Page 41 of Salem’s Fall (Dark Seasons Thriller #3)

A fter Lucien leaves, Lucky and I are alone in the cavernous, cold dining room of Blackthorn Manor.

Utterly and completely alone.

My hands lie uselessly on the table as I stare down at the untouched silver and crystal, each glittering facet mocking me.

Lucky moves from the corner of the room to my side, perching quietly on the chair beside me.

His eyes fix on me with an intensity—silent, unwavering—as if he understands just how horrible things are.

How did this happen?

How could I have been so blind?

I’ve been so wrapped up in my own ambition, my need to prove myself, that I missed the real danger staring me in the face. I’d been so stupid to think I could outsmart the Veil. Now my little sister is somewhere out there, alone, facing horrors I can barely comprehend.

A wave of nausea rises in my throat.

Halloween—Veil Night—is tonight, and if Lucien is right, then Maddie doesn’t have much time. Meanwhile, I’m trapped here in Blackthorn Manor, in the beautiful prison Damien designed to “protect” me, but in reality, it’s just another web I’ve been caught in.

A shaky breath leaves me as tears prick at my eyes.

All I can think about is Maddie. Her bright, laughing face.

That tiny gap between her front teeth she’s always been self-conscious about.

The way she dramatically squeals and acts like she’s about to faint whenever she gets excited.

How she nudges me at dinner when I’m being too serious, or pouts into the phone to get her way, always knowing exactly what to say to wear me down. And now she’s out there, all alone.

I can’t lose my sister.

Not like this.

Lucky shifts, leaping from the chair to my lap, curling against me with a low purr. I scratch behind his ears, lost in my feelings of anger and helplessness, until he head-butts my hand sharply, startling me.

“Lucky? What is it?”

He stares up at me, eyes gleaming with an intensity I’ve never seen, before jumping down from my lap and trotting toward the doorway. He pauses, looking back at me expectantly.

“I don’t understand. You want me to follow you?” I ask, feeling ridiculous talking to my cat, but something in his steady, knowing gaze spurs me to my feet.

I walk over and he takes off again, tail shaking purposefully as he slinks around the corner.

Every time I catch up to him, he runs farther away, making me chase him all through the manor’s labyrinthine hallways.

I have no idea what Lucky is doing, or why, but for some strange reason I can’t explain, I feel compelled to follow.

Eventually, he leads me down a quiet, dim corridor and stops beside a small door. He scratches at the wood, letting out an insistent meow.

“Um… you want me to open this?” I ask, still feeling foolish as I turn the handle.

The door swings open to reveal a narrow, spiraling staircase.

I take a slow, hesitant step downward, and then Lucky bolts past me, a sleek shadow slipping between my legs.

He races down the stairs, his paws barely making a sound, tail flicking once before he vanishes into the darkness.

I follow after him, clinging to the rickety banister for support as the air turns cooler and mustier.

At the bottom, I’m met with an old, damp stone corridor. The place is dimly lit by torches that flicker like they’ve been burning for ages. It’s almost like I’m no longer in Blackthorn Manor but have wound up in another world entirely.

“What is this place?” I murmur, my voice echoing eerily in the silence.

Lucky keeps going, his little paws padding softly on the stone floor as he winds through the corridor with purpose. Finally, we reach a small, hidden room at the far end and Lucky leads me inside.

I gasp, a jolt of shock racing through me. Sitting on top of an old dresser, plugged into the wall, are my cell phone and laptop. Damien must have stashed them here, somewhere he assumed I’d never find them.

“How did… how did you know?” I ask Lucky, but the cat just curls around my ankles and stares at me with that mysterious twinkle in his bright eyes.

I lunge for the phone and turn it on. Over a dozen missed calls. Each notification blinks back at me. Most from Katie and Quinn… and one from the Massachusetts Correctional Institution.

Dad.

I stare at the screen, my breath catching. My father rarely calls, not unless it’s important.

My fingers shake as I click into the voicemail and the automated message plays: “You have a call from Massachusetts Correctional Institution. An inmate, Thomas Woodsen, attempted to contact you. To receive future calls, please ensure… ”

The voice drones on, but I stop listening. My grip tightens on the phone as my gnawing sense of dread grows.

Why would my dad be calling today of all days?

Halloween and he’s reaching out from his prison cell?

The timing chills me to the bone, like he knows something I don’t. But what? I thought he’d told me everything about the Veil and the Blackhollows the last time I saw him.

Then something else catches my eye. A small robin’s egg blue Tiffany box sits on the dresser beside my laptop, the kind used for expensive rings.

I don’t want to open it, but I know I have to, even if I already have a very bad feeling about what’s inside.

With numb fingers, I reach out, open the lid?—

Vivienne Van Buren’s missing engagement ring.

A sharp breath hitches in my throat as I stare at the missing ring, the one the police believed was stolen from the murder scene when they were still chasing the botched robbery theory. Why is it here? In Blackthorn Manor, hidden away in Damien’s secret little underground room?

I rifle through the dresser shelves and drawers, frantically searching, because if Damien hid his fiancée’s ring here, then what else is he hiding? There has to be something.

I find old documents, yellowed with age. Stacks of photographs. Nothing that means anything. Until?—

A familiar-looking white plastic access card, edged in silver, peeks out from beneath the papers. Mark’s Whitehall & Rowe building ID. The same card every Whitehall & Rowe attorney carries to get in and out of the firm’s building. The same one that should’ve been in Mark’s wallet the night he died.

My pulse thrums so loudly, it drowns out everything else.

What the hell is going on?

Lucky brushes against my leg again, snapping me out of my spiraling thoughts, before darting through another winding corridor at the back of the room.

I glance once more at the unsettling collection of items—Mark’s access card, Vivienne’s ring, my stolen phone and laptop.

All of it adds up to something that doesn’t look good for Damien, but I don’t have time to unpack it all now. Maddie needs me.

I rush after Lucky, clutching my phone to my chest as I follow him through the dark passageway.

Seconds later, we spill out of a heavy steel door and into the open air behind the manor.

A black sports car sits idle on the driveway.

I run to it, heart exploding as I peer through the window and spot the keys sitting right there in the cup holder like the best Christmas gift ever.

It’s as if they were left there on purpose, waiting for me.

As I glance back at Lucky, his yellow eyes lock on mine with an expression that almost feels knowing. It’s as if he understands exactly what’s happening, like he anticipated this all along.

“You… you led me to this, didn’t you?” I whisper, the realization making my skin prickle.

Lucky tilts his head and gives a soft, reassuring meow, weaving between my ankles like a silent blessing.

Hope surges through me. I finally have a way to get to Maddie.

I reach down to scoop him up, ready to place him in the car—but he slips away, darting into the dense woods behind Blackthorn Manor.

“Lucky! No—get back here!”

I scan the dark trees, but he’s already gone, swallowed up by the shadows.

Panic twists in my chest as I call after the cat and take a shaky step forward, torn between chasing after him and the urgency of saving my sister.

Every instinct screams at me to run after Lucky, to make sure he’s safe.

He’s not just a cat—he’s family. My rock. My constant, faithful companion.

But then I see Maddie’s face again in my head and am filled with the desperate urgency to get to her. I don’t know how much time she has left .

“Lucky!”

My voice cracks, the hollow silence that fills the space he left behind already feeling heavy, chilling.

Tears sting my eyes as I hover by the car, desperately glancing back at the woods one last time.

I don’t want to leave him—but something tells me he’ll be okay.

Lucky found me once, all those years ago, slipping out of the shadows in the alley behind my school when I needed him most. Almost like magic. He’ll come back to me again.

And then, as if the universe itself answers, a rustle in the distance—the faintest flicker of movement—almost like Lucky is telling me to go. Somehow I know that whatever lies ahead, I have to face it alone.

“You know where to find me, Lucky,” I whisper fiercely and slam the car door shut, clutching the wheel. There’s no more time to waste. Maddie needs me, and whatever’s ahead, I’m all she has left.

The car rumbles to life as I start the engine and make my way out of Blackthorn Manor, driving as fast as I can through the winding roads.

I tell myself that whatever happens next, I can handle it, but the truth is I’m more terrified than I’ve ever been in my life.

Veil Night is here, and somewhere out in that vast, dark unknown, Maddie is in trouble, her life hanging in the balance.

It all feels like a bad dream, one I can’t wake up from.