Page 53 of Dreadful

Then—movement. Somewhere past the kitchen, past the dark throat of the hallway. A slow drag of weight across the floor. Small metallic clicks.

My fingers find Bishop’s forearm and close around it. “What was that?”

“Don’t know.”

Somewhere outside, something moves through the dark. I turn toward the windows. The pool lights skim the surface of the water and stop there.

For one lurching second I’m not here. I’m small again, wedged into the corner of a dark room with the lock on the wrong side of the door, knees pulled up under my chin, counting sounds—footsteps, voices, the specific creak of the floor in front of my bedroom—trying to sort the safe ones from the ones that meant I should stay very, very still.

Glass blows apart somewhere near the front of the house, a sound like a wave breaking wrong, and a man’s voice rips through the dark. Another answers from a completely different direction.

The gunshots come a second later.

The crack of them punches straight through my chest and ricochets off the inside of my skull. Every muscle in my body fires at once—a full-body flinch that starts at my spine and ends nowhere, electricity pouring into my hands and feet with nowhere to go. My vision tunnels. The air tastes like copper. I jerk so hard my grip tears free of Bishop entirely, my palm slick, my heartbeat a pressure behind my eyes.

His hand closes around my arm, hard enough to leave a mark. He spins me until our foreheads almost touch in the dark. His breath is warm and sharp with adrenaline.

“You do not leave my side. Understood?”

My head bobs, a frantic little motion I can’t control.

Another shot cracks from the backyard.

My body twists toward the sound before my brain catches up. “Rafe⁠—”

Bishop yanks me close. “Rafe is probably the one shooting. He knows how to handle himself.”

“Gage and Cruz⁠—”

“Them too.” His fingers dig into my side. “Stay. With. Me.”

“What if they can’t though?” The words come out thin, scraped raw. “What if they’re hurt?”

“You’re not going to help them if you go running toward gunshots.”

I can barely make out the line of his jaw, but his palm is suddenly against my throat, his thumb pressing into the frantic beat there.

“Eyes on me.”

“I can't fucking see you.”

“Then listen.”

Something heavy crashes in the next room. I jump, my breath catching in jagged pieces.

I thought I knew what fear was before. But this is a different flavor. This is the kind that empties my lungs and locks every muscle in my body at once.

His fingers flex. “Stay with me, sweetheart.”

I drag in a thin whistle of air. “We’re not wearing vests, Bishop.”

His voice drops, low and steady. “We’re doing what we’re supposed to do—staying here, and so are they. We’ve been through this before.”

The logic is simple enough to penetrate the fear clawing at my ribs.

I drag air slowly through my nose, hold it for a second, and let it out. My pulse is still a wreck, but the floor is solid under my feet again.

“Okay.”