Page 75 of Kat Bethel

A sob broke from my chest. I slammed my head against the glass, as if that could knock some sense into me.

I should have let Abiel and Willow talk me off the ledge.

The light vanished, without warning or preamble.

It was as if someone turned off the sun. The same smothering darkness that I’d experience that night in the forest. The lights on the stores and the TVs of the shop popped and sprayed glass like rain. My breathing froze.

Abiel.

He was alive.

Relief washed over me.

The screams went up a notch as people processed that they were completely blind in this darkness. “What is happening?”

A roar rumbled behind me loud enough to vibrate the earth beneath my feet and my heart to pound in my ears. My eyes grew painfully wide.

That didn’t sound like he was in a forgiving mood. My fingers trembled and the urge to run hit like a freight train.

“Sasha,” echoed from the direction of the forest.

My breathing came in gasps of panic. He’d never called me by my government name before. I was his Dandelion.

Shame rolled down to my toes and back up again as if it wanted to make sure I understood the shit I was in.

Run.

Run!

Frantic screams filled the air, and I could only hope there were enough bodies to slow him down. The panic and fear was its own energy. It was the kind of fear that tainted the soil in the earth around it in ways that never faded.

Like it did in Dudleytown.

I felt along the wall of the building, to the door to the pharmacy I knew was to my left. The hot, jagged stone under my fingers gave way to glass, and I pulled open the door.

I needed a plan. But I didn’t have my witchy tool kit, Willow, or even the internet to help me.

What was I thinking?

You weren’t.

I felt along the shelves, but it was hard to tell what anything was. Was there even something here that could help?

If eliminating shadows for an hour didn’t do anything, what could anything else do?

The building shook and creaked as a powerful wind blew against it. I ducked down, holding my breath.

How could I hide from him?

Everything was in shadow now.

I couldn’t face him, not after what I’d done. Another person to be disappointed in my lack of impulse control and destructive tendencies. I couldn’t even fault him for it.

I deserved it.

“Sasha. Help us.” People screamed my name before the sound cut off with a ring of finality that made me flinch.

“There won’t be anything left for you to protect if you don’t come back to me.” The ghost of his breath behind me made me flail before I realized that it was in my head.