Chapter Thirteen

 

Chloe

 

It was long after midnight by the time we reached the cabin.

“Okay,” Diane said as she pulled the sedan to a stop. “Well, here we are.”

I looked out the window. The darkness was thick and, shadowed from the moonlight by the trees, the cabin was hard to see. Logs formed the walls, and the entire building looked vaguely like a two-story triangle with a porch attached. The Delaneys rented the house to tourists most of the year, but for this week, it was empty.

Diane pushed open the car door while, up ahead, Maddox and Noah climbed from the other sedan with their father.

“The cleaning crew should have put blankets on the beds,” Diane continued while we got out, “but if they didn’t, everything’s in the closet. The sleeper couch is broken, though – we were going to have a new one delivered this week – so you’ll have to share the upstairs room with the boys. I hope that’s okay?”

She glanced back to us. One hand on Daisy’s collar and the other stifling a yawn, Baylie nodded. I just swallowed uncomfortably, and then trailed them both to the door.

The smell of pine surrounded us as we came inside, and as Peter turned on the light, I could see that wood made up a good portion of the décor. A carved mantle hung over the fireplace in one corner of the living room, and the furniture was all framed by polished wood as well. A cathedral ceiling rose above the front room, and the landing of the stairs on the second floor overlooked the space.

“Okay, well,” Diane said, “the bathrooms are by your room and then just past the stairs down here, and Peter and I will be in there,” she nodded toward a door on the opposite side of the living room, “so just let us know if you need anything, alright?”

She smiled, though it seemed a bit forced. “Everything’s going to be fine. You’ll see.”

I tried to smile in return, failed miserably, and then followed Baylie upstairs.

In the second floor bedroom, Noah and Maddox had already set their bags by the bunk bed near the door. Baylie glanced to me questioningly, and when I shrugged, she crossed to the other side of the room and tossed her bag up to the top bunk there.

I hesitated, and then took my backpack into the bathroom to get changed.

The guys were in bed by the time I returned. While Baylie headed to the bathroom to put on her pajamas, I slid beneath the blankets, grateful that they didn’t feel too scratchy against my skin. I seemed to be doing okay thus far, even at this distance from the ocean, though I was still so tense my muscles ached. But I hadn’t felt like running out the door or stealing the car or anything, which I counted as a minor victory, given how things had gone the last time I left town.

Baylie came back and flipped off the light switch by the door. The bunk bed creaked as she climbed the wooden ladder and then got under the blankets. Pulling the floral-patterned quilt up to my chin, I shifted around on the soft mattress and then closed my eyes as silence fell over the room.

The ocean was waiting.

I tensed as the water enveloped me. I didn’t want to be there, but unlike the night before, I couldn’t snap myself back to consciousness. I was too tired, and the pull of the water was too strong.

Shivers ran through me as the current carried me along. It was warm, more comforting than anything at that depth should have been, and seemed to sink into me, giving me energy. I could feel my skin try to change in response, and I gasped, fighting to hang onto who and what I was.

Ice twisted across my spine.

Gasping, I spun. Blue twilight surrounded me for as far as my eyes could see, but suddenly, in the distance, darkness began to take hold. Like a black cloud, it spread through the water, sending the temperature plummeting and consuming all the light.

And coming for me.

I could feel it, though I didn’t know why. The blackness was coming for me. Chasing me. It wanted something and without question, I knew that something wasn’t good. Fear gripped my chest and I kicked hard, trying to swim away.

But it was faster.

Darkness engulfed me, and in the black, I heard a voice laughing. Coldness crept over me, paralyzing my muscles and making it hard to breathe. I choked, my strength draining as the light vanished completely and something grabbed my shoulders, trapping me and refusing to let go.

“Chloe!”

I screamed, lunging up into a tangle of blankets and Noah’s hands on my arms. Radioactive daylight cast the room in vivid relief for a heartbeat and then vanished, plunging everything into darkness.

Maddox swatted the switch on the wall. I cringed at the sudden light.

“What happened?” Baylie cried, leaning over the edge of the top bunk.

Blinking hard, I looked over to see Noah staring at me.

“Nightmare,” he answered, as though finding the word on autopilot. “Just a nightmare.”

“Chloe?” Baylie asked. “You okay?”

Trembling, I felt my forearms, and breathed again at the realization they were normal. I nodded. “Y-yeah.”

Noah wouldn’t stop staring at me. Carefully, he eased away from the bed and then rose to his feet.

The light on the landing came on. “Everything alright?” Diane called from the stairs.

“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Maddox replied.

A moment passed. The light beyond the door disappeared. His brow drawing down, Noah hesitated and then walked back to his bunk.

Maddox turned off the bedroom light.

I shivered. Noah looked stunned, and I couldn’t think of many reasons why. The room had changed when I first woke up. I’d seen everything so brightly, even if only for a second, and I knew what Zeke and those others did with their eyes.

And Noah had been there, watching me…

My hands rubbed at my forearms again.

Across the room, the bunk ladder creaked as Maddox climbed back up, and I could hear the blankets rustle as Noah returned to his bed.

He’d seen something. I was certain of it.

And I had no idea what he was going to do now.

In the darkness, I pulled the blanket up higher, bundling it around me against the cold I could still feel on my skin. I’d thought I’d been doing okay this far from the ocean. I’d hoped maybe things would be alright.

Clearly, I’d been wrong.