Chapter 25
AMELIA
Whatever happened back there, I didn’t want to know. The memory of that twisted inn and the strange woman’s eyes lingered in my mind like a fog I couldn’t shake. The crumbling inn had looked like a decaying corpse as we drove past it.
There was no trace of a building at all, just ruins piled upon the ground. A chill ran down my spine as I remembered the way the shadows had seemed to reach out, as if they were alive, hungry for something. Or someone.
I felt as if we had trespassed on forbidden ground, one which we never should have stumbled upon.
Caiden refused to talk about it. He stared straight ahead, focused on driving far away from where we were.
I could sense the tension radiating off him. It mirrored my own feelings. Anxiety coiling in my stomach, reminding me of that night in Colorado when we had been trapped in Blake’s cabin.
The memories flooded back unbidden: the darkness, the feeling of being hunted, the terror that had seeped into my bones.
I glanced at Caiden, his profile illuminated by the dashboard lights, shadowed and brooding.
“Are you okay?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper, but I knew he wasn’t. I could see it in the way he clenched his jaw, the way his brow furrowed deep in thought.
“Yeah,” he replied. I could sense the panic simmering just beneath the surface, a tempest brewing in his mind.
The two-lane back roads were anxiety-inducing; anything could happen in the secluded trees. The ominous silence was almost deafening, the only sound being the tires crunching over gravel and the faint hum of the engine.
I felt like we were driving through a tunnel of shadows, the trees looming on either side, dark and watchful.
“Do you think we’re safe now?” I asked, unable to keep the tremor out of my voice.
“Yeah, we’re fine,” he stated, but the way he didn’t meet my gaze told me he wasn’t convinced.
I checked the GPS on my phone, my heart sinking as I realized we were behind schedule due to the stormy disaster. We should have been arriving in Pathosbury today, but now we were going to have to make another stop for the night since it was around 11 in the morning when we left the mystery town.
“What’s wrong?” Caiden asked, glancing at me, his eyes flickering with concern.
“The GPS says we’re behind. As much as I want to stay on course, I am getting hungry. We might need to stop for food soon.”
“Yeah, I could use a break,” he replied.
We pulled into a small diner that looked like it had seen better days. The neon sign buzzed, flickering erratically.
“Let’s sit at the counter,” I suggested, feeling the need to ground myself in something familiar.
As we slid onto the worn stools, I noticed the waitress eyeing us with a mix of curiosity and concern. She was older, her hair pulled back in a braid, and her apron was splattered with grease. “What can I get you?” she asked, her voice warm but tinged with a hint of weariness.
“Coffee and a couple of burgers, please,” Caiden ordered, his voice steady, though I could see the tension still lurking in his eyes.
“Coming right up,” she replied, moving away with a practiced ease.
“So,” I said, trying to fill the silence, “what do you think we’ll find when we get to Pathosbury?”
“Honestly?” Caiden said, leaning forward against the counter. “I have no idea. I just know it’s going to be hard.”
“Yeah, hard doesn’t even begin to cover it,” I replied, the weight of it pressing down on me. I could feel the memories bubbling to the surface, the pain of my childhood, the neglect, the anger. “I can’t believe I’m actually going back.”
"It will be weird, that's for sure," he said, his eyes glazing over as if lost in memories.
“What if I can’t face her? What if I can’t bury her?” My throat tightened with panic.
“You can,” he said firmly, his gaze piercing into me. “You’re not alone in this. I’ll be right there with you.”
I wanted to believe him, to trust that I could lean on him, but the fear was suffocating, pulling me into its mouth.
“Just breathe,” he said, as if sensing my turmoil. “We’ll take it one step at a time.”
“Just don’t be offended if I start feeling moody. Burying my dead mother and being back in the town where you and I hated each other, it might be too much.” It was strange, Caiden and I returning to our hometown as friends, not enemies.
“I understand, Amelia. No worries.”
He reassured me, but I could see the conflict on his face. I knew it would be hard for him too, being in an environment where he suffered horrible memories, conditioned to hate me and act as a monster.
The waitress returned with our food, and I forced myself to eat, even though the bite of the burger felt like lead in my stomach. Caiden was quiet, lost in thought.
As we finished our meal, I glanced out the window, the sky darkening again as storm clouds gathered in the distance. “We should probably get going,” I said, trying to shake off the unease that clung to me like a shadow.
“Yeah,” Caiden agreed, his voice low and focused.
Once the food was paid for, we got back on the road.
Caiden drove with one hand on the wheel, his eyes focused straight ahead in a way I recognized as both careful and completely disconnected. He didn’t speak, not unless necessary.
We existed in different corners of the car, marooned islands separated by a sea of unspoken words.
You’d think I would be used to the silence. Growing up, there were long stretches where Mom would disappear into her room for days, and I’d perform for an empty audience in the living room, perfecting the art of making myself invisible.
But this was a new kind of silence: active, buzzing, the kind that vibrates with everything you don’t want to say.
I glanced at Caiden’s profile. It was hard to reconcile the memory of his hands on me—rough, needy, and almost gentle—with the rigid, statue-like boy driving this car.
The GPS miles whizzed by in a blurry, erratic mess; every blink caused the numbers to jump and reset, making it impossible to track my progress. My head felt thick and jittery.
When I was eight, after Mom vanished for two days during a snowstorm, I made a habit of counting things: the cracks in the living room ceiling, the seconds between thunder and lightning, the cigarette butts Mom left half-smoked beside the sink.
It was a way of organizing chaos, of believing I could quantify the emptiness and, in tallying it, make it less.
My thoughts spiraled, gathering speed. I wondered what I’d say to the funeral director, if my mom would look like a stranger in the casket, if I’d cry at all.
What if I laughed? Sometimes that happened, when things got too heavy, I’d burst out in a weird snort I couldn’t control, and then people would stare like I’d ruined everything.
I’d be the girl who laughed at her own mom’s funeral, the girl who couldn’t even pull off grief the right way.
A curve in the road jolted me back to the present. Caiden braked a little too hard, and the tires squealed.
I could tell he was trying to hold himself together for my sake, but I didn’t want him to. I wanted him to come undone so I wouldn’t have to be the only one.
We drove past a gas station; its windows smeared with condensation and streaked with grime. There was a kid smoking outside, feet scuffing the wet pavement.
He watched our car crawl by with a blank, predatory gaze, like he already knew every bad thing that had ever happened and nothing surprised him anymore. I felt like that kid sometimes.
Sometimes, I felt like I could be that kid.
The road narrowed, trees crowding in closer, branches scratching at the sky with their black, splintered fingers. I let myself slip into the sensory details: the chill of the air leaking through the vent, the scent of wet pine, and the sound of Caiden’s controlled breaths.
It was after nine when we crossed another state line, and from there, the road turned smaller. The old maples and oaks pressed close, branches scraping the roof like fingernails. The road narrowed, then broke apart into pothole clusters.
Caiden swore under his breath a few times, more out of habit than frustration, but it felt like the words lingered longer, echoed off the frostbitten air.
I lost track of time. It was easy to do, especially at night on back roads, where every mile looked like the one before.
I found myself staring at my reflection in the passenger window, the ghost of my face flickering over the blur of trees. My own eyes looked haunted, hollowed out, and rimmed in red.
Mom would have said I looked like her after a bad night. I could almost hear her voice, slurred and trailing off, like a record player running out of juice: “You got my eyes, babe. My whole damn curse.” Sometimes she’d laugh at that. Sometimes she’d cry.
My chest ached. It felt like there wasn’t enough space inside me for all of it. The grief, the fear, the stupid, choking guilt that burrowed in somewhere behind my ribs and just stayed there, gnawing.
I remembered Mom’s hands, shaking as she lit her cigarettes, even at the kitchen table in the morning. She’d try to hide it, but her knuckles would knock against the lighter.
I blinked hard, vision swimming with the memory of those hands, the little burns on her fingers from when she smoked in bed.
I could never decide which was worse: the months when she was on a bender, gone and lightless, or the months when she was clean and every minute a slow-motion apology for things she’d never be able to name, let alone undo.
Waiting for her inevitable relapse, where it would all reset.
I’d barely said a word for at least an hour. I wondered if Caiden clocked it, if every minute he tallied up my silence and felt it as a personal failing. I doubted he did.
Boys like him were raised on the myth that shutting up was strength. He’d learned to ration his words, to never let the important ones slip out unless he was sure they wouldn’t get thrown back in his face.