Page 181 of Skalterra By Nightmare
I was halfway across a wooden footbridge that arched over the river when electricity coursed through my stomach and chest.
I cried out and fell to my knees. Fire danced along my every nerve, zipping back and forth across my skin and through my bones. Pain blossomed in my abdomen, and I coughed up blood-stained bile.
I pressed Liam’s hoodie and chicken against my chest and extended my free hand in front of me with my palm facing up.
A tiny skalflame the same shade of blue as my Nightmare hair jumped in my fingers, and the burning in my veins subsided just a little. I didn’t know what had happened to make Skal run hot in my blood, but it was tearing me apart from the inside.
I found Liam’s backpack near the trailhead where he’d apparently discarded it. The train station was visible through the trees, and I stumbled out of the woods with the backpack, ripped hoodie, a torn skirt, and covered in dirt and ash.
Skalmagick continued to eat at my nerves, and I held it back like the sobs that suffocated in my throat. I couldn’t breathe. If I did, everything would explode outwards, so I held my breath, allowing myself intermittent gasps that shook my body.
The tourists outside the train station parted for me as I approached. Someone asked if I was okay, but their voice was distant and garbled. I found the wherewithal to fish my train ticket out of Liam’s bag so I could flash it at the platform officer as I boarded the train. The edges of the paper blackened and curled in my fingers, and I shoved it back into Liam’s bag before the overflowing Skalmagick could light it on fire.
I settled into a window seat.
It would be another several hours before I got to Keel Watch Harbor. I searched Liam’s backpack for his phone and found it near the bottom just as the train rolled away from the station.
I wouldn’t be able to unlock it, but I should still be able to make an emergency call. The screen lit up, showing a wallpaper image of Liam, Riley, and Sabrina all posing for a selfie.
The energy in my hands pulsed, and a metallic pop rang out. The picture disappeared, replaced with a black screen that reflected my haggard face back at me.
“No.” I hit the power button over and over and over again, until the acrid smell of burnt metal singed my sinuses and smoke started to stream out from under the phone screen.
I dropped it in my lap, and my fingers sparked with more energy. I shoved my hands in my armpits and bent over, trying to hold everything inside.
“Ciarán?” I whispered into the dark folds of Liam’s hoodie. “Can you hear me?” No one answered. I wrapped my hand around the porcelain chicken. “Liam? Please.”
Silence.
So I hid in the dark of my lap, held my breath and my Skal, and counted the seconds until the train ride was over.
The coastline outside my window looked too normal, like someone had forgotten to tell the sun and sea that the world might be coming to an end. The sun hung bright and high in a cloudless blue sky, and the water was calm and glittering.
I watched harbors and bays blur past in the final minutes of the train ride, bouncing in my seat.
There was a chance I had beat Ferrin to Keel Watch Harbor. I wasn’t sure how his Nightmare abilities worked, but maybe he was unable to project himself directly to Keel Watch. Maybe I’d hit him hard enough with my flail that he needed to rest before he launched any sort of attack on sleepy, oceanside towns.
When the train finally came to a stop at Keel Watch Harbor Station, the platform seemed normal enough. I was alone, but that wasn’t out of the ordinary. It wasn’t a very popular stop on the train route.
But then an unshakeable cold settled over me despite the summer sun bright in the sky where it hung over the bay. Its heat was dull and muted, and I pulled Liam’s filthy hoodie over my blouse to keep warm.
I stepped into the empty street between the station and the library. The train whistled behind me as it pulled away, leaving eerie silence in its wake.
A creaking sound broke the quiet.
The library’s front door hung from its hinges, swinging slowly in the sea breeze.
“No,” I breathed, and sprinted across the street to burst through the broken door. “Mr. Lane?”
The library was dark and empty. Mr. Lane wasn’t at the front desk, and when I ran through the shelves, I didn’t see him there either. I barreled around the corner by the printers and stopped at the sight of the two empty armchairs with a stack of magazines piled on the table between them.
My veins burned, but I ignored the fire as I took stumbling steps to the armchairs.
A pile of dust sat on each cushion, and my stomach twisted.
“Gladys?” I hissed. “Sarah?”
No.
