I nod. A flash of lightning illuminates the black backdrop of an encroaching storm, followed a breath later by the crack of thunder. “No matter who wins, we’ll make sure of that.”
Pulling my Damascus steel blade from my belt, I turn to stalk toward the house, but Rowan’s fingertips graze my forearm, their featherlight touch igniting a current in my flesh that stops me abruptly. Our gazes collide and my heart folds in on itself. No one has ever looked at me like this, with so much caged worry and fear. And for the first time, it’s not fear of me.
It’s fear for me.
“Be careful, Blackbird. I just…” Rowan’s thoughts fade away on the sudden breeze as he glances toward the house. He shakes his head, drops his attention to my dirty sneakers before returning his gaze to me. “He’s a big bloke. Probably keyed up right now. Don’t take any chances.”
A half smile tugs one corner of my lips, but it changes nothing in Rowan’s severe expression.
One long look. One held breath. A handful of heartbeats and a lightning flash.
Then I walk away, Rowan’s footsteps drifting in my wake as we make our way to Harvey Mead’s house.
The path snakes between two low hills, opening to a yard of scrub grass that surrounds the buildings. To the right of the house, the land dips to a shallow ravine of shrubs and what must be a small creek that’s probably not much more than a trickle of water beneath the August sun. Between the house and the ravine is a small garden surrounded by chicken wire and tinkling charms of broken glass to scare the birds away. To the rear left of the house are outbuildings. A chicken coop. An old workshop with a low, flat roof. A barn that stands as a foreboding fortress between the house and the storm that rolls toward us. The skeletal remains of warped and rusted cars jut from between the trunks of Texas ash and desert willows.
I stop at the edge of the yard. Rowan draws to a halt at my side. “Great curb appeal,” I whisper.
“So much better up close. The doll’s head really adds character,” he whispers back, nodding to the decapitated head of a 1950s-era Chatty Cathy doll staring back at us from the porch with soulless black eyes.
“I’ll take it if he throws in the…” I lean forward and squint at a patch of gray fur stuck beneath a shattered rocking chair. “…the…opossum?”
“I was going to go with ‘cat’， but sure.”
I straighten, turning to Rowan with my fist held between us.
“Sloane—”
“Rock–paper–scissors. Loser takes the front door,” I say with a dark grin.
Rowan regards me for a long moment before he shakes his head with a resigned sigh. His fist finally meets mine.
On a silent count of three, we make our choices, my scissors losing to Rowan’s rock. He frowns.
“Two out of three,” he hisses, grabbing my wrist when I start toward the steps.
“For losing? No way. Go to the back door and enjoy your advantage, weirdo.” I smile and crinkle my nose like it’s no big deal, even though Rowan can feel my pulse surging beneath his palm until I pull free.
I don’t look back as I focus on making it up the front steps alive. My chest burns to turn to Rowan, to stay with him and hunt by his side, but I don’t.
When I set a heel on the cracked planks of the stairs, I see Rowan in the periphery as he finally stalks toward the rear of the house.
With every silent step I take, I survey my chaotic surroundings, careful not to lose my balance or knock something over. There’s no sound from the house, no movement past the screen door, no menacing shadows illuminated by a flash of lightning. The first drops of rain hit the covered porch just as I reach the door, bouncing off tin cans and debris in a metallic melody.
I open the screen door just enough to slip inside, the quiet squeak of the rusted hinges absorbed by a crack of thunder that rattles the walls.
The scent of food and decay and mold blend in a nausea-inducing swirl as I start down a narrow hallway. A living room sits off to the left, with old furniture and original features covered in a film of dust. Flowered wallpaper peels from the walls and flutters in the breeze of the storm as it finds its way through open doors and broken windows. There’s a partially-mummified body sitting in an armchair next to the fireplace, her legs covered with a crocheted blanket and a Bible laying open in her skeletal hands. Her long, white hair lifts from her shoulders, a set of dentures still clinging to her slack jaws.
“Old Mama Mead, I presume,” I whisper to her as I take a few cautious steps into the room until I’m standing before her. “I bet you were a right bitch, weren’t you.”