Page 47 of (Mostly) Human Resources

She cut around a giant cedar tree and begged her legs to go faster. Her calves ached, her lungs burned with each frantic breath,but she pushed on, driven by a desperation to put as much distance between herself and the ghost of Waylan’s house.

The sound behind her. Like soft footsteps.

No, no, no!

The steps grew closer.

Alexys chanced a look back, despite every instinct inside her screaming not to, and screamed.

White eyes chased her through the dark. The shape of a boy made of shadow and moonlight seared itself into her mind and sent terror clawing through her.

Her foot caught, and she fell. Pain lanced through her ankle, and the palms of her hands burned as she landed hard on her hands and knees. She tasted blood on her lip.

She didn’t have time for pain. She pushed herself to her feet and kept running.

Crying, mournfully dark and twisted, echoed through the trees behind her. She could hear him calling for his mama, blaming her for being late.

Sobs choked past the tightness in her chest. She was about to die alone where no one would ever find her body.

If a body was left.

Tears blurred her vision, and Alexys was so blinded she nearly ran right past a silhouette standing among the trees. She hardly registered the cold eyes of Silas Lockwood as she dashed past him, but when the shape moved and she saw him, she skidded to a stop. Whether or not he could handle whatever Waylan had become mattered little. She was more than willing to sacrifice Silas to the Haint if it meant she got to live.

“Please!” Alexys panted, pointing toward the uncanny light that moved through the trees toward them. Alexys pressed herself against a tree, shaking with fear.

“Oh my, what have you gotten yourself into, Miss Keane?” Silas tucked his hands into his pockets. There was no sense of fear,nothing to indicate he was at all frightened of the Haint that rapidly approached them. He radiated deadly confidence, and Alexys realized she ought to fear him far more than some wayward ghost.

An awful sound split the evening. A horrible combination of a scream and a roar that sounded more demonic than anything she’d ever heard before. It was a sound that shouldn’t have been able to come from the lungs of a boy.

Alexys forced her eyes shut and started praying. She didn’t know what she was praying for, but she prayed for anything that might save her from the godforsaken situation she’d landed herself in.

The roaring stopped, but Alexys didn’t move. Her ears rang from the sound as it finished echoing through the mountain.

“You can come out now,” Silas said dryly.

Her hesitation lasted long enough that she could hear Silas laugh softly. Alexys pried one eye open, then the other. Suspicion prickled her senses. Silas and Waylan stood on either side of a stream, watching her.

“What’s going on?” She had to keep hold of the tree to stop herself from shaking. Her thigh muscles trembled, and her twisted ankle ached.

Silas gave her a look. “Did you know Haints can’t cross running water, or was that luck?”

Alexys looked down at the stream she had indeed crossed and suddenly noticed the soggy state of her shoes. She may have heard that Haints couldn’t cross running water, but she hadn’t even noticed that she’d crossed it. Her focus was a bit too fixed on tryingnotto die.

“Yes,” she lied. “That’s why I crossed it.”

“How resourceful of you.” Silas’s smile was mocking. “What’s next, then?”

Alexys looked at Waylan. He lingered on the other side of the stream. There were twigs and leaves caught in his riot of curls, and his overalls had fresh mud splattered across the cuffed hems. But hiseyes, which had been so earnest and blue, were two white lights in the night.

Alexys weighed her options. They were few, and none of them filled her with very much confidence. Her only real option was to try to find her way back to Opal’s house and hope it was on thenon-hauntedside of the forest.

She turned to Silas to say as much, but he was no longer paying attention to her. His gaze was fixed on the spectral boy across the water.

“Waylan.” His tone was stern, that of a parent scolding a child. “Best be gettin’ on home now. Your Mama’s probably worried sick about you.”

Waylan tilted his head at the first sound of Silas’s voice. He looked so lost standing alone on the bank with his muddy overalls and tear-stained face.

“Mama?” His sweet, boyish voice returned, and the flickering of his body began to slow. His luminescent eyes were fixed on Alexys.