not?
Evan. He had to get to Evan.
Feeling his way forward, Ben took a shaking step from the haloed glow of the kitchen into the darkness that swallowed the house. The old house was wreathed in shadows, stretching toward him from every cramped room and down the staircase. The void came at his mind again, like he was flying toward it face first.
He held the knife in front of him, breathing hard. He crept for the stairs. Fumbled for the light switch, holding his breath as he palmed it.
The amber chandelier at the top of the stairs winked on. Its buttered glow curled toward him, spilling down the carpet.
It wasn’t enough to banish every shadow.
Ben made his way up the steps slowly. Was someone up there? With Evan?
The chandelier hummed, keeping its secrets.
He made it to the top step, peering around the corner down the narrow hallway to their bedroom. Stillness. Nothing moved.
Damn it, he’d felt something, had sworn he’d seensomething, dark like a shadow twist behind him in the kitchen. He’d have to check every room, every door.
First things first. Evan.
His heart was a bass drum about to explode as he crept down the hallway. He couldn’t catch his breath. He couldn’t keep up with his own heart, his own fear.
Finally, he pushed into their bedroom. Evan lay in the center of their bed, starfished out and flopped on his belly the way he always slept if Ben gave him an inch of extra room in their bed. Evan could fill any space to sleep.
Evan breathed in and out. His chest rose and fell.
There was no one there. Evan was safe.
Ben checked every room, just to be sure. Every bathroom, every closet.
Nothing.
He brought the knife back down to the kitchen and slid it into the block on the counter. His hands shook. He tried to still them against the counter. Beneath his cast, his broken arm ached.
In the center of the kitchen, wreathed in the glow of the kitchen lamp, Evan’s offer letter lay in a crumpled heap. The ink seemed to suck in the light, the letters growing larger than their typeset font and rising off the page to confront Ben.
He blinked, holding his eyes closed for a long moment, and breathed out.
The letter lay in stillness, the promise of a reckoning whispering from its tattered folds.
* * *
Chapter Seven
Frigid cold wormedthrough his body, all the way under his eyelids. Shivering, Ben forced open his eyes. His breath fogged in front of his face, a cloud that obscured his vision.
Was the heater broken? He curled into a ball before sliding from the bed. Even the sheets were frosty, the bedroom sucking every speck of warmth from the room.
He reached for the lump beside him. “Evan, you okay? I think the heater went out.”
His hand pushed against something limp. And cold.
He grabbed with both hands, twisting Evan toward him as his heart flew into his throat.
Blankets spilled over his cast. Evan wasn’t in bed. He’d left his sheets and blankets behind in a tangle, seemingly man-shaped in the dark.
Ben’s heart fluttered back down from the stratosphere. He flicked on the bedside lamp. Where was Evan?
