Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy 1)

Kami rested her cheek against the cool glass of the window. It was as if he was real for a moment, as if he was close, with just a windowpane between them. Hardly any barrier at all.

Then Tomo laughed at something on the television. Kami turned back to the real world, to share Tomo’s laugh and catch Ten’s usually solemn eyes glinting with appreciation behind his glasses, to home.

That night Kami woke to the sound of screaming again. She flailed herself awake, knocking her alarm clock and her latest mystery novel, The Nefarious Mezzanine, off her bedside table in the process. Then she cast away her bedclothes and seized her flashlight. It was exactly where she’d left it, wedged between books and her nightlight.

Kami grabbed her coat, shoved her feet into shoes, and launched herself down the stairs, terrified that the screaming would stop before she could get there.

The door of their house tended to stick, but now the latch lifted easily, the door swung open smoothly, and the night air blew cool through her hair.

Jared, Kami said, reaching out for him. Want to go on an adventure?

You even have to ask?

Kami was fiercely glad he was still there. She stepped out onto the garden path, shutting the door carefully behind her. Where the garden ended, the woods began. It was almost autumn, and the trees were still thick with leaves but more subdued, closed off as if they were keeping secrets. In the darkness Kami couldn’t see the trees for the forest. She switched on her flashlight and the circle of light finally found a path into the woods.

Kami set off. The night had a different quality here, as if the trees curving over her head gave weight to the air. The sound of screaming was fainter. It was a far-off sound, but now that Kami was really listening she thought she heard a whine to it. She didn’t know how she had mistaken it for kids’ voices.

Kami hurried, feet flying over logs and leaves almost before her flashlight beam found them.

Because God forbid we miss the screaming, said Jared, growing more guarded as they drew closer, the feeling like an arm held out protectively in front her.

The sound was terrible, this near.

I don’t want to miss the screaming, Kami told him. She slid her hand into her coat pocket and found her phone in there beside her keys as she ran. I want to catch them in the act.

Kami ducked and just missed banging her head on a low-hanging branch. She almost dropped her flashlight and the beam went wide.

The scream stopped abruptly.

The yellow circle of light caught on a wall.

It was rough wood, unpolished, the wall sagging a little. But it was a wall. As Kami drew closer, she was able to make out the shape of something like a sagging hut or maybe a shed, something that had been built.

A thought crept into her head, cold and sly as a draft beneath a door: What if this place had been built just for this?

Kami, run, Jared ordered.

Kami wanted to run, but she wouldn’t. Not until she found out the truth. She crept forward.

Kami, break a branch off a tree so you can fight at least!

I can fight bare-handed if I have to, said Kami. She put her hand on the soft, weathered wood of the hut door.

It swung open at her touch.

There were candles, some burning and some blown out, their wax still running liquid and hot. There was a table covered in a white cloth. On the cloth there lay a fox. It was dead. There was blood all over the cloth. Kami knew that if she touched the blood it would still be warm, only just spilled, like the candle wax.

Jared’s fear scythed through her, sharp as a blade. That, more than anything, almost made Kami panic.

Kami, run!

But she couldn’t run yet. She held the flashlight in one hand and with the other took out her cell. She kept both hands steady as she took picture after picture with her camera phone.

Then she ran, stumbling faster than she had come, back through the night to the safety of home. She called the police as she went.

Chapter Four

Blood and Sunlight