Page 87 of The Souls of Lost Lake

Her eyes flew open.

He was close. So very close.

“Let me go!” She twisted under his body.

“Ava, it’s me. Noah.” He emphasized his declaration with an added press to her wrists.

She stilled. Stared. Moonlight filtered in through the curtains drawn over her bedroom window. Ava could make out the outline of the dresser across the room. She felt the coarse rub of the carpet beneath her and heard the creak of the wood flooring it covered.

Noah’s grasp loosened as awareness returned to her.

“I thought—” she gasped. Cryin’ wasn’t going to help a thing. Not a thing. Yet in her mind’s eye Ava could still see her mother’s vacant stare. She could see the flames, the bodies of her brothers. Her throat felt sore from the screams she had released that day so many years before. “I remember.” Ava’s whisper was hoarse. “I remember.”

Noah braced his hands against the floor, lifting his weight from her chest. He hovered over her, his chocolate gaze black in the night. “What do you remember?” he whispered.

Ava turned her head away from him. There were tears, and then there were torrents. Hers were becoming the latter, and she didn’t want Noah to be a witness to them.

“Leave me alone,” she begged.

Noah shook his head. “I can’t do that.”

“Please.”

Noah’s hand rested against her cheek, turning her face to lookup at him. She could tell, even with the shadows dancing across his features, that his expression was one of concern.

“I rememberthem. I remember them dyin’.”

“Do you remember who it was that killed them?”

Of course.Thatwas the critical question. Ava shook her head, struggling to sit up. Noah pushed himself away from her, offering his hand. She drew into a sitting position on the floor, leaning her back against the bed. Ava swiped her arm across her face, sniffing into the sleeve of her nightgown. Her legs were bare, her knees sticking out as she sat cross-legged.

Noah adjusted to sit next to her. They both stared forward, eyes fixated somewhere along the opposite wall. The window behind them lurked above the bed, and the moon attempted to crack the midnight.

“Ava?” Noah’s pressure to tell him what she knew was gentle, yet there was an urgency in his tone to find a key that might bring resolution to their situation.

“They were all dead. All of ’em.” Ava noted the mirror on her dresser. The window’s reflection in it. She saw the outline of the windowpanes through the curtains. “My pa, my ma, my brothers...”

Noah’s arm moved. His hand settled on the floor next to hers. He didn’t touch her, but Ava could feel the warmth generating from his nearness.

“The cabin was on fire. Like hell had risen from the pit and was lickin’ it.” Ava knew she’d experienced another one of her blackouts. “I drug them toward the lake.” It was an admission. Of guilt. Of regret. Of sorrow.

“You were just a girl.”

“I didn’t go get help,” Ava retorted. The clouds covered the moon, and the curtain shifted in tone from gray to dark blue. “But I had to get them away from the fire.”

“They must have been very heavy when you dragged them.”

She turned to look at Noah. “Funny when you’re scared howstrong a person gets. I just pulled them out of the cabin and into the lake. Deep as I could get ’em. The fire was awful hot.”

“What else do you remember?”

His eyes locked with hers. The moon had come out from behind the clouds again. Its glow reflected off the mirror, casting a bluish light across them. Ava could see the shadow of whiskers on Noah’s jaw. His hair lay on his forehead. His nightshirt was open, revealing a broad naked chest. It’d been hastily tucked into his trousers.

“You shouldn’t be in here,” Ava whispered, the air thick between them.

“I know,” he whispered back.

She froze when Noah’s finger rose and swept a tear from her cheek.