Chapter 16
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
SANORA
I didn’t remember falling asleep, but the sky outside had dimmed into evening, and my limbs moved on autopilot as I padded downstairs to retrieve my laptop and phone, both of which I’d abandoned before I’d, you know, snuck into Thrax’s room like a totally normal, mentally sound person.
A yawn tore out of me just as I reached the last step, my jaw wide open like a cave, turning to see Thrax slouched on the couch, phone in hand, eyes on screen.
At least, they were—until they flicked up to me.
His gaze landed on my face mid-yawn, lingered half a second, then dropped back to his phone like I wasn’t even worth the flick of his eyes.
Oh. That was cold.
Fine. I could be cold too.
I turned away, heading for the kitchen where I’d left my things, ignoring the invisible tension pulsing in the room like heat from a shut oven. My laptop sat on the counter, but the lid had been closed. I knew I’d left it open.
I turned back to him, hands fisted, mouth parting to snap at him to stop touching my stuff, but instead I sighed, rolled my eyes, and grabbed both devices. No point wasting breath on someone who acted like I was the intrusive one in his house.
I started back up the stairs.
One step. Two steps. By the third, the silence was itching against my skull.
I knew why. And I hated it. I’d made it weird. And even worse, he looked like he didn’t care.
Which was rich, considering he’d shown up with his belongings, barged into my space, and hadn’t apologised once.
So why the hell did I feel like I owed him an apology when I did nothing wrong?
Three more steps up the stairs and I turned around, frowning, arms folded over my laptop.
“I didn’t sneak in. You know I didn’t. You heard the door. Which means I wanted you to hear it.” The lie was much said in a flat tone.
His eyes lifted from his phone again, slow and unimpressed. He took me in standing halfway up the stairs and tilted his head. “That explains why you were in the wardrobe.”
I choked, nearly forgetting about that misfortune.
“That—that was not— It’s not what it looked like.
I wasn’t hiding, okay? I slipped and...fell inside and—” I exhaled sharply.
“So what? I snuck into your room and hid in the wardrobe. So what? You’ve done worse and never apologised.
I’m not about to say sorry for trying to find proof that you’re some dangerous psycho. ”
“I don’t want an apology from you,” he said firmly. “Why would you apologise to me?”
Oh.
Right.
He wouldn’t want an apology because if our positions were reversed, he wouldn’t give one either. Did he have no sense of privacy? Privacy didn’t seem like something he offered unless it benefited him. But considering how he pulled me out of his room after I opened that scar, he definitely had.
Ah. That.
I exhaled and shifted the laptop to one arm, tucking my hair behind my ear with my free hand. “I wasn’t crying because of you,” I said stiffly, unable to look at him for too long. “Don’t get the wrong idea. I don’t give a fuck—”
“I know,” he said, calm and certain, eyes locked on mine like he didn’t doubt it for a second.
“You…do?”
He nodded once.
I blinked, swallowing down something tangled in my throat.
“And also,” I discarded my pride because this was the only thing I actually felt sorry for, “I didn’t mean to look at…
it. The scar. I crossed a line. I’m sorry.
” I had a scar of my own, and I understood because I might have felt the same way if he pulled down my shirt to look at it without permission.
He tilted his head again, eyes heating up. “I wish that apology was for seeing my dick. I’d have preferred you seeing that. But things don’t really go our way, do they?”
My mouth dropped open, my cheeks warming at the sudden way he said it. “You’re insane.”
The corner of his mouth pulled up in a smirk. “And you’re flustered, yeah? That’s new.”
I could feel the heat crawl up my neck, paint my cheeks, mortification and second-hand embarrassment fighting for first place in my chest.
Why did I even bother talking to him?
I scoffed under my breath, shook my head, and practically ran up the stairs because if I didn’t disappear right then, I was going to evaporate into a puddle of shame and punch that smirk off his weirdly good face.
Flashlights.
I closed the book in my hand and slid off the bed, padding barefoot to the window.
There was no moon tonight. Just a starless sky and a devouring black of Nimorran's hills, their familiar outlines smothered by the town’s constant fog.
But I’d seen a flicker of light near the mountains.
Or maybe not.
Maybe it was just a trick of the dark, or the headache blooming behind my eyes from reading too long.
Still, I stayed there, shoulders pressed against the windowpane, breath misting the cold glass, eyes locked on the vague outline of the hills, refusing to blink.
Because I wanted to be wrong. I really, really did. Nobody in their right mind would go near The Crater this late.
Not unless they wanted to die.
Flash.
It came again, cutting through the fog like a blade. It wavered in the sky, then vanished behind the hills. The beam moved up, circled, dropped, then went dark again.
I didn’t move. My spine had gone rigid.
Someone was out there.
Fucking insane.
Even I, who was gusty at odd times, wouldn’t go near a wrath at almost two a.m.
I shook my head as I returned to my bed, pulling the covers up around my legs and reopened the book that had failed to distract me for hours now.
It was a legend, one I’d read before. A tragic tale about two lovers who were executed for the crime of loving each other.
Classic. They were dragged to the town square, the woman heavy with child, and executed under the ruler’s orders.
While their blood soaked the ground, their souls didn’t cross over.
The rage held them here. All three. They twisted into spirits of vengeance—ghosts too furious to rest. They haunted the town, their sorrow bleeding into the air, turning it sour.
Their town turned cursed. At first, numerous magicians and all sorts of priests tried to cure the land but they all paid with their lives.
Death followed, then disappearances. Ten years later, ninety percent of the townspeople were gone—most by suicide.
Some disappeared, including the ruler, and the land was left barren.
That wasn’t even the only story.
I’d read nineteen other accounts of towns wiped off the map by things people couldn’t explain. Always after some great injustice.
Very few towns lasted more than a few centuries.
Except Nimorran.
Nimorran had existed since the beginning of time—or so the stories said.
Of course, it used to be bigger. It stretched endlessly once, flourishing in magic and wonder.
Then The Crater happened, a wound that split the land wide open.
The magic vanished, people vanished, the land shrank, and Nimorran was reduced to this.
A town growing smaller and quieter each year.
Flash. Flash. Side to side. Flash.
The light was still there.
I narrowed my eyes, getting irritated. It swirled upward, hovered, then dropped again.
Who the hell was out there playing tag with death?
Lightning struck in the night sky, followed by the jarring sound of thunder.
I clenched my jaw and sank deeper into the sheets, trying to convince myself that it didn’t matter, that it wasn’t my business, that whoever it was—ghost hunter, lost tourist, ritual-chasing nutcase—could enjoy their last few minutes alive without dragging me into it.
I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply.
Sleep. I needed sleep.
If someone wanted to get themselves dragged into the afterlife by something with a grudge, fine. Just do it somewhere I couldn’t see it from my window, ugh.
I was trying to force myself to sleep when a screech split the silence.
It ripped across the sky like it had claws, sharp, high and full of emotions. I jolted, heart stalling in my chest. It came from the hills, from the direction of The Crater. But it was too far to hear someone from there. Much too far. Even if they screamed.
And yet—
My chest tightened, as though an invisible hand hooked its fingers into my sternum and tugged. It was the pull. The strange thing that made my chest ache towards The Crater.
Don’t.
The Crater is only a thing leading you to your death, I reminded myself.
I turned my gaze away from the window, tried to curl back completely under the sheets and pretend that I could close my eyes and block it out, pretend I wasn’t the kind of girl who’d chase darkness just to prove they only existed in one’s mind.
But I knew better. I could lie and convince everyone but myself. There was no way I’d sleep knowing there was someone out there, not after that screech, not when my chest was tugging towards the hills.
“Ugh,” I grumbled under my breath as I stood up from the bed. “Fuck this. Fuck me. I should have slept.”
I grabbed my sweaters and coats and threw them on until I felt weighed down, properly wrapped for frostbite or monsters or both. I snatched up the car key from the desk and jogged downstairs.
I paused at the bottom of the stairs and looked back. Thrax’s door was shut, no lights and no sound. He still wasn’t back from wherever he’d left for around eleven p.m.
Unfortunate.
Stepping outside, I slid into the car and turned the key. The engine hummed, the headlights pushing out into the mist. I drove.
Straight towards the hills, head straight into danger.