Shadowlands (Shadowlands 1)

My blood turned cold in my veins.

“No,” I said under my breath.

It was him. He was here.

I darted after the jacket. The crowd was thick and pressed in around me. A pigtailed girl glared at me as I stepped on her toes, and a beefy guy in a sweatshirt cursed as I elbowed him in the ribs to get through. The sky flashed pink. I whirled around, scanning the crowd for a glimpse of tan corduroy. A gap emerged in the crowd, and there it was, dead ahead. That ugly, puke color. That awful, wide wale. I swallowed hard as the man wearing it turned his head, and I saw his silhouette in profile.

He had on glasses. Wire-rimmed glasses.

He turned away from me, and his pace quickened.

“Steven Nell!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

He froze. And then he really started to move.

Heart in my throat, I kept elbowing through the crowd and chased after Nell. My sleeve caught on someone’s button and tore. I shoved a guy in a plaid shirt so hard he hit his knees in the dirt. My ankle caught on an outstretched leg, and I flew forward, only to catch myself on a skinny girl’s knee.

“Sorry,” I muttered, hurtling over her.

He was near the edge of the crowd now, heading back toward town. He was going to get away. But then a whole group of girls in miniskirts and tiny tops traipsed in front of him, arm in arm, gossiping and giggling and taking their sweet time, and he was forced to stop. He was feet away. Inches. I was closing in.

“Where is she!?” I shouted, my hand coming down on his shoulder.

He whirled around to face me, and I felt my heart explode. Angry red acne dotted his right cheek. A small scar cut the flesh over his lip. His wide forehead was dotted with sweat and his glasses didn’t have wire frames, but thick, blue ones.

It wasn’t Steven Nell at all.

“What?” the guy said, raising his meaty white palms. “What’d I do?”

I felt my stomach turn, and it was all I could do not to boot it all over his white Nikes.

“I’m sorry. I…I thought you were someone else,” I told him.

“Whatever,” he said, shaking his head.

Then he sniffed, muttered “Crazy person” under his breath, and headed back toward town. I pushed my hands into my hair and forced myself to breathe. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe Darcy was fine. She was probably off with Joaquin right now, kissing the night away. Maybe I should chill the hell out.

I turned back toward the crowd, intent on finding Aaron and getting on with my night. There was a brief moment of silence between firework

explosions, and then I heard a scream. Darcy’s scream. Her scream as the truck slammed into our car. As he bashed her head in. Her hair tangled over her face, her pale fingers splayed out on the dirt. Her wrist still warm but without a pulse.

Another firework popped, and my heart slammed inside my rib cage.

“Darcy!” I yelled toward the pack of people in front of me. “Darcy! Where are you? Answer me!”

A few people near the back edge of the crowd shot me annoyed looks. Slowly, I turned in a circle, trying to stifle the sound of my breath, the pounding of my pulse in my ears, hoping to hear a shout or another scream, something that would pinpoint her location for me. Everything flashed by quickly. Trees, lights, gazebo, ocean, fireworks, crowd, rocks, rooftops. Trees, lights, gazebo, ocean, fireworks, crowd, rocks, rooftops. Over and over and over again, the sights whirled, but there was no Darcy. I stopped turning and pressed my hands to my eyes, waiting for the world to stop spinning. Waiting for some sound, some clue. But there was nothing. Nothing but the earthshaking explosions overhead, the delighted cries of the spectators.

When I finally opened my eyes, I focused right in on a streak of white in the dirt a few feet in front of me. My pulse skipped a thousand beats. I raced over and stopped dead. It was Darcy’s cardigan. It lay flat in the dirt next to a garbage can, a man’s muddy boot print pressed into its otherwise pristine fabric. My vision blurred.

“Darcy?” I whimpered. “Darcy?”

My hands trembled as I bent to pick it up. Another firework exploded, showering the town of Juniper Landing in red sparks.

“Darcy!” I screamed as loud as I could. “Darcy, where are you!?”

Suddenly, the lights of the town dulled, then were extinguished altogether. I took a staggered step back as the air around me began to move, began to creep in toward me. Within seconds, the fog had whipped around my ankles and swirled up to my knees. I heard the crowd behind me groan as the thick, gray mist formed a seal between us and the sky, blanking out the fireworks.

“Darcy!” I screamed again. “Darcy, please answer me!”