Into the Darkness (Darkness #1)(4)

It was like walking into the kitchen after you’d just left it, having had to close a randomly opened cabinet door, and then seeing every cabinet suddenly standing wide open. A shot of pure adrenaline punched me.

Someone was there!

“Oh my God…”

An overwhelming desire to join that person washed through me. I couldn’t think through the intense need to go to him. Like an alcoholic after a binge, my heart hammered and my hands shook; the desire to walk that direction so strong, I couldn’t focus.

“What’s up?” Jared asked, stopping with me. “Do you see something?”

The man was looking back, I knew he was. Just as I knew it was a man. And he was right there. The answer to my questions was so close. Waiting there, not moving. Staring. I had to get to him. I had to touch him, see if he was real. Had to.

“Let’s go for a walk,” I murmured, my feet jerking to a start.

“What? Sasha, are you okay? What’s…?” Jared’s words ended in a hiss.

My skin prickled, a surge of fear blasting, and then sliding right off me.

“Just a peek…” I heard myself say. The pull gripped me, had sweat drenching my hairline. “Have to…”

“Sasha, no!”

My body whipped around so fast tree branches and stars blurred in my vision. Jared had my arm and started dragging me toward the car.

Clothes rustled by that tree, a boot scraped against the dirt, the unseen person shifting, seething at Jared’s manhandling me. Wanting me out of harm’s way.

How could I possibly know that?

“C’mon, Sasha. This is…we need to go.” Jared hurriedly shuffled me toward the car. “Quick.”

“But…” I was shoved into the seat, the door slamming a second later as Jared jogged to his side of the car. The key jammed into the ignition and we were off, tires splashing gravel at the line of parked cars. “Careful!”

White knuckles gripping the steering wheel, Jared took the turn into the street way too fast, nearly running the car off the road into a steep ravine. “Jared, look out!”

He swerved, our vision going white in the face of an oncoming car. His car squealed as he jerked the wheel. Tires on the right side dropped off the lip of the road. I clutched at the dashboard, trying to pull a Superman and direct the car with superhuman strength. Jared jerked the wheel again, his chest heaving, hard lines around his eyes. We took another turn too fast.

“Jared! What’s going on? Why are you so freaked out?”

As if waking from paralysis, Jared glanced over, eyes quickly going back to the road. He rolled his shoulders. His knuckles slowly returned to normal color. “I don’t know. Wow. That was weird. All of a sudden it felt like we were going to die or something. Like, get killed kind of die, not like…you know.”

I didn’t, but I didn’t say anything, because I’d had the opposite reaction. Secret box.

The farther we got from the restaurant, driving faster than we should’ve, the more relaxed Jared became. The hard lines around his eyes softened, and his smile peeked through. He reached for my hand as he took a curve, reentering the noise and clutter of civilization.

“Almost there.”

I couldn’t help but think his crazy reaction was to what was in the woods. Did he feel it? Did he feel that tug, too, but instead of exciting him, it scared him?

Did I have proof the shadows were real?

My mind raced as we sped along a deserted road on the outskirts of town. The cracked sidewalks and dingy overhangs were devoid of the usual homeless. Which was weird, but not altogether noteworthy. The current predicament, however…

Should I ask him if he saw anything? Or felt something? Would I sound crazy?

But what if he’d been noticing my weird reactions to empty air lately and was scared for me? What if he was trying to save me from myself?

Did that thought, in itself, sound crazy? Oh God…am I crazy??

I sucked in a nervous breath to ask when the tire jounced over something in the street and exploded like a cannon. We swerved wildly, Jared ripping his hand from me as the car careened left.

I watched in horror as a tree enlarged within the confines of the windshield. A breathless split-second and my body slammed forward with a shriek of twisting metal. The car flew sideways, slamming against the curb, rocking back and forth like a lullaby.

There was one moment of absolute quiet except for the hissing steam spewing from the radiator.

“Holy crap,” I said, out of breath. “That came outta nowhere, huh? Tree one, monkey nothing.” I struggled with the airbag.

Jared stared, wide-eyed, out of the splintered windshield.

“Hey,” I whispered softly, touching his shoulder, “are you okay?”

Like a man who had been body snatched, his head swung in my direction. His jaw hung slack and his eyes were glazed over. God had written, “Nobody’s home” all over his forehead.

“Hey, baby.” I shook him gently. “You okay?”

He blinked. “I just crashed my car.”

A bark of laughter escaped my mouth before I could rearrange my face back into a mask of concern. “Yes, sweetie. But you have insurance. It’s okay. As long as you’re okay?”

Like a door on a rusty hinge, his head swung back toward the cracked windshield, looking out at a jumble of hood wrestling a tree.