Page 22 of Marked By His Hunger
The sky above the airport hung low and dark, and I could swear I heard something—a sound like a lion’s roar, only deeper. Older.
Darker. Lonelier.
Whatever.
It was probably a plane engine echoing wrong in the clouds.
Still my skin prickled.
It was only the first day, and I was already a bundle of nerves. I’d spent so much of my life pretending my preternatural abilities weren’t real.
Pretending I wasn’t different.
Pretending I wasn’t haunted.
It had taken me years to understand I wasn’t insane.
Sure, I’d terrified my aunt and uncle when I was six by telling them my grandmother wasn’t happy about them selling her wedding crystal.
At the time, I didn’t understand why that upset them so much.
Aunt Gabby was my mom’s only sister.
She and Uncle Patrick had taken me in after my parents died in a car accident coming home from the movies.
Drunk driver.
Yeah. It sucked.
Aunt Gabby had been furious when I told her Grandma stood at the kitchen counter every night, shaking her head at the missing crystal.
I wasn’t lying.
But how was six-year-old me supposed to know I was the only one who could see them?
Who were they?
Simple answer?
They’re the ones I called the others.
The dead.
Poltergeists. Shadows. Spectres. Spirits.
Ghosts.
And the truth?
They were everywhere.
“You lost, miss?”
I turned to see a park security officer near the tree line of the preserve. My rideshare had dropped me off near the trailhead like the letter instructed.
“I’m headed to the, um, private preserve entrance?” I said carefully. “There’s supposed to be a research group meeting?”
His gaze skimmed over me.
