23
Rayne
Her Protector
T he sight of Salem’s beautiful face horrified me more than the corpses in the trees. But it also filled me with an immediate and unwavering certainty.
I had to protect her.
Was I being blessed? Punished? Or was the universe just laughing at me again, laughing at the chaos of bringing me the one woman I desperately—frantically—needed to let go?
She stood at the edge of the crowd, eyes wide, terror written on her bruised face.
She had not yet noticed me, even as I charged toward her.
She was staring at the trees, the bodies, mouth agape with disbelief.
When my fingers closed around her arm, she looked at me like I was a ghost, as if she couldn’t comprehend what was happening.
Of course she couldn’t. She was never supposed to witness this.
“Rayne!” Her voice trembled as if she was on the verge of tears. Her clothing was filthy, and she was drenched in mud. She was shivering violently and kept trying to speak, but her teeth were chattering too much to form words. I had to get her out of the cold.
I nearly tripped over the threshold as I brought her inside the church, watching her more than I was watching my feet.
The nave was blessedly warm, insulated from the yelling outside.
Those huddled in the pews were hollow-eyed, hands folded in silent prayer.
Salem sobbed, mumbling something I couldn’t understand, and I forced myself to stop and face her.
“God, Rayne, please tell me that... tell me that wasn’t.
..” She squeezed her eyes shut tight and pressed her fingers against them, as if she could force away the awful vision.
I wrapped my arms around her, holding her close—but I could feel eyes on us.
Those in the pews had raised their heads.
The angel brought judgment. It not only enacted its own, but inspired the judgment of others too. Rumors and gossip traveled fast, with only one thought on people’s minds: We were all sinners. We were all due to die; it was only a matter of when.
With my arm around her trembling shoulders, I guided Salem down a narrow hallway at the back of the church.
The pastor’s office was unlocked, as usual.
It was a small but cozy room, with a simple desk facing the window and a small sitting area in front of a wood-burning stove.
Nevertheless, I’d never liked this room, or any room that my father had once inhabited.
It looked different, smelled different; but tension lingered in the air, my lungs withering under the weight of memories.
I only ever saw my father behind a pulpit or behind a desk. Behind the pulpit, his vitriol was aimed at the entire congregation, but behind the desk, it was only aimed at me.
Ignoring my discomfort, I sat Salem down in one of the cushy chairs near the stove. Grasping her jaw, I tipped her head up to the light. There was blood around her ear, mud in her hair. My fingers explored her scalp and found a knot that made her gasp in pain.
“What the fuck happened to you?” I said. “Why are you here, Salem? You can’t... you shouldn’t...”
She shuddered, blinking rapidly as she tried to find the words.
“I heard Martin’s voice. I tried to find him, he.
.. he was screaming for help.” She began to cry.
Her hands kept moving, wringing, clenching, as if all the energy inside her needed a place to go.
“There was a...” She waved her arms, as if tracing the outline of a tall, disturbingly skinny figure.
“There was a thing ! Talking in Martin’s voice!
It had no eyes, and... and these arms, and hooves.
.. it...” Frantic, panicked, she grasped my shirt and begged, “You need to believe me. Please. I don’t know what the hell it was, but I swear to God, I saw it, I heard it! ”
She sniffled, hiccuping on a sob. Her eyes were reddened, tired, and they gazed into mine with a desperate hope.
“I believe you, Salem.” My thumb stroked over her cheek as she cried.
“Focus on me, okay? Take a deep breath. That’s it, good girl.
” She held eye contact with me, breathing in deeply through her nose.
I laid my hand against her chest, encouraging her.
“Come on, keep breathing. It’s okay to be afraid. It’s okay. Don’t fight it.”
“Tell me I’m crazy,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Tell me it’s not real, please.” She had yet to let go of my shirt; her fingers knotted tighter and tighter in the fabric.
“It chased me and I fell. I hit my head. That must be it, right? I just hit my head?” Disbelief shook her voice.
I wanted to tell her it was all a bad dream. A hallucination, a concussion. But no.
She had been dumped right into the middle of my cold, dark, dangerous life. She needed to be ready for what was coming.
“You’re not crazy, Salem.”
She stopped crying. Her face, for a moment, was unreadable, a mask of shock.
“Have you seen it?” she said.
“Yes. Every winter for almost twenty years.”
“Fuck.” Her voice broke. Her chest heaved as she took short, rapid breaths. “It can’t be real. It can’t. Things like that don’t exist, they don’t, they don’t...”
Taking her hands, I uncurled her fingers’ death grip and held them. Her skin was like ice, and I squeezed onto the chair beside her, wrapping my arms around her and holding her tight.
“Breathe with me,” I said, rubbing my hand up and down her back. “I’ve got you. You’re safe, I promise.” She rested her head against my shoulder, face buried in my neck. Her warm tears dampened my skin, and my heart ached with every shuddering sob.
Eventually, her breathing fell in rhythm with my own. With every deep, slow breath she took, a little more of the tension melted out of her limbs. Little tremors ran through her when she sniffled, wiping her face with the back of her hand.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry, I just... I can’t believe this is real.” She lifted her head, staying as close to me as she could as she met my eyes. “Outside, in the trees... those people...”
I shook my head. “Don’t think about it, Salem. They’re gone. Their suffering is done.”
I hated to see that void in her eyes: a dark expanse only pain and terror could open.
“The red figure I saw in my room,” she said suddenly. Her eyes searched my face. “Was it real too?”
“Yes. It was real.”
She gave a gasp of relief that nearly dissolved into another sob. I needed to get her cleaned up; I hated to see her like this.
“You don’t need to fear the one in the house,” I said. “It scares me too. But it won’t hurt you.”
“I know.” She nodded. “I know it won’t. I think it helped me.”
This wasn’t the time to question her, so I didn’t push to hear more, not yet. But there was one more thing I needed to know, and I dreaded speaking it out loud.
“The creature you saw in the forest, did it see you? Did it look at you?”
For a moment, she went stiff and still as she remembered.
“It had no eyes,” she said. “It saw me but it had no eyes.” She inhaled shakily.
“It kept calling me with Martin’s voice.
It even... it used my voice too. It mimicked me.
It knows , it... it...” She flinched violently as someone walked past the window, but it was just two grim-faced men carrying a long ladder.
“I’m going to be sick. Holy fucking fuck, this is fucked . ”
She clapped her hand over her mouth, squeezed her eyes shut. I knew that feeling of terror, the panic; I knew it all too well, and I knew fighting it did no good. She was whimpering, trembling, whispering denials as the fear racked her.
“Look at me,” I said. I cradled her face, moving her hands down, gently holding her wrists captive in one hand. “Nothing is going to touch you. Nothing—listen to me— nothing is going to hurt you. Not if I have anything to do with it. Do you understand?”
She was so close. She nodded, softening against me. The hairsbreadth between our mouths was a canyon, and my stomach dropped when I leapt across it. But she met me before I could fall, pulling me into a desperate kiss. It was a promise, an apology. It was every fear I couldn’t speak aloud.
“I’m with you,” I whispered, and she frantically nodded. “I’ll protect you. I fucking swear it.”