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Chapter Three

AUTUMN

I ’m running, running fast. I’m in the forest. Trees are whipping past me as the crescent moon trails behind me. I leap over a fallen tree in a single bound. Someone is chasing me. I must go faster. I can feel them on my heels. Faster! They are coming. They are coming.

* * *

My eyes fly open in the morning, my hand automatically extends toward the orchid by my bed. Only its bloom is not there; its leaves are beginning to crinkle. There’s already a pile of dried petals on the nightstand.

Whoa . I gasp, leaning back against the bed frame. These dreams haunt me sometimes. Ones where I’m running or leaping around in the forest. They make me feel free and happy instead of cooped up in this house. But this dream, this dream felt weird—different.

By the time I eat my expired oatmeal, I’m more than ready to drown myself in work. While I’m dressing for the day, Colton never makes an appearance. I don’t even hear his obnoxious snoring, which is what makes me finally open his door. His bed is still made—he never came home last night. My heart drops, and I grip the comforter to restrain myself from going out and looking for him. A bad feeling blossoms in the pit of my stomach. It churns in anticipation. I should go look for Colton. But my eyes glance down at my watch to see I’m already late for work. Colton thinks he’s ready to be an adult, I should let him. Even against the twisting in my stomach. I know my brother will never learn if I always save him. He wants to buy a house and hold down a job? He can get his hungover ass home himself. I shove down the ache in my chest and leave for work.

I ran to work and barely had time to put my vest on before joining Vicky on the floor.

“Did they notice I was missing?” I whisper, trying to catch my breath.

“Girl, no one notices you when I’m here.” She tosses her long hair over her shoulder.

“True.” I shrug. Vicky has all the confidence in the world, leaving none for the rest of us. I admire that about her sometimes.

“But surprisingly, I did have a conversation with Tom that you were in the stock room taking inventory.”

“Awesome, thanks, Vick—owe you one.”

“Yes, you do,” she calls, but I’ve already turned down the aisle.

As I round the corner, I stop short right before smacking into one of those out-of-town hunters. It’s the short one with a thick beard and bright blue eyes. But it’s his tobacco breath that makes my nose crinkle.

“Oh, Gods, I’m—” I stammer.

“Hey there, doll.” He moves the chewing tobacco from one cheek to the other.

“Do you need help, sir?” I put on my best customer service smile, one that I’ve seen Vicky use a thousand times. His head twists as he eyes me strangely.

“Hey, Carl, come here a sec.”

I raise my eyebrow; awesome, two creepy camo guys. This sounds like a job for Vicky.

“Yeah?” Carl comes to his friend’s side. Carl has deep-set eyes and wears a baseball cap like it’s his uniform.

“Doesn’t she have a nice tattoo?” he asks Carl strangely, almost sounding like he’s insinuating something.

“Tattoo? I don’t have any …” I follow his gaze down to my arm. “That’s not a tattoo, that’s a birthmark.” I’ve always had this interconnecting circular scar on my right arm. Although it seems to be getting bigger and maybe a little redder as I’ve grown over the years.

“Why, yes …” He moves closer to me. “That’s … interesting.”

I swallow hard. The looks they are giving me is making that sixth sense pool into dread. “Is there anything I can help you with, gun -wise? I hear that the new Sureshooter 400 has a better scope and cheaper rounds.” Desperately trying to hold my ground and still be professional, how in the world does Vicky do it?

They look at each other then back at me. “Where are you from?” Carl asks me.

I open my mouth to speak but the words I hear next don’t come from me. Thankfully, someone saves me.

“Back again, boys? If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you come here for the company and not the guns.” Vicky shows up at my side.

“We were just getting to know your friend here.” Not-Carl winks at me, tobacco still visible.

“What? Am I old news?” She props her hand on her hip and pouts. “Well, you’re just going to have to get over it, because Autumn here has inventory to take.” She winks at me. I take that as my cue to leave because I don’t even want to spend one more second with those creeps. Something about them feels off.

“We’ll see you ’round, Autumn,” one of them calls after me and a full-body shiver runs from my toes to the top of my head.

Gods, I hope not .

The rest of the day flies by in the stock room, where I actually do have to take inventory. I don’t mind the counting, and it’s such a relieving break from dealing with customers. The monotony takes my mind off of sibling-drama, and these four walls block me from those hunting creeps. Before I know it, five o’clock sneaks upon me and I’m clocking out. Vicky is already closing her locker door and looping the lock through when I enter.

“Hey, thanks for before.” I lean on the locker beside hers. “They were getting way too personal.”

“No problem, those guys have a hard-on for you.”

“Ew, gross.” I snicker, my face scrunching up in disgust.

“Just saying …” She throws her arms up. “Looks like you owe me two now. How about you come camping and we call it even?”

“I’ll think about it.”

“That’s the best I can hope for.” We walk out together before she heads off toward her truck and my feet freeze like I’m in quicksand. My eyes lock on the blacked-out SUV still sitting in the parking lot. My eyes scan the area … they are parked right in the front, facing the entrance. The perfect spot to see who is coming and going. I get a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that they are waiting for me . It was something about the look in their eyes that made me feel like I’d be seeing them again. But they weren’t counting on me leaving through the employee entrance, and I see my chance. It’s one of the few times I’m grateful I don’t have a car to drive. I slowly sneak backward into the shadow of the building toward the rear of the warehouse. Once I’m out of sight, I run toward the safety of the tree line. Inside the shadows of the trees, I press on toward home. Maintaining my path just out of sight of the main road to make sure I don’t get lost.

Usually, the sounds of the forest soothe me, but for some reason this feeling of anxiety won’t stop humming in my veins. It’s the strangest sensation I’ve ever felt and almost feels like the time I woke up a year ago in the middle of the night screaming for my brother. Only he wasn’t the one beside my bed. It was a strange shadow of the plant I had nursed back to health. It was glowing in an eerie green light almost as if it was trying to tell me something. I couldn’t tell you what that was—I’m not crazy. I can’t speak to plants. But I could almost swear the way it was leaning in toward me, it was warning me to wake. That was the night Colton broke his arm. He was drinking with his friends in the woods and apparently, he was dared to climb a tree. Of course, he’d fallen. He was lucky his arm was the only thing that he hurt. I’ll never forget the fear I had that night—or the fact that it took me months to pay off his hospital visit.

I felt this same humming in my veins that night as well. At first, I was alarmed, but that same unsettling feeling comes now and again when my brother stays out late, and I’ve chalked it up to what people call a maternal instinct. It causes me to have these strange epiphanies when my brother is in danger. I don’t have a name for it, but I have this insane feeling of responsibility over Colton. My stomach twists in anticipation before it drops and my heart stops for a moment and then speeds up incessantly.

Pop.

A far-away sound echoes in the woods around me. Birds flutter into the wind at the sound of it. I’m about a block from my cabin, and that feeling assaults me again. My stomach drops to the floor. Something happened. Something with Colton …

My feet stop, the whole world tilts on its axis, and I’m falling to my knees in the dirt vomiting. Dread pools in my gut, but I force myself to rise to my feet. Desperation fills my bones and I burst into a run through the trees toward town. The breath in my lungs burns, I barely make it a few steps before doubling over and gagging uncontrollably, more vomit threatening to assault me. Tears drip from my eyes. I’m gasping for a breath of fresh air, but it does nothing for the burning in my lungs. I can always sense my brother, Colton calls it my sixth sense, but as I run closer and closer, the more it seems to fade. Slipping from my grasp like grains of sand through my fingers. My legs burn as I come to the end of the tree line and wander out to the edge of town.

Sirens echo in the distance when my mind finally clicks back to the here and now. I’m running, I don’t remember deciding to start running or even where I’m going, but my feet are flying underneath me. I hurtle over someone’s fence when I reach town. That’s when a little tug in my heart tells me to turn toward Matteus’s house. My arms are pumping fast, hair whipping across my face, my khaki work pants are splattered with mud—maybe even vomit—yet I continue my path through people’s backyards. That’s the least of my worries because the tug in my chest suddenly stopped. It stopped . I can’t feel it anymore. I can’t feel … him .

Now I’m randomly stumbling over my own feet as I slow down. Red and white lights dance across a white house before me. Matteus’s house.

Three police cars are blocking my view from the front, and sitting there is an ambulance with its back doors ajar. The flutter comes again, telling me subconsciously that I need to get around back of the house. Veering to the line of trees along the white fence, I dash into the shadows and follow the fence around to the backyard. The police are questioning someone, his identity is blocked from my line of sight. A body lies on the grass, beside a stretcher that blocks my view. My stomach churns with the unknown, but I can’t look away.

Voices echo to me. “Coroner’s cleared him, lift on three,” a paramedic tells his coworker. I rise to my tip toes, peeking through the holes in the fence.

“One.” My breathing ceases.

“Two.” My heart stops.

“Three.” My remaining lunch, along with hysteria, comes barreling out of my throat into the bushes beside me as I realize what I’m witnessing.

* * *

The metal chair is ice against my back, the rest of me is numb. My fingers grow white as they are clenched against the seat. The time from the moment my eyes saw Colton lying on that stretcher to now is a blur. I remember running over. I recall deliriously screaming to see him, an unknown arm around my waist, and the words, “I’m sorry, he’s gone.”

The fluorescent lights flicker above me as my mind realizes I’ve been lost in thought, somewhere far, far away.

“Ms. Hemming? Are you okay?” the young officer’s eyes soften. “I’m sorry we have to do this right now.” He shifts in his chair awkwardly. “The more information we have, the faster we can locate the person responsible.”

The killer .

I shiver. There could be no other explanation, Colton was shot. Half of his face was missing. I was the only one who could identify the odd M birthmark on his shoulder. They asked how I’d gotten there so fast. They didn’t believe me when I said I could feel a tether between us breaking. I had no way to describe the feeling of part of my heart being ripped away from me except using those very words, knowing that it made me sound a bit odd. Nothing could ever describe the blinding silence in its wake, though.

“I … I just need a minute.” Or a lifetime. The blinding light dazes me, and the bile threatens to rise in the back of my throat.

“Can I get you some coffee, Ms. Hemming?”

“Yeah, I …” I tremble as I rise to my feet. “I, ummm, need to use the ladies’ room.”

“Of course.” He rises to his feet and opens the door. “It’s right across the hall. I’ll get you–”

The rest of his sentence is cut off by the bathroom door shutting behind me. The mirror behind the sink is blurry, smeared with something, and the harsh lighting of the bathroom throws everything in a yellow hue. The tears stream down my face untamed.

This can’t be happening. Colton’s my life, what do I do now?

The sixth sense was always a hum inside of me … and now it is silent. I fall to my knees. It’s the silence that screams at me now, reminding me all that I’ve lost. It’s so final, the undeniable confirmation that my connection to Colton is gone. He is gone . My father, then my Mother, and now my brother … are all gone. I’m irrevocably alone and I don’t know where to go from here.

Pain .

Pain like I’ve never known rips through me and steals my breath. The blinding light comes again, and I stumble against the sink. When my vision clears, the mirror is still blurry, but my amber eyes are … glowing. Stunned, I stumble back, collapsing onto my knees. I grab my heart, the very spot that felt silent a few seconds ago now jumpstarts back to life in an instant. My heart hurts and I desperately reach for it.

Trembling to my feet, I lift my shirt and inspect my chest in the mirror. There is no blood, no wound. The agonizing pain comes again, and my fists clench over my chest until the wave subsides. My insides are being stabbed and somehow put back together over and over again.

Fitting, I would rather feel this literal pain than live with the silence of my broken heart. This, I deserve. I had one job after Mother passed. I failed him.

* * *

It takes several minutes and hundreds of calming breaths, but once I’ve collected myself, and the agonizing pain becomes only a small hum in my chest, I leave the bathroom, wiping my tears. Narrowly avoiding a collision, I almost slam directly into someone.

“I’m sorry, I–” I pause when I realize it’s Matteus. Through all of the commotion at his house, I never even thought about him and his well-being.

“Autumn,” Matteus pauses and then pulls me to a bench between the bathrooms. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you.”

“I don’t know if I can handle anything right now,” I admit, the hum of pain stinging my chest again, I reach for it. Matteus notices.

“I know. I just want you to know that Colton loved you, he would have done everything for you. I told him it was a mistake to keep you in the dark.”

“What?” I look up to his golden eyes. “What do you mean?”

“Colton is … was …” he corrects himself, “not what you think he was. He was trying to protect you, but–”

“Ms. Hemming, are you ready to continue?” The young officer from before comes and stands beside us.

“Just a moment.”

“You really shouldn’t be talking to anyone else before we’ve had time to collect both of your statements.”

“Just a moment, please, he was the last person to see my brother alive. I just–”

“I know, and you can discuss this after we’ve finished taking your statement.” He pulls me to a standing position and directs me toward the room we were just in.

“This is absurd,” I state, but the officer guides me away.

Matteus stands, watching me, his stature so much like my brother lately. Tall, wise, otherworldly. He knows something about my brother, something that I don’t. The pain in my chest rises once more, and I find myself wondering if it even matters. There’s nothing that Matteus—or this officer—could say that will change a thing and bring my brother back to life. Colton is gone, and with him so are all my hopes and dreams.