Chapter 5
Chapter
Five
“Louis!” I scream, looking back at him.
My fiancé trails after us, but he doesn’t try to stop his family from manhandling me. His mother and sister-in-law bow their heads together on the couch, whispering behind their hands as they watch their husbands drag me from the room.
“Wait,” Louis says weakly, as I’m half carried, half dragged down the hallway in front of him. “She still doesn’t understand. I need to make sure she’s taking this seriously.”
“She’ll learn soon enough,” his father says. His hands are shockingly strong, gripping me so hard I’m sure his fingers are leaving bruises on my bicep.
“Or she won’t,” his brother says. His grip isn’t as hard, but his nails dig into my skin, pinching me in a way I’m sure is intentional.
They force me down the stairs, and the front door looms in my vision. My feet slip against the smooth hardwood floors as I try—in vain—to slow myself down. They’re actually going to throw me outside, onto the icy mountaintop.
They’re going to kill me for the sake of some stupid game. For the sake of family tradition.
Some part of me is still holding back. Still desperate to prove that I’m one of them. But instinct rears its ugly head within me.
There’s a fluttering panic in my chest. The fear of an animal driven into a corner. I haven’t felt this way since high school, when my first con fell to pieces after someone dug into my parents. A trio of girls cornered me in the bathroom, calling out my lies and taunting me about my family.
In that moment, like this one, I can feel the world crumbling under my feet.
It gives me that same sensation I imagine I’d get it I flung myself off the side of the building.
That sense of falling from a great height, but for a second, I’m free.
Because I realize that whatever happens next doesn’t matter.
Which means I can do whatever the fuck I want, for once. No more use pretending.
I do now what I did back in high school. I focus on the hand in front of my face, open my mouth, and bite until I taste blood.
Adrian yelps and releases me. I turn, teeth bared and copper on my tongue, toward Louis’s father.
I catch a glimpse of Louis over his shoulder. I’ve always wondered what expression he would wear if he saw the real me, all of that feral anger I keep buried so deep. I’ve pictured him as horrified, shocked, afraid, angry. But instead he just looks… disgusted.
It makes me pause. Makes my gut twitch in instinctive self-reproach. And in that split second of hesitation, Louis’s father twists both of my arms behind my back, so fast and powerful it leaves me dizzy.
“Unacceptable behavior,” he says, scolding me like I’m a child.
Then he continues marching me toward the front door.
My heart sinks. Even if I got away, where was I going to run? There’s nowhere to go but out into the cold. Straight to certain death.
Just before we reach the doorway, Louis jumps in front of us. New hope flutters in my chest.
“Wait,” he says, holding up his hands. “I don’t want to send her out like this. She doesn’t understand. Let me talk to her.”
Louis’s father is silent for a long moment. Then he releases me. I stumble forward, and Louis catches me.
I look up at him, blinking away a blur of tears. “Thank you,” I whisper.
As he cups my face, I slip a hand into his pocket.
“It’s going to be okay,” Louis says. “I know this is a lot. But it’ll all be worth it in the morning, I promise. You just have to trust me.”
I nod, eyes locked on his, as I slowly pull my clenched hand back.
“I do,” I say, and knee him in the groin.
I rush past him and out the door, his car keys clutched in my fist.
After a pause to grab my coat and throw it over my shoulders, I step outside and pause again, my blind rage abating for a moment.
The world outside of the house has been transformed.
It’s dark, and the wind howls, biting at every bit of skin left exposed by my hasty preparations.
The temperature is so cold that it hurts to breathe.
And snow has started to fall, forming a white barrier that makes it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of me.
My stomach sinks. I can’t drive down the mountain in this. I also forgot my goddamn phone inside, I realize—not that I had any service as it is.
“Diana!”
I may be stuck here, but I’m not willing to face Louis and his family yet, so I slam the door behind me and plunge ahead.
At the very least, I can hang out in the car until my vision stops spinning.
Let Louis and his snobby relatives worry about me while they play their stupid game.
It’s petty, but the idea of ruining their fun gives me strength as I plunge ahead.
It’s insane how quickly the weather has changed.
The staircase is covered in fresh snow, and I can’t even see the bottom.
Still, I determinedly thump my way down, clinging to the railing to avoid slipping on ice.
When I hear the cabin door open behind me, I hobble faster, knowing that Louis must be on my heels.
The staircase is so long, and perilously slippery in the weather, but I manage to reach the bottom without falling.
One step onto open ground, and my boot plunges into snow up to my calf.
I grunt with effort as I lift it out again to take another step forward.
This one sends my foot even deeper and throws me off-balance.
Gritting my teeth, I push forward—but someone grabs my arm and pulls me to a stop.
Louis. I slap his hand away as I turn to face him. His cheeks are red from the cold, his blue eyes wide and pleading. He looks beautiful right now, like a winter prince carved from ice.
“Please listen to me,” he begs.
I set my jaw. “Why? So you and your family can laugh at my expense some more during your fucked-up hazing ritual?”
“Diana, I promise you, that’s not what’s happening here.”
“Then what? You expect me to believe that story was real?”
His face is grim. “Yes.”
I force a bitter laugh. “I may not be as educated as you and your family, Louis, but I’m not dumb.”
I turn away from him and resume struggling through the snow. The garage should be just a few yards away, but I can barely see a foot ahead of me in this snowstorm. I stick my hands out in front of me, feeling for the structure, but there’s only empty space.
“I need you to understand that this is real,” Louis shouts, still following me. “You could be in danger, Diana, if you don’t take this seriously!”
“In danger from Krampus?” I scream into the wind, not sure if he can even hear me. “Don’t be ridiculous!”
I take another step, and the world changes around me.
A hush falls, the howling of the wind turning to an abrupt silence.
The snow stops pelting my face, and the last few snowflakes drift slowly to the ground and settle there.
A sense of calm falls over the mountain landscape.
I blink snowflakes off my eyelids and go instinctively still.
Because while it is quiet, it is an eerie quiet; the quiet of a forest sensing a predator, an eye of the storm, a fear so deep you can’t bring yourself to scream.
As the storm dies down to a whisper, I can see again with perfect clarity. There is a sheet of unbroken white around us, stretching out in every direction. I can’t see the road anymore. The garage is… gone, somehow, as though it’s been erased from existence.
Louis reaches for me, but I pull away. “Diana, we need to go inside,” he says, a new urgency in his voice now. “Did you feel that? We just went through the veil. We’re in Krampus’s realm now.”
“His realm?”
Louis nods. “Modern technology doesn’t travel with us. It’s just us, and the cabin my grandfather built for this.”
It doesn’t make any sense. But when I spin in a circle, still looking in vain for the garage, there is nothing but snow and forest. I pause as my eyes land on the latter. The trees wear white coats of frost, but there is something dark between the trunks.
I blink, rub my eyes. What is that? I think, but I am too afraid to voice it. Louis is frozen and silent behind me, but I can hear his breath, growing faster as the seconds pass.
The darkness steps out from the trees. It is huge, and it is moving toward us.
“He’s coming,” Louis whispers. “Inside. Now!”
“What is that?” I stumble back, nearly slip on the ice again. Louis catches me around the waist and half drags me to the steps.
“I already told you,” he says. “Now go. We don’t have time for this.”
He pushes me, and I stumble up the long staircase, my head spinning. One of my boots slips on a patch of ice, and my stomach bottoms out as I tilt backward.
But two firm hands catch me.
“I’ve got you,” Louis says.
I glance back at him to whisper a thanks, and I see the whites of his eyes, blown wide in terror. That’s a kind of fear you can’t fake. It’s hard to wrap my mind around the idea this might be more than a prank, but after that glimpse I caught of something in the woods…
I swallow and rush up the steps to the front door. I grab the handle and yank, but nothing happens. I plant my feet and yank again, the metal’s chill biting into my palms, my shoulders braced with the strain.
Louis is there a second later, elbowing me aside. He grabs the handle and pulls as I retreat. I look around and realize that the windows on the front of the cabin are all now shuttered by metal, turning the cabin into a true fortress.
And the door isn’t budging.
“Is it jammed?” I whisper.
Louis ignores me, straining and straining, and then lets out a low growl of frustration. He bangs a fist against the door. “Hey!” he shouts. “Let me in!”
Icy fear splinters through my chest, sinks into my belly.
“Did somebody lock us out?” I ask, louder.
Louis ignores me, continuing to pound against the door with a growing intensity. “Adrian,” he shouts. “I know it’s you. This isn’t fucking funny!”
I look over my shoulder and my blood runs cold.
“Louis,” I whisper.
He continues pounding on the door and shouting, oblivious to my quiet terror.
“I swear to God, Adrian—”
“Louis,” I say, louder.
“—if you don’t open this door right now, I’ll—”
“Louis!” I shriek, and he finally stops.
He turns and sees what I see: the hulking creature at the bottom of the steps.