Chapter Thirty-Seven Aria

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Aria

Aria peered back into the room where Pax lay in a fitful sleep. Her heart climbed to her throat, each beat so heavy that it clotted out the flow of air as she struggled to inhale. Time moved as if it both raced and had been set to slow.

Every molecule of her being trembled as she returned her attention out the window.

The little girl with eyes so pale they were nearly white remained, staring back at Aria as if she possessed a tether that ran directly to Aria’s soul.

A beacon.

The child was wearing only a pink-and-white nightgown—no shoes on her feet, and her blond hair whipped in the frozen wind that disturbed the slumbering night.

Never taking her eyes from Aria, she took a step down the staircase with one hand clinging to the railing.

She then took another and another as she began to descend into the nothingness below.

Panic surged through Aria, a blistering heat that burned through her veins. She didn’t know why, but she had to get to the little girl. Reach her. Stop ... something.

Frantic, she looked back to where Pax slept.

The urge to call out to him was almost painful, though she found she couldn’t make any words form on her tongue. The knot in her throat blocked all sound. The words lodged, dead in her chest.

She turned back to the window. The little girl was nearly to the bottom. Dust blew through on a gust of wind, stirring the air into a darkened cloud. The road was barren, though at any time a car or truck could come barreling through.

Aria’s breaths were short and broken as she hurried to undo the lock. Metal grated harshly, and when she finally had the lock disengaged, she stepped out.

The cement was frigid beneath her bare feet.

And the child ... The child peered back at her from over her shoulder. That tether pulled taut. A lure that Aria couldn’t resist.

She had to get to her.

Help her.

Get her back to her room, where she would be safe.

Only the little girl edged deeper into the wisping, dust-laden shadows that covered the lot. The vacancy sign flashed through it in serrated, bent strikes of white.

Aria felt it gather and cover.

A shroud of depravity. An intonation of evil.

It shivered over her flesh, and she sprang into motion and hastened down the stairs, clinging to the railing as if it were a lifeline since she could hardly make out her surroundings.

“Hello?” she shouted. “Hello? Where are you? Please. Come back!”

Another gust of wind whipped through, and the air thickened as a mist of clouds rolled in.

Disorienting.

She scoured through them, desperate to find which direction the child had gone. Her heart thundered, a pounding that throbbed in her throat and reverberated in her spirit.

Aria stepped off the bottom step and onto the packed dirt below.

Cold lashed her face, her flesh, her hair thrashing and scorching her cheeks as she searched through the blinding shadows that enclosed.

She stumbled forward, fumbling through the confusion.

She caught a movement in the distance, just off to the left, in front of her.

“Hey!” she shouted. “Please! Come back!” The sound echoed, and the tinkling of laughter rippled back.

Soft and delicate.

The little girl’s.

Aria began to jog in that direction, ignoring the bits of gravel that dug into the soles of her feet as she followed the faint laughter. It was coming from the direction of where the road had to be, just up ahead, even though she couldn’t see more than a foot in front of her.

Dread filled her to overflowing.

A powerful urge to help her.

“Please, come back!” she called again, lurching along behind the child, who always seemed to remain the same distance ahead no matter how quickly Aria moved. Her feet scraped over the bitter ground as she fumbled and rushed through the disorder.

The child kept running.

Giggling.

Laughing as she peered back at Aria with the palest eyes, though Aria was coaxed toward them like they were a lighthouse that beckoned in the darkness.

She hurried that way as the child neared the road. Headlights cut through the vapor at the same moment the little girl darted onto it.

Aria screamed.

Screamed as the blare of a horn shattered through the night.

She gasped, clutching her chest as the truck didn’t slow but blew right through. Tears poured down her cheeks as it passed, then disappeared into the misty fog.

Rushing forward, she frantically searched through the thick vapor.

She nearly fell to her knees when the tinkling laughter rolled, and she caught sight of the child standing on the other side of the road. She faced Aria as she swayed back and forth before she turned and darted into the field of high, dead grasses on the other side.

Relief pounded through Aria, though that frenzy still battered through her body as the child disappeared. Aria inhaled a shaky breath and raced across the road, following the path where the child had gone. She wove through the maze of tall grasses, winding and turning and fighting her way through the labyrinth, following the tether that had a direct connection to her spirit.

Giggles billowed as the wind thrashed. Blades of grass as sharp as razors whipped across Aria’s face and hands. She ignored the sting and hurried toward the call she couldn’t resist.

She came to a stop when she suddenly stumbled into a clearing. A clearing where the clouds swirled over a blackened pond.

The little girl glanced back just as she dipped one toe into the water, then fully stepped in with the other.

“No!” Aria shouted. She lurched forward in an attempt to grab her, but the water was deep, and the child immediately sank beneath the surface.

Aria didn’t hesitate. She dove in.

Frigid ice chilled her to the bone, and she struggled, lashing one direction and then the other to try to discern where the child had gone.

Daggers of glittering light speared through the waters, illuminating the depths, and Aria’s pulse stopped when she saw the child was on her back, her arms and legs limp as she sank, her blond hair billowing around her angelic face as she drifted deeper into the abyss.

Aria broke the surface and took a gulping breath of air before she dove back under and swam with everything she had toward the girl, who continued to sink.

Deeper and deeper.

The pit bottomless.

Fathomless.

Frantic, Aria propelled herself, and she stretched out to grab the child’s wrist. She nearly wept in relief when she wrapped her hand around the fragile arm.

Only the second she did, the child’s eyes flashed open.

And those eyes ... The palest gray eyes had turned a blinding white. Shafts of light that cut through the disorienting water, and her lips twisted in a demented grin before they opened wide, and a storm of shadows rushed from her mouth.

The child’s features began to morph.

Her face flashed between the child’s and a man’s.

The same man Aria had seen earlier outside the fast-food restaurant. The one she’d seen days before at the diner.

It was him.

It was him.

But she could no longer focus on the blipping facade.

Because she was surrounded by the shadows.

A hundred.

A thousand.

Wisps that curled and twisted and took new shape, transforming into screaming, horrific faces.

The faces of Faydor.

Kruen whirled and whirled, a blur that spun around her as they dragged her deeper into the depths of the chasm.

Aria fought, thrashing and flailing as she tried to break away, to get loose of the tendrils that wrapped around her limbs.

She fought.

She fought.

Yanking and kicking and trying to get free. She struggled against the burning in her lungs that begged her to breathe.

She couldn’t.

She couldn’t succumb. She couldn’t give in.

She thrashed more, but there was no give.

No break.

No relief.

That pain in her chest became overwhelming, and it hurt so much—agonizing—the feeling that she was suffocating, as if a thousand-pound boulder sat on her chest.

And there was nothing Aria could do.

She opened her mouth in search of the oxygen that wasn’t there.

And she inhaled the frigid water into her lungs.