Chapter 26 Dawn Of Dread #3
The question hung in the air, a crude attempt at levity in the face of something truly monstrous. Florence’s lips twitched, but it was Aiden who stepped in, voice thick with warning.
“Don’t say that where they can hear you. One of them hexed a dude’s Honda into reverse gear for two years because he cut her in line at the bakery.”
I blinked, conjuring the vision of a mid-sized sedan forever moonwalking down Main Street.
“Good,” I said, my voice breaking with a flicker of something like relief. “I like them already.”
Florence didn’t smile, but her shoulders loosened. She moved with the sudden, fierce efficiency of someone who’d just made up her mind. “We need to go now. The longer we stay, the more likely it is that someone else will catch the scent.”
My pulse kicked at the base of my throat. “Who?” I said, unable to keep the tremor out of my voice.
Florence’s answer landed with the weight of a gravestone. “The kinds of beings who can smell power like blood in the water.”
Aiden’s handshake tightened around his keys. Cody, who’d been lurking in the shadow of the fridge, suddenly looked a lot less eager to be in the room. Even Mateo, in the depths of his fever, seemed to sense the stakes. He whimpered, small and mournful.
I was at his side in a blink, brushing the damp hair from his brow, murmuring comfort I wasn’t sure I believed. Aiden hovered at my shoulder, his presence deliberate but gentle. He laid a hand on my back, the heat of it grounding me in a way that was both infuriating and necessary.
I couldn’t shake the feeling curling in my gut, that everything I thought I knew was about to be ripped away.
Florence snapped her bag shut. “Pack a bag,” she said. “Nothing fancy. We’ll be gone a day, maybe two. Bring snacks and a comfort item for the boy. If you’ve got salt, or a silver charm, bring that too.”
The pragmatic, almost maternal cadence of her instructions kept me moving even as my brain lagged a mile behind.
I found myself tearing through drawers, yanking t-shirts and sweatpants into a duffel bag, and grabbing the battered stuffed wolf Mateo still slept with every night, Shadow, because “wolves don’t sleep alone,” and which was missing one eye and most of its stuffing.
My hands shook, but my movements were precise.
I hesitated at the threshold of Mateo’s room. The air in there was still, thick with the scent of fever and the something else, something old. I grabbed his blanket and tucked it under his arm. He clung to it even in sleep.
Back in the living room, Aiden and Florence had fallen into a quiet dance. He was on the phone, voice clipped and urgent. Florence was at the window, peering through the blinds. Cody paced by the door, a bundle of static energy.
I should have been scared out of my mind, but what I really felt was anger. How dare the world come for my kid? The rage was hot and clean, scalding away the uncertainty until all that was left was the need to protect.
Aiden hung up, slid his phone into his pocket, and turned to me. “Car’s out front. You ready?”
I looked at Mateo, then at the duffel bag, then back at my son. “I don’t have a choice, do I?”
Aiden’s expression was gentle but unyielding. “You do. But if you stay, you’re putting him at risk.”
I shouldered the bag, heart thundering in my chest. “Let’s go, then.”
Florence went to Mateo’s side, lifting him with surprising strength. She wrapped him in his blanket, cradling him as if she’d done it a thousand times before. Mateo’s eyelids fluttered, but he didn’t wake.
The stairwell felt endless, and the air outside was heavy with humidity. The sun was high and relentless, casting a golden hue over the city. Outside, it was all so normal, so offensively mundane, that I almost laughed.
Cody jogged ahead, scanning the street like a Secret Service agent on his first day. He unlocked the back door of a black SUV, ushering Florence and Mateo inside. I slid in after them.
Aiden took the driver’s seat, hands steady on the wheel. “It’s about a four-hour drive,” he said, eyes flicking to the rearview. “We’ll stop if he needs it.”
Florence nodded, her attention fixed on Mateo. We pulled away from the curb, the city receding behind us like a bad memory. I leaned my head against the window; the midday sun poured through the windshield, casting sharp shadows that danced across the seats.
For a while, no one spoke.
After what felt like hours, Florence glanced at me. “You’re a good mother, you know.”
I didn’t answer. The compliment felt like salt on a wound.
She reached over, squeezing my hand with a grip that bordered on painful. “He’s strong. He gets that from you.”
The words made something in me break loose.
I pressed my forehead to Mateo’s, whispering into his hair, “I’m here, baby. I’m not going anywhere.”
Aiden drove in silence, his eyes never straying from the road.
Cody tapped furiously at his phone, scrolling through what looked like pages and pages of code, maps, and encrypted messages.
Once, he caught me watching and flashed a tired smile.
“Just making sure we’re not being followed,” he said, as if that was a perfectly normal thing to be doing while weaving through the winding roads leading upstate toward the Adirondacks.
Florence caught me looking, and her eyes crinkled in the corners. “My sisters will be ready for us,” she said. “Just keep him close.”
I did.
We hit the open road, the city thinning behind us until it was nothing but a smear in the rearview mirror. Mateo’s fever burned against my chest, a living thing wedged between us, and I kept my arms tight around him.
Gravel replaced asphalt. The air became crisp on the edges.
At some point, Cody started humming along to a song on the radio. Just yesterday, it would have irritated the hell out of me. Today, it was a sign of life.
When Aiden turned onto an unmarked access road, the SUV lurched over potholes deep enough to rattle my teeth. I braced Mateo’s head and met Florence’s eyes in the dim light. She nodded once.
“Where exactly are we going?” My voice still carried the grit of panic.
“To see Sister Ethel. She lives near Pharaoh Lake. Warded cabin. Few can find it,” she replied.
“Comforting.”
Aiden gave a soft, dry snort up front, but didn’t look back.
“You okay?” He asked me.
I looked down at Mateo. “I will be, when he is.”
The woods closed in as the road narrowed to dirt. Branches scraped the SUV like claws. The GPS had given up fifteen minutes ago.
“Tell me we’re not about to get axe-murdered in the woods,” I told no one in particular.
“Child, you should be more worried about what’s trying to murder you outside the woods,” Florence replied.
I didn’t ask her to elaborate.
Then the forest broke.
A clearing. Fog coiled low across the ground. At its center stood a crooked cabin, old as rumor and half-swallowed by shadow, the kind of place you only find in fairytales or the closing scene of a horror movie.
It looked ancient, but solid. Smoke curled from the chimney. Symbols marked the doorframe in tight, unfamiliar spirals. Bone and glass chimes whispered in the wind. The air smelled of moss and firewood, damp earth and something faintly metallic, like old blood.
Aiden killed the engine. No one moved.
“Leave your fear at the threshold. Ethel doesn’t like it when people bleed energy all over her wards,” Florence said as a warning.
I didn’t answer. I gathered Mateo carefully. He felt too light in my arms.
Aiden opened the back door and offered his hands to help. I almost didn’t take them.
Almost.
But his grip was steady. Warm. Human.
And right now, that was the one thing I needed most.