The Dead and the Dark(49)

“He’s just sitting there,” Ashley said. “What’s wrong with him?”

“Describe it,” Logan said.

“I think he’s…” Grieving, Ashley wanted to say. But the voices outside continued to hiss, circling the aching wood like vultures circling prey. “Close the door.”

Logan ran to the door and closed it. She held her phone up like better service might give her a message from the Scripto8G. “Is he saying anything?”

Ashley looked down. Brandon Woodley wasn’t vague like Tristan’s scent or Nick’s disembodied voice. Just like last time, he was unsettlingly present.

“One day,” a voice breathed, “we’ll be happy.”

Brandon stiffened.

And then he looked at her.

Ashley jolted back, crashing into a collapsed table. Her knees buckled on the corner of the wood and Logan’s palms flattened against her back to hold her upright. The floorboards cried out, but the sound was muddled like she heard it from underwater. She clutched her chest, but she didn’t look away.

After a moment, Brandon blinked. He shook his head slightly and the room changed. The air loosened, shedding its shroud of cold as though it were shrugging off a blanket. Ashley felt Logan’s hands at her back—actually felt them—and then she was in the cabin. Sunlight glinted through the shattered windows, but the skin of her forearms still prickled with goose bumps. The voices outside were gone. Instead, she heard the rustling of juniper branches high above the cabin’s collapsing ceiling.

“What just happened?” Logan asked, trying to hide the shaking in her voice.

“He saw us,” Ashley hissed. “I don’t know how, but—”

Brandon pressed his fingers under his glasses to rub his eyes. “I thought I saw something.”

“What’s—” Logan started.

Ashley hushed her.

Brandon paused like he was listening, then shook his head. “I can’t be around them.”

Ashley let go of Logan’s arm and stood in front of Brandon. Up close, his face was full of nothing. He looked out the window into the undefined void. She didn’t know what a killer looked like, but if she had to picture their expression, she’d picture this.

Brandon paused again, listening, then nodded. He watched the space beside him—the space where Ashley had stood seconds earlier—and narrowed his eyes. After a moment of tense quiet, he swiped a hand through the empty air and closed his eyes.

“Not real,” he whispered.

Quietly, he made his way to the front door and out of sight.

Ashley let out a pent-up breath and wiped beads of sweat from her brow. “I’m … so confused.”

“You’re confused?” Logan snapped.

“Follow me.”

They made their way out of the cabin and down to the lake, away from where Paris paced the shore. Once Logan was seated on a small boulder, Ashley recounted the moment as well as she could. But the strangeness of it was impossible to put into words. It was a feeling that settled in the pit of her stomach like stones. Even on the lakeshore, with the sun beating down on her and a warm breeze rustling through the trees, she felt the cold under her skin. She felt Brandon’s stare, relentless and empty and dead.

“It’s like he wasn’t alone,” Ashley said. “There was something else there. I could hear it outside, whispering.”

Logan scratched her scalp. “Who would it be, though?”

“I don’t think it was a person.”

Logan arched a brow.

“I don’t think it was human.”

“I just don’t get it,” Logan said. She kicked a smooth oval stone into the lake. “Was it just Brandon?”

“Just Brandon that I could see. I heard something talk to him, though.” Ashley closed her eyes, conjuring up the voice in her memory. “It said they’d be ‘happy again.’ I don’t know why. It kinda … sounded like someone died.”

“Is this just you filling in blanks?” Logan asked.

“What?” Ashley asked. “I’m not making it up. I’m just telling you what I saw. And what I saw looked like they were grieving someone.”

Logan pressed her palm to her forehead. “Who, though?”

“Maybe family?”

Logan scoffed.

“When I heard our parents talking, my mom told your dad she was sorry for his loss,” Ashley said. “Did your dads … ever mention someone dying? Maybe before you were adopted? I know you don’t wanna talk about it, but—”

Logan stiffened.

“—that grave at Pioneer Cemetery.”

“No.”

“If they lost someone, maybe that’s why they left.”

Logan shook her head. “No. It’s literally not possible. They would’ve told me. Alejo would’ve…”

Logan didn’t finish her thought. They sat in silence for a moment. The lake ebbed up along the shore, carrying dust out into the water with each pulse. Logan wanted to believe Brandon had nothing to do with the deaths, but his footsteps were everywhere they looked. He was the only thing that’d changed in Snakebite.

“I thought we were supposed to be looking for Tristan,” Logan said. “We’re supposed to be clearing this up, not making it worse.”