Total pages in book: 64
Estimated words: 63214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63214 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 316(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
She stopped.
I looked down.
The bloody trail had ended.
I peered into the snow and spotted no one.
It was only silence and snow. The trees had ended next to us, right where the blood trail stopped. Now there was only an expanse of snow that spread out to the beginning of the mountains. Nothing walked in front of us. No creature howled, hooted, or squeaked.
No footprints lay in the snow.
Just silence.
An eerie, haunting silence.
That didn’t make sense. Nature was never silent. It was constantly making noise, no matter what time of year. Birds chirped. Acorns fell from branches. Bugs buzzed. Squirrels disrupted trees. Wind blew through branches. Snow melted and drip-dropped onto rocky ground. Things always breathed and moved.
The woods never stayed quiet.
“Is Faith near?” I got to Addie Mae’s side and scanned the space.
“Yes. She’s here. I can feel him and her all around us,” Addie Mae whispered. “Probably, right in front of us.”
And then someone punched me hard in my face.
Chapter 18
Daniel
I
fell back into the trees. “Fuck.”
My skin met bark.
Pain crashed through my neck and spine.
A man’s voice filled the air. “If you knew, what I knew, you’d help me kill her.”
I searched around, looking for the person. No one was there, not even Addie Mae. The buckets had dropped to the side.
The flowers had spilled out and rolled around like bowling balls in the snow. The huge blooms remained closed with their tongues inside. But they spun around all over the space as if hungrily catching a scent of something sweet to eat.
Where is she?
Addie Mae’s words rose in my head.
“Keep the bucket close to you,” she’d said. “The cold won’t harm the flowers. We just need to get them close to where he could be, and it’ll lick and suck his spirit away. And then I can fix all of this.”
I rose from the ground, formed my hands into fists, and stayed close to those big blooms. “Remy?!”
A whisper sounded from my right. “Only my friends call me that.”
I punched at the air.
Nothing.
I had no knowledge of this odd world Addie Mae and Faith had brought me into.
Can I punch him if he can punch me?
Remy’s angry words sliced through the air. “Where are you, woman? You’re bold, coming here in your true form.”
True form? She said it was her ancestors. But wait, she said that after we left the pantry. Did she lie? The garden made her tell the truth. When we left the garden, was it all still the truth.
Addie Mae didn’t appear or respond.
Neither did Remy.
All around me that spooky silence rippled and rode the quiet wind. Beings breathed around me and I couldn’t see them. But my heart and mind was certain of their presence. My skin itched. My fingers went cold and then numb.
Anxious thoughts slipped into my head and I batted them away. Squashed them to my skull and pushed forward. There was no time for doubt or fear. Shit had to be done. Faith needed to be saved. Addie Mae had to return to. . .whatever she was.
Tomorrow had to be okay and back to normal.
Get him to talk more. Maybe, I can taunt him. Get him close enough to these flowers.
I stormed around the tree and yelled, “Where are you Remy?! You pack a good punch, but anybody can fight good, when they’re invisible.”
Remy answered from the air, “Go home, little pawn. You’re no more important than the snow that falls, sticks, and melts from the sun.”
“Very poetic. Too bad you didn’t use those lines with Margarite, then you wouldn’t have needed tea and potions. You would be alive and making love to her tonight.”
A branch broke from the trees and crashed to the ground. It landed a foot from me. The flowers stopped rolling. Their mouths pointed at me.
I stiffened.
He’s close to me. Somewhere up in the trees, but near me. The flowers smell him. Come on, you ice psycho. Come on out.
I raised my head at the trees. “Where’s Faith?”
His cold voice chilled the air even more. “Why?”
“I want to keep her safe,” I said.
An evil laugh echoed through the snowy forest. “Safe? You cannot keep her safe?”
I figured out which tree he might’ve been on.
Faith had claimed that they flew.
I hoped that was a lie.
Step-by-step, I headed to the tree on my right. The flowers followed. All the rolling had covered them in snow. They appeared more like massive snowballs than ungodly blooms.
Keep him talking. Make sure he doesn’t move.
I yelled back. “Why can’t I keep her safe?”
His words came. “Because you’re with the villain.”
Next, his invisible fist met my face. Hurt bit at my jaw. I stumbled to the side, but was so angry I leaped out at the air. And goddamn it, I caught something.
“No!” he screamed.
“Got you, motherfucker!” The sound of the forest returned. An ankle maybe or it could’ve been an arm. All I knew was that I rose high into the air.