Chapter 33
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
Declan
One second my hand’s wrapped around Emery’s fingers and the next I’m grasping at air and hay.
The fog closes behind her like a door.
“Declan!” Raw fear bleeds into her scream.
My body surges forward, throwing myself over the rail so hard, wood digs into my ribs. My boots scrape for purchase on loose straw.
I reach again, stupid, useless, clawing at fog that gives me nothing back.
“Emery!” My voice rips out of me.
The horses let out startled whinnies. Leather snaps. Harness bells go wild.
Daphne yells, “Whoa, easy!”
The sleigh shudders beneath the weight of bodies shifting, laughing, and yelling.
“This is amazing!” someone shouts.
A cheer follows. They think this is all part of the show.
I know it’s not because I’ve lived it before. I saw him once.
I was too young to make sense of it and too young to stop it.
But my body remembers.
Cold knifes down my throat. The Rider. He’s not a family curse, or a town legend. He’s real and he just took Emery.
I shove myself upright and nearly land on my ass as the sleigh rocks again. Hay skids under my boots. My hand shoots out, finds the railing and grips it hard enough to splinter wood.
My gaze cuts into the fog.
For a split second, I catch it—black shape moving fast, lower than the lantern glow, too smooth to be human. The flash of a horse’s flank, a ripple of darkness. Something tall and seated.
Then the fog swallows the road again.
Emery is gone.
An image of my sister flashes in my mind, so real it steals my breath. Her face, clear and exactly as I remember. Her low laughter. The way she’d complain about babysitting me when our parents went out but then always made popcorn and snuggled on the couch to watch movies with me.
The way she disappeared into the fog and never returned.
The way my father stood silent, watching her get carried away and never even attempted to go after her.
My stomach heaves.
I brace my hand on the hay bale Emery had been sitting on. Something glints in the light. The key. The pendant I gave her for protection. It lies in the straw like a broken promise.
Behind me, someone laughs again. High. Excited. “Best one yet!”
The sleigh jolts as someone stands to look over the side. Daphne barks, “Sit down!” but it comes out shaky and high-pitched.
Lucy’s voice cuts through the noise. “Okay, okay! Everybody stay seated. That’s—” She pauses, then continues in the bright, customer service tone she uses to talk guys out of getting a girlfriend’s name tattooed on their forehead. “That’s another local legend come to life.”
I whip around, meeting her terrified eyes as she stands gripping the rail with one hand and the microphone with the other. Her lips are stretched into an awkward smile.
“Crowsbridge Hollow is hungry tonight,” she continues.
Confident she’s got this, I grab the railing again and jump over the side of the sleigh, landing on the pavement with a bone-jarring thud. I take a step into the frozen grass. My boots slide but I catch myself and keep going, heading for the trees.
The cemetery. That’s where he’s headed.
The fog is already thinning at the edges, the way it does once it’s taken what it wants.
I shove Emery’s key into my pocket and run.
The road curves away from the lit portion of the route here, toward the darker stretch where the actors like to jump out. The line of trees looms on my right, thick and black, snow clinging to branches. The lanterns strung along the path swing gently, lights wobbling.
I scan the ground.
Hoofprints.
There—deep divots in the thin crust of snow where something heavy landed. But then—nothing. The prints aren’t consistent. They don’t trail like a normal horse would.
Cold burns my lungs but I keep moving. The cemetery has to be where he’s headed.
I’m not losing her.
I hit the tree line and push through branches, ignoring the sting across my cheeks. Snow showers down the back of my collar. I keep moving, tracking by instinct.
The noise from the hayride disappears.
A bell chimes through the woods. Low and off-key.
Ice spreads through my veins.
Then silence. Pressing in almost as thick as the fog.
I close my eyes for half a heartbeat.
Memories slam in hard and sharp—my sister’s braid whipping as she ran, the crunch of snow, my own feet too small to keep up.
I open my eyes.
My vision narrows.
I run faster.
Branches claw at me. My coat catches and I rip free. My pulse hammers in my ears so loud it drowns out everything else.
A pocket of shadow appears ahead of me.
My hand tightens around the key in my pocket.
The soft, unmistakable jingle of a bell that doesn’t belong on this side of reality rings.
My heart slams faster. I’m close.
Hang on, Emery. I’m coming for you.