Page 21 of Safe in Shadow (Pine Ridge Universe #22)

G race moved sluggishly, even though her eyes were wide and her heart was racing.

Something slammed downstairs.

Thunder and howls of wind raced past the bedroom window, rattling the glass until she worried it would shatter.

Just the storm. Did I leave a window open? Wind must have knocked something over.

It might be something on the porch...

What’s on the porch?

She rolled over sleepily, arm drifting over the side of the bed. “Nyx?”

She yawned. Was it her imagination, she wondered as her heart rate slowed and her eyelids closed, or did she feel fingertips brushing hers from beneath the bed?

THE PLACE WAS DIFFERENT this year, The Stranger could tell at once. Cleaner. No more holes in the floor. Of course. Pamela lived here now, so it would be fixed up.

They could stay here. He could keep an eye on his “garden” in the woods. Pam would understand why they should stay.

He found the stairs, groping his way in the dark. His fingers ached where they’d been broken, and his jaw suddenly tightened. Why hadn’t Pamela come home? Why here? How had she known he would be here?

Was she spying on him? Was she avoiding him?

He ignored the pain and the slippery feeling of his wet shoes on the polished wooden staircase. He raced upward, his anger mounting. How dare she hide all this time, waiting, alive, making him do horrible things?

What if she wasn’t waiting for him? Was she still with those frat boys? They’d be older now, the same age as him.

At the top of the landing, his footsteps slowed. He thought about calling out again, but he didn’t. He would surprise her, and if she screamed and tried to run, he’d stop her and— His mind turned off.

If she opened her arms and gave him what he’d been waiting for, what everyone else had gotten to have... His mind shut off again, a wall of anger blocking out everything.

The results were always going to be the same—but maybe he could fix her this time.

NYX FELT SOMETHING off in the same way that you feel the first twinge of a cold a day before it makes your life miserable. Just a dull ache. A warning.

Something was off.

But Grace was safe. Grace had forgiven him. Grace had understood.

Nyx swallowed and swam upwards, the feeling of unease growing with every inch forward.

I am not evil. I may not be purely good, but I am not evil. My powers are not meant to harm.

But the feeling of sickening darkness was choking him. It wasn’t the wild, terror-filled evil that swam below, but a living darkness. The kind that’s so steeped in rottenness that it makes you recoil—and yet it walks among men without anyone being the wiser.

The Stranger!

Nyx shot to the land of the living, finding Grace’s hand again, and this time, he didn’t softly caress it. He yanked and heard her fall with a scream.

Footsteps rushed closer, and he hauled for all he was worth.

GRACE TRIED TO SCREAM , but a shadowy tentacle strangled her to silence, and Nyx’s frantic eyes met hers.

He put a finger to his lips and held her close. “Don’t make a sound. Don’t move. Don’t look down.”

So, of course, the first thing she did was try to look down, at least as much as she could while her throat was pinioned by shadows—and there was nothing but emptiness.

Not like an empty room, but like the sensation of finding yourself suddenly alone in the middle of space, the kind of blackness that would drive you mad in five minutes.

Something moved in the darkness. Slithered. Took shape. Stared up at her with a grin that was miles wide and full of gory teeth.

She whimpered, and Nyx jerked her head higher. “There’s a man. In the house.”

Grace closed her eyes so she wouldn’t see the monsters circling below, and in the distance, she could hear doors slamming and feet kicking the ground.

Glass shattered. Shards landed above her head—and hung there, as if there was some invisible ceiling between the floorboards under her bed and the nightmare world where she was trapped.

“Pamela! Pam, come out! I know you’re here. You’re making it worse by hiding!” The voice thundered and raged.

The next second, it cooed, “Pamela. I’m sorry, honey. I’m sorry. I don’t know why you’re hiding from me. I’m always here for you. Haven’t I always been here for you?”

Tears of fear and confusion welled out of Grace’s eyes and ran down her cheeks. Nyx caught them, rubbing his cheek to hers. “He’s a bad man. A killer. I should have told you first, but I thought... I thought he wouldn’t come back. Not now that someone lives here.”

Grace managed to mouth words. “Who?”

“I don’t know. I call him The Stranger. He’s not from town. He comes once a year, buries a bag, and leaves.”

“Buries?”

“In the woods.”

“Why didn’t you say?” she demanded, hissing. Below, something rattled and hissed in response.

Nyx shook his head, reminding her to be quiet.

“You’re living. They can hurt you more than they can hurt me.

And I didn’t tell you because I... I couldn’t understand all of my memories and feelings.

I wanted to drive you away at first, to keep you away from me.

Keep you away from The Stranger. And then.

.. When I began to remember things, I agonized over what had happened to Cynthia and what you’d think of me.

I was going to tell you. I would have. I thought we had more time. ”

Grace was too afraid to feel anything else.

The one brain cell not terrified of the gateway to Hell or whatever underneath, or The Stranger outside, was rationalizing that if she’d been a two-hundred-year-old supernatural being with fractured memories, a guilty conscience, mixed feelings, and new information, she’d probably have had the same priorities.

Confess her own guilt first, then worry about the scary dude who only showed up once a year.

After all, in Nyx’s mind, he was terrifying and around her on a daily basis, but The Stranger might never come back.

Shouldn’t have come back.

“What do we do?” she mouthed.

“I keep you safe. I’m going to pull you up, and you lie right under the bed.

You can’t go into the portal without me taking you there—but that’s true of the other beasts, too, probably.

Stay as close to the edge as you can without touching it until I drive him from the house.

Then, call for the police. If they get here fast enough, he might still be alive. ”

Before she could fully comprehend any of that, her mind stuck on that part about monsters being able to drag her down and a serial killer and Nyx doing battle above, she felt herself slamming through the floorboards with a sharp scream, one she shouldn’t have let out.

Footsteps came running right toward her, a deranged yell outshouting the storm.

Nyx gave her one last, grim look over his shoulder, unwrapped his coils and arms from around her, and shot forward with a room-shaking cry of his own.