Page 67 of Haunt Me

Not at me.

Past me.

Fear changes her expression.

A branch snaps behind my shoulder, and I turn. But there’s nothing. Only trees and the narrow trail twisting back toward the falls.

When I look across the water again, Raven’s gone.

The place where she stood is empty. I stumble toward it anyway. There’s no bridge. No safe crossing. Only dark water moving fast between rocks glazed with ice.

“Raven!”

My voice carries downriver. There’s no answer. I walk along the bank, searching between the trees.

“Raven!”

Nothing.

I don’t know how long I keep looking.

Minutes.

Hours.

Long enough that my hands stop hurting from the cold. Long enough that the daylight begins to give way to dusk.

I find no footprints. No broken branches. No sign that anyone’s been here except me.

“You were here.” I press the heel of my hand against my forehead, trying to hold my skull together. “You were. I know what I saw.”

My mind has lied to me before. It’s turned shadows into movement and strangers into Raven from behind. It’s woken me in motel rooms convinced I heard her calling from the bathroom.

This was different.

She looked at me.

She warned me.

I don’t know why that doesn’t scare me the way it should. If anything, it feels like the closet I’ve come to her in months. Close enough that whatever happens next almost doesn’t matter, as long as it happens somewhere she can still find me.

The thought arrives too late. Metal clicks behind me.

“Look what grief dragged out of hiding.”

For one exhausted second, I consider pretending I didn’t hear him.

Then another man laughs.

Boots shift against frozen ground.

“Samuel Morgan.”

I turn slowly and find four men standing between me and the trail. Ridgeback cuts are visible beneath their winter coats. One wears a knit cap pulled low over his ears. Another has a scar through his eyebrow that I remember giving him outside the warehouse last spring.

The largest man steps forward.

Slate. Ridgeback’s sergeant-at-arms.