Page 95 of Haunting the Hunter

Then—shadows stretch unnaturally, reaching across the walls like fingers. The room seems to fold in on itself, and a low hum claws through my skull. Smoke seeps from the corners of the ceiling, curling around us.

One breath and I’m gone.

Then my vision snaps to black. I try to move—to scream—but I’m nothing.

No voice. No limbs.

The silence is total. Deafening.

This is magic.

And it hates me.

I’m alive. I’m alive. I’m alive.

I am still myself. This isn’t real.

I begin to feel like gravity has been sucked from my being—unable to discern up from down.

Up, down—meaningless.

My lungs inflate like foreign machines. Every swallow is deafening. I can hear the slick churn of muscle, the wet tick of tendons shifting, the flex of my jaw. Even my teeth feel wrong in my mouth.

It’s so quiet, I begin to hear my organs squelching with each attempted movement. The rush of my blood moving through my veins.

I’m hyperaware of every part of my body.

I become too aware of my tongue as the roof of my mouth begins to feel too tight. Panic rises in my chest. My heart pounds like it’strappedin my ribs—too fast, too loud.

I can’t take it.

“Stop.Please.”

It slips out sharp. Uncontrolled and desperate.

The darkness fades immediately. But I’m not in the room.

The silence is eerie. The shift is too smooth. Air presses against my skin like breath, cold and wide. I blink—once, twice.

I’m outside.

This is the old Halloway property, the field behind the manor. Where the air always smells like iron and damp stone.

And there she is—

Genevieve.

Small. Still. Waiting.

“Where are we?” My voice is my own again, no longer raspy from thirst and screaming.

“This is where your ancestor found the grimoire,” she tells me in that soft voice of hers. “It’s just an illusion, but if you’re asking where your physical body sits—you are in the Covenant headquarters in Topanga Canyon.”

“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, suspicion clear in my voice.

“I’ve been under the hand of the Covenant since I was a child,” she says, and there’s a sadness in her voice. “They took me from myparents and raised me as their own. I stayed quiet, I read their books… People tend to ignore the ones they think are small.”

The thought hits me hard in the chest. She reminds me of Calli. Not just the magic, not just the eyes—but the way she speaks like she already knows how this ends.