Chapter Thirty-Two
For the few hours we had left, Nick stayed awake, never dozing off for even a minute.
I slept fitfully, tossing and turning, my back throbbing and my ribs aching.
It was my life at stake, and I couldn’t keep my eyes open, which was painfully ironic.
He didn’t try to comfort me, and oddly, I was grateful for it.
Hollow reassurances would only have made me feel worse.
We drove off in my Dodge, just the two of us, before the sun had fully set, the grimoire buried deep inside his raincoat.
A deserted strip mall was our first stop.
I waited in the car, staring at the washed-out storefronts while Nick ran his errand.
He’d been gone for over half an hour, but I didn’t ask what he had been doing there.
He wasn’t in the mood for questions, and I figured he’d tell me only what he thought I needed to know.
Besides, I was only half-present, reality coming in pieces, shifting and uneven.
I wondered if death row inmates ever truly grasped what was coming. How does anyone comprehend the world without themselves in it? My brain couldn’t wrap around the thought. In a few hours, I might be gone. Would I really just... end?
I held on to every shred of control I had, keeping my panic at bay. But as we neared the trailhead, my breathing turned shallow, and my pulse spiked. This was it. We were doing this.
We’d parked farther down the road to keep the car out of sight.
"You okay to walk?" Nick asked, as if I had a choice. I gave a tight nod, and we stepped into the woods.
Veering off the main path at night was dangerous, but remaining on it posed a bigger threat. Robert and his people were probably nearby.
The canopy above absorbed what little daylight remained.
We set out while the sun still peered over the mountains, but now the forest had grown murky and still.
The humidity clung to me, sticky and suffocating.
Sweat slid down my back, but I zipped my raincoat up, trapping the heat inside.
I didn’t dare take it off. It was the only thing separating me from the world around us.
"Let’s not use the flashlights unless we absolutely have to," Nick said.
It seemed like the perfect time to turn one on—I could barely see ten feet in front of me. But he was right—a moving light would give us away, and as long as the sky stayed clear, we had just enough visibility.
Nick checked the route on his watch and moved forward. I stayed close behind.
Every so often, I brushed against rough bark or slipped on rocks, my heart skipping with each stumble.
Occasionally, a branch cracked somewhere off the path, probably an animal, but the sounds stayed distant, never drawing closer.
I kept reminding myself that if Robert or his men meant to stop us, they would have done so already. We were only two, and unarmed.
But a part of me wasn’t afraid anymore.
A part of me was so tired, so hollowed out, it almost wished for the end.
The wind seeped through the leafy expanse above, and the trees creaked out a rasping murmur. They had seen this before, other lives walking toward the same trap. We weren’t the first. Just the latest, marching obediently into Robert’s snare.
Above us, the moon was a pale disk staring down at me. I stopped walking.
"What is it?" Nick halted, shoulders tense, and followed my gaze. "It’s okay. Let’s keep moving. We’re not far now."
I don’t know how he spotted the sigil in the dark, but there it was.
Holding the blade in his dominant hand, he hesitated long enough for a tremor to show.
He cut right beside his previous offering, now scabbed and healing.
Blood trickled down the bark like tears.
Nick pulled down his sleeve, and we moved on.
We had to ford the creek, avoiding the weathered bridge. Though the water was shallow, we were soaked up to our knees. I lingered, scanning the area. There was no one around, but the nagging sense of being watched wouldn’t leave. Nick grasped my arm and pulled me forward.
"We need to keep moving."
As we crossed, the sounds around us dulled, like they had the first time we came here. Or perhaps it was only my imagination. Only the soft squelch of our soaked shoes against the forest floor broke the stillness. The darkness thickened.
I didn’t have the energy to worry about snakes or spiders. My eyes kept drifting skyward. I knew the full moon’s technical peak lasted only a moment—a fleeting alignment—but each time that cold, perfect circle broke through the clouds, my stomach dropped.
We trudged through thick underbrush, losing all sense of direction and time. It was like drifting through space, cold, vast, and unending.
Nick’s pace quickened, pushing me to my limits. Then, without warning, he stopped. I stumbled, barely avoiding his back.
"Here we are," he whispered, pointing toward the nearest tree. I couldn’t see anything, but maybe his eyes had adjusted better than mine.
He shrugged off his backpack and pulled something out.
A rugged, heavy-duty knife with a broad blade.
Freed from its holster, it caught the moonlight, razor-sharp. I recoiled on instinct.
"What is it?"
"A Ka-Bar," he said, as if the name should explain everything. "Mitch gave it to me."
I wondered why he hadn’t used this blade on himself. Maybe it was just too sharp—sharp enough to cut through the darkness—and he was worried that as dusk deepened, he might cut too deep.
He pulled out a sealed antiseptic wipe, opened it, and carefully cleaned the blade. Once it was done, he slid it back into its holster, tucked it into the deep pocket of his raincoat, and turned to face me.
"Listen, we have a slim chance, but I need to cut through the sigil. To change its meaning. Understand?"
My breathing grew shallow. Nick placed his hands on my shoulders.
"You can do this."
I nodded, my throat dry.
"One more thing. Sacrifices must be willing for them to work. Don’t go willingly, no matter what."
It could mean a million different things.
Consent was supposed to be a clear, unbroken line.
But people bent it all the time, saying if you didn’t run fast enough, didn’t scream loud enough, didn’t fight hard enough, maybe you’d allowed it.
So, where did it leave me? If I kept resisting, would that be enough to survive the night?
Or did I have to claw and crawl and fight every second, never stop, never slip, to prove I still wanted to live?
Because if I had faltered, even for a breath, had the darkness already counted me as willing?
"Follow my instructions," Nick said. "If I say run, you run. Don’t look back."
"But—"
"No buts. Do you trust me?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Not really."
Nick had left his backpack in the forest so he wouldn’t have to carry it with him, since everything important was already out.
The world tilted. My ears rang louder, time stretched thin, and every step felt like pushing through water. I forced a slow, deliberate breath. It’s just panic, I told myself.
We moved into the clearing with caution, every sense stretched tight. I expected flames at the edges, figures in masks waiting, but there was nothing. It looked deserted.
The barn door hung crooked, its lock blasted open in the state we’d left it.
Nick’s grip tightened around my arm as he led me to the stone altar, the same slab where they’d burned a symbol into my skin only two nights ago. His face stayed calm, but the stiff precision of every measured step betrayed the pressure mounting beneath it.
Movement stirred at the edge of the clearing, where forest shadows bled into open space. Figures emerged slowly, one by one, lighting torches until the clearing glowed with flickering orange light. There were six of them. As before, all but one wore their grotesque stag skull masks.
Only Robert stood unmasked. The coven leader faced us, flame light dancing in the lenses of his glasses.
Nick didn’t flinch. He stepped forward, placing himself squarely between me and them.
"A little dramatic, don’t you think?" he said, nodding toward the torches.
Robert shook his head. "Feels more genuine to me. Fire’s a purifier, after all."
"I doubt it helps."
"Why did you come here?"
"You know why, Robert." Nick’s tone stayed even.
Robert tilted his head, smiling faintly as he adjusted his glasses. "Nick Boyd," he intoned the name, as if tasting it carefully on his tongue. "You seem to know me right well. But nobody’s rightly sure who you are."
"I like my privacy," Nick replied, eyes locked on his.
That part was true. Nick was the only person I knew with no digital footprint. No social media. No trace.
Robert remained calm. The figures beside him didn’t move an inch.
"I reckon you’ve got the grimoire, seein’ as you’re here. But I gotta wonder, what makes you think you can use it?"
His gaze shifted, like something had just occurred to him. He looked around slowly.
"Where are the other two? The boy and the girl?"
The masked men turned, checking the tree line as if expecting an ambush. They moved slowly, deliberately, silent figures with horned, skull-like faces, like ghosts caught in ritual. I wondered if they were even real.
Nick cut in. "What did their sister want? Amanda. She came to you willingly, didn’t she? You must remember her wish. What did you promise her?"
Robert sighed and held a deliberate pause, glaring at Nick, as though trying to read his mind. When he spoke again, his voice carried new confidence.
"Freedom from it all. From the ghosts in her head, from the hurt, from... her family."
"And you delivered," Nick said, his tone empty.
Robert stepped forward. His people mirrored the motion, closing in.
But Nick didn’t flinch. Slowly, he reached into his coat and pulled out the grimoire.
Robert’s eyes homed in on the leather-bound book with instant recognition. He stiffened. His followers paused, too, instinctively waiting for his next move.