Page 48 of (Mostly) Human Resources

“Yes, your Mama.” Silas took a step forward, blocking her from Waylan’s view. “Run along home now. It’s getting real dark.”

Easy as that, Waylan left. Just turned around and vanished into the woods, taking his glowing white eyes and desperation along with him.

The erratic rhythm of Alexys’s heart finally started to slow.

“I thought Haints were just house-dwelling spirits,” she said. “Shaking furniture, knocking over glasses, that sort of thing. He seemed so normal, felt normal—Itouchedhim.” The mocking lift of Silas’s brow made her swiftly lose confidence. “I didn’t know they could be corporeal.”

“In fact, they can.” Silas sounded like a professor trying to patiently give one of his students a remedial lecture that was so eerily reminiscent of Nic but far less enjoyable. “Ghosts, spirits, Haints, it’s all rather circumstantial. It’s not uncommon for them to find their way into homes, especially if that house is located on the land theyused to live on. However, some can get trapped within a much larger space.”

He nodded his head in the direction Waylan had fled.

Alexys looked around them at the seemingly empty and eerily quiet forest. “Waylan is trapped here?”

“In a sense.” His smirk was a cold thing that sent chills skittering across her skin. “When poor Waylan was alive, he used to play in the woods near his house. He was always warned to come back before dark lest he get lost and never make it home.” Silas exhaled. “When Waylan died, he was on his way home, but he didn’t make it back, so his restless spirit attempts the same trip, at the same time, every day.”

“Poor Waylan.” Her heart broke a little for the boy, even if he was a Haint.

“Poor Waylan, indeed.” Silas sounded anything but empathetic. He was looking at her with a calculated expression that set her even further on edge. “But you shouldn’t pity him too much, Miss Keane.”

Alexys frowned at him. “Why not? It’s a horrible fate to suffer for eternity, especially for a child.”

Silas beamed at her, but it was a cruel expression. “That it is, but what do you think happens to those who happen upon him in the woods, hmm? Who try to help him get home?” Images of the white-eyed ghost that chased her through the woods caused her breath to hitch.

“You’d do well to remember,” Silas said, shrugging thoughtlessly, “there are always two sides to a story: the monster and the victim. But who plays which role is determined entirely by perspective.”

She tried not to picture the dark spirit Waylan had become. Alexys wanted to remember the barefoot little boy holding up the pill bugs for her inspection. The crooked smile framed by freckles and dirt.

“How did he die?” she asked.

“That,” Silas said firmly, “is a story better left untold.” Alexys narrowed her eyes at him. “Anyhow, you should return to Opal’s house before it gets much later. Head straight between those trees, and you’ll eventually get there.” He turned his back on her. “Make haste, Miss Keane. I don’t have the patience to rescue you a second time.”

“Wait,” she called before he could walk too far. “I still don’t understand. Why are you here? Why did you save me? And what does this have to do with my Warden?”

Silas stopped. He didn’t turn around, and for a moment Alexys wondered if he was going to answer. Then he said, “Your Warden is of little consequence to me, but as for you, your time has not yet come. And when it does, it certainly won’t be at the hands of a Haint.”

He then walked through the trees and disappeared.

CHAPTER 28

“There is nothing more exhilarating than surviving the impossible.”

Journals of Reaper J. T. Cross

With the woods now behind her, Alexys collapsed onto the steps of Opal’s porch and immediately peeled off her wet socks and shoes. Her feet were throbbing, she most certainly had blisters forming, and she needed a hot shower with the world’s strongest loofa.

After an entire day spent in the woods, Alexys wasn’t entirely convinced she’d not dreamed the whole thing. Silas Lockwood; Waylan; thewhistling.But all those hours and still no closer to finding Elliot. She had been pushed to her limits, and the guilt that nagged at her only made it worse.

“Ow!” She grazed a small cut along her leg, likely from the brambles she’d trampled. “The outdoors can fuck right off,” she muttered to herself as she rubbed her aching feet. “So can all of West Virginia, for that matter.”

“What a horrible thing to say.”

Alexys froze.

She closed her eyes, took a deep breath and begged the voice to be a hallucination. After everything she’d just experienced, surely she was owed a little good karma from the universe. When she opened her eyes and looked out, she counted the cars parked in front of Opal’s house and frowned when she saw there were still only two.

Glaring over her shoulder, she asked, “And just how the hell did you get here?”

Nic Dyre smiled at her from Opal’s front door. “Good evening to you, too, Keane.”