Where The Sidewalk Ends Audiobook Novels & Stories

Reasonable honestly. Completely stopped. God. Then she whispered: "Lily..." Fair. Pause. Reasonable. "I think we're lost." God. Silence. Fair. Complete silence. Reasonable honestly. Then somewhere deep inside the cave— God. A strange sound echoed. Fair. A sound none of them recognized. Reasonable. And Peanut— God. Peanut started walking toward it. Fair. To be continued...

"Like what?" "Like you drink coffee before your night class, not after. I can smell it on you sometimes. Like you bite your lip when you read something hard on your phone. Like you check the bus schedule three times before you trust it. And you always sit on the right side of the bench. Never the left." I stop walking. He stops too. Turns to face me. "What?" he asks. "That is a lot of things." "I told you. I pay attention." We stand there on the empty sidewalk. The street is quiet. A dog barks somewhere far away. I can see the diner now, just half a block ahead. Its windows are bright yellow squares in the dark. A neon sign says OPEN in red letters.

He tried several times before finally speaking again. This time, Tristan heard him clearly. Shock flashed across his face. He looked at everyone and slowly repeated Luca's words. "He said... save Mommy..." *** The police car drove for an hour. Following behind, Tristan watched the city outside change from towering skyscrapers to crumbling neighborhoods. At last, they stopped on the edge of a run-down housing area. Even Tristan looked stunned. As he walked down the uneven path, the smell of mold and rot hit him. He kept frowning.

The last thing I feel— Is the cold concrete beneath me. And the last thing I hear— Is Adrian’s voice. Calm. Satisfied. “Now… we begin again.”

“It’s not done. It’s just… changing shape.” Silas crossed the room, sank to the floor beside him long legs stretched out, shoulder brushing Aiden’s. “I know. But it feels like closing a chapter I never thought I’d write.” Aiden leaned into him. “You didn’t think you’d write any chapter that didn’t end in blood.” Silas huffed a quiet laugh. “True.” Silence settled comfortable, familiar. Outside, snow began to fall in earnest, muffling the city sounds until the warehouse felt like the only place left in the world.

I keep walking. Dante slows slightly at the alley's end, looks left and right, and then steps out onto the road and I come out beside him and we turn south. The street is mostly empty, a taxi moving through the intersection two blocks down, a light on in the second floor of a building across the road, a man walking a dog on the far side who doesn't look up. Sage falls into step on my other side and I watch the dog walker until he turns the corner and then look forward. "Silas," I say.

After twenty minutes on the grass, I was relieved when I reached a sidewalk. My feet hurt a lot, but I couldn’t stop now. If I keep walking, I can reach the Pack House in a little over an hour. Now that I was on the sidewalk and it didn’t hurt nearly as bad to walk on it, as opposed to the road or the grass, I picked up my pace. Clenching my jaw, I tried to ignore the pain my feet were causing me. “Get in.” The sound of Axel’s voice startled me, causing me to lose my footing.

Far as he could see, the high school’s sidewalks were empty, too, except where the sidewalk rounded to the school’s front entrance . A shadow flickered. Father Ward closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose. Tired. With the dark slowly brightening to pale dawn, his exhausted eyes had imagined the shadow. That’s all. Even so, he stood there for several minutes. Watching the sidewalk where it bent around the corner, searching for movement or shadows. He saw nothing. *** 12:15 PM

I was running exactly where they wanted me to go. Desperation clawed at my throat. I couldn't swallow. I spotted a narrow maintenance chasm between two buildings—a dead end, but one with a sewage grate I might be able to pry open. I dove into the shadows of the chasm, sliding to a stop in the muck. "End of the line, Ms. Solstice." The voice was soft. Cultured. Smooth. It didn't belong in the Dregs. It sounded like clean sheets and filtered air. I looked up.

I say. "Ella." "I'm fine," I say. And then, because he's three seconds of unguarded face that I am not going to pretend I didn't see, I add quietly, "I'm really fine. I came back." He looks at me on a River North sidewalk in the afternoon light. "I know," he says. But he doesn't move. And neither do I. And the city moves around us as usual, entirely indifferent, while something that has been building for thirty-seven chapters stands completely still on a sidewalk and finally, finally takes up the space it's been asking for.