Page 12 of The Shadowed Oracle (The Bonded Worlds #1)

Regardless of what was happening in the world, regardless of what was happening to Ingrid, her only friend Franky would go on without her. And for some reason, this epiphany was soothing. To see it in person, right in front of her, it was like she was freed from something.

“You miss busting your ass at work already?” Dean’s voice cut through her thick fog of overthinking.

“I don’t know if miss is the right word,” she said, holding the phone limply in front of her face. “I’m just eager to get back to normal. Whatever that is.”

“Normal?” Dean laughed. “I don’t know if I’d call what you do normal. Working every single day like that.”

Ingrid took a moment to grasp what he was saying. So pressing was her desire to leave her job and her hometown, she’d almost forgotten she was scheduled to work the very next day.

“Wait, how did you know I work every night?” she asked, once the realization hit her.

“My god, woman.” Dean scoffed, giving no room for doubt to infect the silence. “Everyone who goes into The Boneyard does. No one has anything interesting going on so they all gossip.”

Ingrid knew that better than anyone. She knew there was a good chance she’d told him about her massive overtime hours herself. Yet, now that he was so flustered, she went quiet, letting the tension build.

“Really?” Dean said, blowing out a heavy breath. “I knew you had trust issues, but this is worrisome.”

“Gotcha,” she said, pivoting. “I could almost hear you blushing.”

“No you couldn’t.” His tone was overly defensive—harsh, but in an endearing way.

“Yes, I could,” she pushed. “And I can still hear it.”

“What does that mean? How can you hear someone blushing? Is this another vision thing?”

“Yes,” she lied. “I can see you right now. All flustered like a teenage girl.”

Dean had gone silent. “Are you serious? Can you see me right now?”

“Oh yeah.”

“Umm, okay, so you?—"

“No! I can’t literally see you! Are you always this gullible?”

A click of his tongue. “You never know. I mean, you do have the look. Like you might have some spells or curses up your sleeve.”

“You mean like a witch?”

“Yes. But the good kind of witch.” He clamped a laugh, like one might at an inside joke they weren’t willing to share. “Not the evil, wart-nosed kind. No. You’re a… a good witch.”

“But still a witch?”

“I don’t know! You were the one who said witch . I just…” He went on for a while before Ingrid cut him off.

“Goodbye, Dean.”

He sighed. “Right. Sorry. Talk to you soon.”

She’d just pulled up to the ramp that led into her heavily gated parking garage. As entertaining as the conversation had been—for her, at least—she was tired, her back a little stiff from sitting for hours, and she wanted nothing more than to tuck into bed and drift off, nightmares be damned.

The powerful sage candle that management always had burning wafted into her nostrils as she walked through the empty lobby and into the elevator.

She hit the button. Then, leaning on the reflective metal as it ascended, shifting her weight as if the thoughts were pushing her to do so, she again considered what starting over in another city would look like.

How could she leave Franky? Her job? Her co-workers that, despite their surface-level relationship, she’d grown somewhat attached to?

Like an old apartment or a kind teacher from grade school, there was history, comfort.

They’d grown on her, just like Dean had grown on her.

As terrifying as their first extended conversation was, she’d been happy and almost anxious to speak with him every day afterward.

Whether it was mid-shift messages or a late-night phone call—peeking out her window to see his black truck parked on the street—she found it easy, soothing.

But now she was thinking of leaving that comfort. Running away, just like she always had. Like her father had taught her to do.

Ingrid winced at that, shaking off the thought.

The elevator was nearly at her floor and her body still slightly swayed in anticipation, shifting from one foot to the other, and then, all at once, jerking forward.

The machine grumbled, coming to a screeching halt.

She swore under her breath and glanced up at the electronic number above the door of the elevator.

5, it read.

Ingrid lived on the 6th.

She had no time to wonder, no time to hit the emergency button or even hit the elevator button again.

Because the lights went out, and utter blackness swallowed her.

The silence was so alienating that it felt like being underwater, running out of air.

It seemed unfair that she’d gone her entire life without having any thought of the terrifying sensation of being trapped in a small, dark space—until it actually happened, and she had no time to plan or brace herself for the horror of it.

She took a few deep breaths, talking herself down.

She calmly reached for her phone, but nothing on her screen lit up, not even a flicker.

It was only a dead, metallic weight in her hand.

Her line to the outside world, the world in which anyone at all could come save her, had been cut. She let her arm go slack at her side, letting out a few more wavering breaths.

It’s only the dark, she assured herself.

I’ll find a way out.

There’s some kind of alarm... somewhere.

She opened her eyes to search, but found not a single light. No backup source from above. No emergency red button flashing.

She felt around the empty space for the controls of the elevator, total darkness giving her the illusion of a much larger area.

She took a few steps forward, a few to the right, waving her arms until fingers landed on metal.

She grazed the wall for the controls, hitting just a few at first, then pressing all of them down in one long desperate swipe.

Pitch black.

She blinked rapidly, listening to her own heartbeat as it became louder, faster. Her insides churned, throat tightened, temples pounding from within as if her brain had rebelled and began beating its way out of her skull.

Her hands balled up in preparation, because she knew what came next. Those familiar monsters were making themselves known. An endless lineup of rotting faces, macabre beasts and villains from her past, all smiling at her like they’d been tucked away under her eyelids the entire day, waiting.

Hollowed-out corpses and senseless gore flashed rapidly every second.

Scenes from her grim childhood mixed in with otherworldly creatures made of smoke and black scales.

A murdered girl in a suitcase. Kyle Twyker on his floor bleeding out.

A cloaked figure hovering over her as she slept.

And those symbols. They were painted everywhere.

Again, she closed her eyes and reverted to the techniques she’d employed for years.

A sense of humor, and unmitigated rage. That’s what she’d always combated them with, and that’s what she was doing now.

She seethed, creating cartoonish names for the beasts in between her measured inhales and exhales.

But new visions just kept appearing.

In a panic, she slapped at the buttons again with a thud. The echo of it sent a chill down her spine. She had the sensation of being hundreds of feet underground. A tunnel. A black hole. A grave.

She smashed the buttons again.

Nothing moved. Not a sound. No lights. She was helpless.

“Hello,” she said, feeling so small, so pitiful, so disoriented.

“Help!” she yelled.

“Help me!”

“FUCKING HELP!”

But it was only the voices in her head that answered. Indecipherable murmurs, more like vibrations than sounds. She could sense them trying to rattle her. Trying to trick her.

“Fuck you,” she whispered. If they hadn’t defeated her yet, then they never would. They’d never break her. Never take away her sanity.

She’d made it this far, for this long, and giving in to the madness was no longer an option. She didn’t fear the bumps in the night. She was the bump in the night. It was her. It was always her. It was all in her head. These monsters were hers . They were her. It was all in her head.

“You can’t… you can’t touch me,” she whispered.

“But I can.”

The voice slithered from behind, followed by one long pointed nail scratching at the back of her neck.