Chapter Twenty-Two

It was Saturday.

Eleven days had passed since I'd had nightmares. Eleven days since Laury had gotten rid of the incubi. Eleven days since Logan had so much as looked at me.

Thanksgiving had passed in a blur of food and cooking and greeting all the friends and neighbors who my mother invited to dinner. Logan wasn't speaking to me, of course, and I wasn't speaking to him—but I was trying to ignore that. Juliette thought we were having problems in our “secret relationship,” and I was too tired to convince her of anything else.

Aubrey left on the Friday after Thanksgiving, and by then, everything felt like it had gone back to normal—but a better normal. Zipper was getting healthier, my mother and I were getting along, and Dr. Hennessy had called and graciously scheduled a makeup date for the midterm, which I studied for properly and took without a problem. Everything that had gone wrong was slowly piecing itself back together.

Except that something didn't feel right.

In the grand scheme of things, ending this had been astoundingly easy. But when I thought about the amount of grief that the nightmares had been giving me, that didn't seem plausible. I should have had to fight so much more to banish the monsters from my head; they should have tried to stop me. They hadn't, though. They had let me win.

And that was the problem.

I was at the pool on Saturday, and it was so empty and so quiet that my mind was almost forcibly compelled to think. The last time I had been here was the day of the necklace incident, and though I had no plans to relive that event, I couldn't stop the feeling that something, somehow, was going to go wrong.

As I cut silently through the water, eyes burning with chlorine, I remembered the auburn-haired boy's appearance in my lucid dream and thought, with a slight rush of dread, that he had just been toying with me. He had been there, inches away, a single aspect of my dream that wasn't under my control. I saw his black eyes clearly in my head—his ebony pupils so dilated that they left no white, no veins, nothing to vouch for humanity, because in him, humanity didn't exist.

It couldn't have been so easy. They were messing with me, taunting me, letting me believe that I had achieved normality, raising me to a pinnacle of relief just to rip every shred of imagined comfort right out from beneath my feet. They were cruel, and they wouldn't be turned away so easily.

I was convinced that I was not safe, not really, not yet, and the lingering fear made every breath of air I took harsh and desperate. It had been eleven days of silence in my head and in my dreams, but that meant nothing. The most terrifying monsters were the ones who knew patience.

The air was cold when I left the pool, and it stung my skin until I found my towel and pulled it tightly around my shoulders. Everything felt strange and not quite real: the air, the water, the smooth tile underneath me. It was if everything was taking a deep breath. The calm before the storm, I thought, and shivered.

My phone buzzed as I was leaving the recreation center, but by the time I managed to dig it out of my bag, I was on the front steps and the call had gone to voicemail. I paused against the railing, shuddering as heavy gust of wind blew my damp hair across my face, and played the message.

It was Laury.

“Parker, it's me,” she said, her lilting voice urgent and strained. “I made a mistake. When you broke the connection in the dream, I”—she swallowed—“I thought they were gone for good. But I was wrong, and I'm so, so sorry. I don't know when you'll hear this message, but I can only hope that it's soon. Listen to me, Parker: I need you to stay inside your house. Stay indoors and don't leave; that's the safest place for you right now. I'm on my way this very second and I'll be there to explain as soon as I can, but please, stay in your house. Don't let anyone in, no matter who they are. They aren't gone, and I—”

The message ended.

I held the phone numbly to my ear as the automated voice gave me my options—save, delete, call back. I hung up. As I lowered my hand, the late afternoon shadows around me suddenly seemed to take shape, shifting into figures that were a whisper away from human, lurking in the shadows of buildings and creeping behind trees and bushes. The snow-speckled streets were eerily empty, and the more I stared, the more the shadows built, and the more the terror sank in.

Walking home in the encroaching evening darkness wasn't sounding like such a good idea anymore. But my mom was still at work, Juliette didn't have a car, and Aubrey had been back at school for a week. The only person left was Logan, and he and I weren't exactly on the best of terms. Still, as I weighed my options—a few minutes of awkwardness in the car versus braving the monsters alone—I decided that I was willing to take the leap.

I dialed his number, edging back against the wall of the recreation center so that I had a full view of my surroundings and nothing could sneak up on me. The phone rang for so long that for a moment I was afraid that he wouldn't pick up. But after a short eternity, he did, and answered with a terse, “What?”

His dispassionate tone hurt, but I forced myself to ignore it. My eyes darted left and right as I choked out the two syllables of his name. “Logan,” I breathed, my pulse racing beneath my fingertips. Even to my ears, I sounded terrified, and, fighting or not, he'd spent ten years of friendship learning how to tell when something was wrong.

“Where are you?” was all he said.

“The rec center.”

There was a pause, the sound of keys jangling. “Stay right there,” he ordered. “I'm on my way.”

He hung up, and I let gravity take over, dragging my body to the ground. No one passed; no one saw me; no one was there to witness the shadows. But they were there, waiting, and I knew this in the same way I knew that they had never really gone.

I tried to call back Laury's number, but there was no answer and I didn't leave a message. In the pit of my stomach, I was fearing the worst: that these creatures, whoever they were, had gotten to her and taken her away. And then I had a horrible, unbidden thought that sent a shock of guilt through my stomach as soon as it surfaced—that maybe, if they had her, they wouldn't come after me.

I slapped my hand over my mouth as if I'd spoken it aloud, but it didn't matter either way, because the only ones to hear were the shadows. So I just sat there, phone in my hand, fingers over my mouth, staring out into the street until the streetlights came on and Logan's car came wheeling around the corner.

I thought of the last time he'd come to pick me up like this, when it had only been one man lurking across the street. Now, they were everywhere, and even Logan's presence didn't scare them off. They were crouched in the corners of my vision, just out of full sight. If I moved at all, I was certain that they would amass, immerse me in their darkness and swallow me whole.

But I didn't have to even stand, because Logan leapt out of his car and around the front of it, looking around until his eyes found mine. There was a pained look on his face, and his body was shaking, but he did not hesitate to run up the front steps and kneel in front of me.

“Parker,” he said loudly, his warm hands finding the sides of my face. “Parker, what's wrong? What do you need?”

“I need to go home,” I murmured, and I felt his worry, his confusion, his need to protect me. His eyes roved over my face for a moment, looking for answers, but he didn't ask.

“Come on, then,” he said, and gathered me into his arms. I felt like a child as he lifted me off the ground, but his warmth was safe and solid and real. I buried my face into his shirt and breathed in his familiar scent, curling up against his chest and wishing the shadows away.

They didn't leave, of course, but they were held off long enough for us to get to the car. Logan set me gently on the passenger seat, swim bag and all, then returned to the driver's side and revved the engine. The shadows were not gone, and they were watching, but I kept my eyes shut and focused on my breathing and Logan's breathing and the smell of his car and the way the loose sketchbooks under my feet shifted as he turned the corner.

Neither of us spoke during the short ride, until Logan pulled up in front of my house. He cleared his throat and said, “We're here,” and I opened my eyes. Looking out the window, I still saw the shadows, but I got the feeling that Logan didn't. They only wanted me; I was the only one who had to see them.

“Okay,” I said, then repeated, “Okay. Thanks.”

I made myself open the door, just like that, and Logan looked alarmed. “Are you okay, Parker?” he asked. “Do you—do you need me to come in, or?”

I looked into his green eyes and shook my head. “It's fine,” I assured him. “I'll be fine.”

As I began to step out, though, he grabbed my hand. Bewilderment was written across his face, but he still didn't ask, and only said, “When I came to get you, I—I felt something. Like someone was watching.”

I looked at him, with his hand over mine, then at the walk to my front door, polluted with darkness. Logan squeezed my fingers.

“I know,” I said, my voice breaking in fear as I looked back at him. “I'm so sorry.”

And I pulled away, shutting the door before Logan could speak and racing the shadows inside.

◙════════════◙

I waited for hours. I sat there on my bed, back against the wall, knees pulled tightly to my chest, and waited. Laury never came—but then again, I had realized early on that she wasn't going to. Something had happened to her, and I didn't know what. I didn't know what would happen to me, either.

I could only wait.

My mother called at around seven to tell me that she would be home late: “Will you be okay for dinner?” she asked. I said yes. I couldn't say anything else.

And then I waited some more, because that's all there was to do. Wait. Something was coming, something that had scared Laury so much that she had tried to drive here, and I didn't know what it was, much less how to stop it. I couldn't do anything but marinate in my own fear.

I was too afraid to leave my room—I was too afraid to stay. My stomach growled and my hair was matted with chlorine, but I couldn't move. I was scared of staying awake, but I was terrified of falling asleep. It'd gone back to that: the fear of what lay behind my closed eyes.

The darkness was closing in. The light bulbs on my ceiling had been replaced, but the switch was across the room, and in my haste to get inside, I'd forgotten to turn it on. Now it was too late, too far away, and I had to make do with the dim lamp at my bedside. Its illumination was meager at best, but I huddled up next to it and tried to ignore the way the shadows were shifting.

Zipper came upstairs at one point, but she stopped at the threshold of my room, barked, and ran back downstairs. She could feel them too. She knew they were here.

It was a stalemate. Here we were, face to amorphous face, but they weren't pushing forward, and I wasn't pushing back. We were frozen here indefinitely, waiting. Counting seconds until someone's patience ran out.

And the shadows grew.

At around ten, it began to rain. I heard the water hitting the roof, the claps of thunder echoing through the street; I saw the flashes of bright white lightning outside my window. It was a storm, here to wash away the remaining snow. As the sounds of it all climbed into my head and the tense air crawled down my throat, the shadows continued to shift and move and grow.

“Just do something, already!” I shouted at them, tears springing to my eyes. “What are you waiting for?”

But I knew. Oh, I certainly knew. They were waiting for the fear to build, for me to become so petrified that I couldn't breathe, because they reveled in the quiet, debilitating phenomenon of human terror. To them, this was nothing but a game, and time belonged to them.

I sat there until eleven, until I was stewing in my own fright. I became my fear; it boiled in my blood and lit on my face. It seeped in slowly, gradually, and then it took control.

At eleven on the dot, there was a particularly bright flash of lightning from outside my window. It cracked the sky and spat white daggers into my eyes, so that for a moment—a sliver of a moment, really—I was blinded. When I could see again, there was someone on the balcony.

A strangled, sobbing shriek escaped my lips, and I slapped a hand over my eyes as if that would make it go away. But even behind my closed lids, I saw those familiar black eyes, that head of auburn air.

“You're imagining things,” I murmured to myself, still immersed in that self-inflicted darkness. I knew I wasn't, though, and I didn't know why I was pretending. It's a very human reaction, I suppose: denial.

They're gone, I told myself. They're right here. Laury said they'd be gone. Laury was probably dead. She'd done what was supposed to be done, and I was supposed to be left alone. Except that I wasn't alone, was I? The cruel boy was not on my balcony, because he simply couldn't be.

I was entirely unconvinced, but I willed myself to open my eyes.

The auburn-haired boy was leering right in my face.

I struck out instinctively with a blind fist, my body poised for attack even as my mind was reeling in horror. I swung my arms again, again, again, but they only met empty air. My room was empty; the man was gone.

I scanned my bedroom, picking out every corner and crevice to make sure that he wasn't simply hiding from me. Not only was he not there, but there was no evidence of his presence to speak of. Here and then gone, all in a blink. It was only the shadows and me, alone again.

But he was the shadows, wasn't he? He was them, and they were him. His heart and soul were as black as his eyes, fueled by the same umbrageous force that lent the obtruding shadows their movement. And I had the very pointless thought that these creatures knew humans well: they knew how completely we feared the dark.

I pressed a finger to my neck to feel my rapid heartbeat and tried to remind myself to breathe. My head was a flurry of utter panic because if the boy was back, that meant that they were all coming. I'd wanted to badly for something to happen, but now I just wanted it to all go away.

“Please,” I murmured. “Leave me alone.”

I swear, the shadows laughed.

I didn't take my eyes off them, but I stuck out an arm and felt around until my fingers closed around my cellphone. Logan's number flashed onto the screen the moment I began to type it in, and I called, sensing the way the shadows pressed in closer in protest. I rocked back and forth as it rang, and begged him to pick up, because I needed him, and he never ignored that.

“Please, please, please,” I mumbled, my thumbnail between my teeth. The phone trilled six, seven, eight times, then paused. For a moment, I thought he had answered, but it was just his voicemail message telling callers to leave a message so that he could get back to them later.

Beep.

“Logan,” I said desperately, “they're back. When you felt something at the rec center, it was them. They're back, and even if you don't believe in them please just believe in me, you have to—” My sentence was cut off abruptly as something very strange happened: something gripped my body, snaking in as if someone else was stepping into my skin. I felt shoved aside, as if I was no longer in control of my own movements. I felt a tug on my arm, trying to tear my phone away from my face. I resisted, gritting my teeth to keep the cellphone at my ear so that I could hiss out two final words.

“Find me.”

My body let go with a bone-deep shudder, and the phone was flung out of my hands. It slammed into my mirror with a resounding crack, and the glass shattered. That hardly even registered, though, because the shadows were coming closer, edging in around me until I could feel their icy touch on my skin. Tears flowed freely down my face, but I was hardly feeling them anymore: I felt only an aching lethargy tugging at my limbs and calling me to slumber. Black tendrils crept steadily into my vision, filling it, and before I even knew what was happening I was falling, falling, falling into a deep and solid sleep.

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Dedicated to Mariam Regina George Diana Jennifer Shrader because I just really love her a lot.

A/N: Sorry for the wait for this chapter. It's Camp NaNo month, so. But the next few chapters are basically written, so the next update should actually be on time :).

p.s. lee i hope you're happy i threw in some larker even though there wasn't going to be any in this chapter