Page 69 of Skalterra By Nightmare
Gams was so thrilled that I’d agreed to go to the bonfire that she called Mom to let her know I was officially “making friends”. Her voice echoed from the stairwell behind me, loud enough to be heard all the way across the shop at the ice-cream stand, and I avoided Liam’s gaze.
“Shut up,” I growled at him when we finally made our exit to the street.
“I didn’t say anything!”
“You were about to.”
“Never. I don’t tease my friends.”
I swatted at him with the hoodie I had draped over my arm, and he danced out of the way, cackling.
Sabrina leaned against the hood of an old gray pick-up truck. It was smaller than I expected, with a rusted dent in the front bumper and enough stickers in the back window to make me question just how much window could be obscured and still be considered road-legal. Two stand-up paddleboards stuck out of the truck bed.
“Got the boards in the back already!” Sabrina sang. “Xander and Molly are already there, I think, and Pax, Fiona, and Luke are on their way!”
I faltered on the sidewalk as Liam got into the driver’s seat.
“That’s a lot of people.” I tried to sound casual. It wasn’t too late. I could still cancel, but Sabrina shrugged me off.
“They’re nice. You’ll like them.”
I shuffled into the middle seat of the truck cab, and Liam apologized as he reached into my space to grab the stick shift. Sabrina slid in on my other side, and I pressed my knees together, trying to be smaller. I cast one last, wistful glance at the shop. Jonquil watched us from the other side of the glass window, her tail flicking as we pulled away from the curb.
Sabrina and Liam passed the drive with idle small talk. They seemed to be avoiding the topic of Riley, though I caught Sabrina gently patting the dashboard several times, as if doing so somehow brought her closer to the missing man.
Liam, meanwhile, kept his trademark grin in place, but his brow remained knotted as he watched the road. When the conversation lulled, the silence fell heavy until Sabrina would inevitably break it.
We pulled off the main highway and onto backroads. Flashes of sparkling blue winked at us through the trees that lined the drive, but the ocean didn’t seem to be getting any nearer. When Liam pulled into a wooded, gravel parking lot, I recoiled in my seat.
“Where’s the beach?” I demanded. The cramped truck cab was suddenly stifling.
Sabrina swung her legs out of the cab and dropped to the gravel.
“The beach is down there.” She jerked her head in the direction of the forest and went to tend to the paddleboards.
Liam exited on my other side, going to help Sabrina lift the first board from the truck bed. Misplaced panic, warm and unwelcome, welled in my chest as I eyed the dark trees. They swayed in the sea breeze, moving in a way that made them look like a single organism.
“But the boards—” I tried to say through a tightening throat.
“They’re light, don’t worry!” Liam called from the back. His voice sounded distant and muted, hard to hear over the roaring of blood in my ears.
A red SUV was parked a few spots away. Whoever had driven it might already be in the woods.
No.
That was silly.
No one was waiting for us in the woods.
The woods were safe.
Liam and Sabrina were—
Metal rang out behind me as Sabrina accidentally swung a paddle into the side of the truck. She shouted an apology, but the sound had brought my thundering heart into my throat.
I was not afraid of the woods. I was Just-Wren. Nightmare. The one who had brought the Grand Baron to her knees.
But the woods didn’t know that.
