1
ADDIE
Acold pain slid through my chest.
I woke with a gasp. Adrenaline yanked me upright. The darkness inside my tent gave away nothing. I pressed a palm to my chest. There was no wound, which could only mean one thing.
My heart hammered beneath my palm. I kicked away my sleeping bag and crawled over to unzip the tent door. The sky outside was dotted with silvery stars. I scanned the silhouette of distant mountains and trees along the horizon. Nothing stood out.
I’d half expected a pair of glowing eyes to appear right in front of me. There was no jump-scare waiting for me, only this growing sense of dread. It sat cold inside me. Frigid fingers danced up and down my spine to tell me that death was nearby.
A tired sigh escaped me. I came out here to the Adirondack wilderness to escape death, but it somehow found me all the same. At least it wasn’t as oppressive as it was in the city. Syracuse wasn’t a very safe city. There were so many angry ghosts roaming the streets. The moment they realized I could see them, they flocked to me. They shoved their way into my bathroom while I was stuck on the toilet with nowhere to run.
Out here, death came to collect animals. A predator likely got its midnight snack. I didn’t have to worry about the creature’s vengeful spirit. The animals knew this was the way of the world. They moved on without hesitation, unlike people who clung to their lives as if there was nothing on the other side.
The fuzzy edges of sleep still clung to me. Even though death left the hair on the back of my neck standing on end, I pulled the tent zipper closed and crawled back to my sleeping bag. If there was one place that death couldn’t reach me, it was in my dreams. I wanted nothing more than to drift back into sleep.
An uneasy feeling still lingered. My core trembled. I tried to hold it tight, but I betrayed even myself. The cold chill in my chest expanded and reached out with skeletal fingers. My breath trembled out from between my lips as my arcana searched for the source of the death.
When I found something, I flinched and jerked back. My arcana excitedly reached for the nearby dead thing. I yelped, slapped a hand over my own mouth, and fumbled for my arcana. Over and over, it bled between my fingers and reached for the dead thing.
I knew what would happen if I didn’t get control of myself. I didn’t need a dead opossum knocking on my tent door. Memories of the dead human girl that Alvin Combs had killed returned to the forefront of my mind. I’d watched that girl, murdered before her time, crawl her way out of the earth because of my arcana.
Death might have been my arcana, but it had power over me, and there was nothing I could do about it.
* * *
I sippedmy coffee while studying the morning sky and the peachy clouds painted across it. The chilly March air made my breath fog. Soon, the rising sun would warm the world and my breath would vanish. I savored this moment, the little bit of peace that I could find away from the city.
However, I missed my friends. I yearned to go back to Lakesedge and the girls who worked at Bad Moon Café with me. As soon as I finished my coffee, I started breaking down my camp.
The entire time, my mind wandered back to the presence that’d woken me in the middle of the night. Every so often, I lifted my head and scanned my surroundings because a creeping feeling still tickled my spine. A bad feeling had settled in and made home in the pit of my gut.
I hoped that it was just anxiety. It got the best of me more often than not. I reached for my backpack for my medication, but the bottle packed away was empty. My hopes plummeted at the sight of the container’s orange bottom.
“You can handle this on your own, Adeline.” I tried to hype myself up, but the lie was way too easy to sniff out.
Maybe caffeine wasn’t the best way to start the day if my anxiety was going to keep ratcheting up like this. At least, I wasn’t like Vi, who lived on drinks that I affectionately calledjet fuel. Her energy drink addiction was a problem that her new mate kept supporting.
A wolf howl startled me, making me drop the tent posts. They clattered to the ground. My heart slammed against the inside of my sternum. I glared at the horizon in the direction of the wolf howl, but the creature wasn’t the real problem.
It was the cold fingers still gripping my spine. Death lingered over my shoulder. It whispered in my ear, but I couldn’t understand what it was trying to say. I wished it would leave me alone. I wanted a moment of peace, just a little bit, so I could collect my scattered nerves before heading home.
Instead, panic crept in. Any moment now, it would hit me like a truck and knock me to my knees.
I managed to hide this from my friends—for the most part. They didn’t know just how badly my own power scared me. Ness had witnessed it once. That human girl had a fighting spirit. Her ghost showed me how she’d fought against Alvin Combs with everything she could muster. And he’d torn her apart because of it.
Just thinking about it brought the panic attack into full force. I dropped to my knees and dug my fingers into the earth while I fought to breathe. My lungs cinched. My gut rolled. Every part of my body rebelled against me.
Death whispered in my ear.
Find her. She needs you to know.
“I don’t want to do this.”
With shaking hands, I packed the rest of my campsite. The tent wobbled on my backpack when I shrugged it over my shoulders, but I didn’t have time to waste. Death had a mission for me, and it wouldn’t stop tugging at me until I did what it wanted.
My deathly still arcana churned. It was like cold smoke moving in a restless wind. Thankfully, death pulled me along the path that led out of the mountains and back to my car. I said an empty prayer with the hope that I would make it out of the wilderness without stumbling upon a human body.