Page 84 of Fear Me Not

He ducks his head and nods. “Yeah, I believe you. I’m sorry I accused you in the first place. I didn’t know what to think. I freaked out a bit.”

“I would never do anything to hurt you or this family. Ever.”

“But you might want to leave one day.” His voice is tinged with sadness. “That will hurt us.”

“There’s no point in thinking about that right now. None of us are going anywhere, are we? We’ve got bigger things to worry about.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “We do.”

A worry bursts off my tongue. “Are we really going to starve?”

“No, I’ll hunt. Game is thin on the ground at this time of year, but I’ll place some traps, and I’ll figure something out. I won’t let you go hungry, Little Fox.”

“I don’t want you to go hungry either.”

He puts the arm that isn’t carrying the cooler around my shoulders and pulls me into him for a hug.

Flakes of snow drifted from the air, a tiny, six-pointed star landing on Levi’s dark hair, before melting to nothing.

47

DOV

Even as the days are growing steadily longer, my world is getting darker.

She’s my light in this place, but I feel the shadows drawing in. I have to remind myself that we’ve aways made it out of winter unscathed.

It’s different now, though, because she is here. Something about her presence has woken up a part of Windridge Hall that had lain dormant before. It’s growing stronger, and it wants us. It wants her.

Whispers come from all around me, filtering out of my bedroom walls, like thousands of mice scratching behind the wallpaper. I can’t understand what they’re saying to me, not yet, but they’re getting louder every day. The only time they fall silent is when I’m near her.

I can see how over the next few weeks, with limited food, tempers will become more frayed.

Is the hotel trying to turn us against each other? Divide us, so we become weaker, and then it will conquer?

The way Levi turned on Aspen worries me.

She’d asked him to hike her out of here. To leave Windridge Hall. To leave us.

The thought makes it harder for me to breathe.

A knock comes at my bedroom door, and a head pops around the corner. It’s her.

“Can I come in?”

“Of course. You don’t have to ask.”

She’s so beautiful, sometimes it hurts just to look at her. Those endless limbs, her porcelain skin, her pale blue eyes, so wide and expressive.

Still, a ripple of worry goes through me. Both my father and brother have seen versions of Aspen when they haven’t actually been her. Could this be the same apparition, here to mess with my head? The way my mind is, it doesn’t need any more screwing with. I have enough trouble keeping things straight as it is.

She bites her lower lip. “You believe me, don’t you, that it wasn’t me who destroyed the food stores?”

“I never doubted you.”

She looks at all my monitors. “Are you sure there’s nothing that’s been caught on your cameras?”

“The hotel knows when it’s being watched. Cameras go dark or turn to static if there’s any… activity.”