THIRTY-FIVE | KINDLING

Seeing Bethan’s body, grey and bloated, in Torre’s house had been horrifying. Her fangs had protruded from her blue lips, and her glassy eyes had stared up at the ceiling, unseeing.

Somehow, knocking on my own front door was worse.

“Harper?” I called out, edging through the doorway as though some unknown force was desperately trying to yank me back out of it. My boots sounded too loud against the welcome mat, the thick soles clunking through the worn material and hitting the floor with little to cushion them.

We’d messaged back and forth when we’d been making the arrangement to meet, but other than that we hadn’t spoken at all. The last message he’d sent me with any meaning behind it had been his cryptic I need to talk to you, and since then we’d both carefully avoided the subject. I’d found peace in the not-knowing, though I was certain that the words