Page 22 of The Mountain Man's Curvy Trick-or-Treat

The dragonfly lifts away, circles once, then vanishes toward the light spilling through the door.

For a long time, I just sit there, staring at the space it left behind, my heart thudding too fast, my mind forming a plan. Logic begs me to sit back down, call a friend, call a therapist. But logic never made me feel alive.

Then, I hear the knock on the door. Aggressive, repeated. It fractures the silence of my apartment. I startle, rise, an uneasiness curling low in my gut.

Don’t.

As if it’s whispered across a great void. And then the last thing I remember from my dream:They’ll come for you before they come for me.

I look through the peephole, holding my breath. Two mountain men with thick brown beards and piercing blue-green eyes stare back. As if they can see through the peephole or somehow sense me. One’s flesh flickers for a moment, almost imperceptibly, something I would have never known to look for if it wasn’t for?—

Everett. He wasn’t a dream.

My breath catches in my throat, and my heart pounds.

Another knock. Harder. Again.

The silence fractures; so does my pulse.

“Eden, we know you’re in there.” The voices menace as my pulse slams against my temples.

I step back noiselessly, mind racing.What do I do? Call the sheriff? Call a neighbor?

The plate of Star-honey gleams softly on the counter—its glow answering something I can’t see.

Then, I hear it, the click of the dragonfly, only magnified a hundredfold. When I turn, there’s a black cloud of them flying into my apartment. They pour through the open balcony door like metallic rain, dozens—no, hundreds—of them, light sparking off every wing.

I can’t process anything as the mountain men on the other side of the door bang again, voices growing more threatening.

One among the tiny horde of flashing metal insects grabs hold of my sleeve, tugging me along with it.

Go.

It sounds like they’re trying to break the door in now. The banging deafening as the cloud of insects swirls in front of the door like one great silvery shield.

Go now.

I don’t have a second to reflect before the large dragonfly leads me to the balcony, more robot than nature, though I don’t know how that can be. But then, nothing—nothing since knocking on Everett’s door has made sense.

I follow it over the balcony’s edge and down the fire escape as footsteps hammer closer. Two men dressed in all black with sunglasses appear.

“Ms. Lightborn,” one exclaims, pulling a badge in an efficient move. “We need to?—”

But the dragonfly tugs me toward my vehicle and another swarm gathers, setting off some kind of small explosion. A burst of light—loud but harmless—cracks across the sidewalk, smoke blooming like a screen. Through the distraction, I make it into my vehicle with the creature leading.

Rook.

A name? Perhaps. Can it communicate with me?

Follow.

It feels like Everett and the dream. Like he’s in my head, though the communication is far more basic. As I pull away from my bakery and apartment, the two sets of men run into each other. Heads bobbing, gesticulating wildly as insects swarm them.

The air hums like a living thing as I grip the wheel. Behind me, smoke and sirens. Ahead, the Starborn Range—calling me home.

Chapter

Nine