Chapter 4
We pulled up outside my house. As I cast my gaze toward the sweet, Queen Anne style building, a knot of fear formed in my stomach.
My eyes ticked toward the gate. Max made a point of always keeping it closed, but right now it was wide open.
Bridgett jumped out of the front seat. Before she could close the door, I swung an arm out, caught hers, and held her in place with a stiff white hand.
“What is it?” She swung her head down to me, her lips stiffening into a hard white line.
I darted my gaze back to the picket fence. “The gate’s open. The gate’s never open. We always close it.”
Bridgette turned her head around, narrowing her gaze as she stared at the gate. After several seconds, she simply shrugged. “It probably blew open. The wind has been pretty violent, after all. We have to push on – we’re running out of time.”
The knot in my stomach told me we’d already run out of time. Rather than point that out, I forced a breath through my teeth, undid my belt with a shaking hand, and finally pushed out of my seat.
I followed Bridgette through the open gate. I ticked my head toward the door. For a flash of a second, it looked open. But the closer I got, I realized it was closed.
An involuntary shiver ran all the way down my back, plowed through my heart, and made me want to gag.
“You’ll be okay.” Bridgette had a hand on my shoulder. But even I could tell her move was swift and unfocused.
As I ticked my head to the side, I saw all her attention was locked on the building, an uncomfortable, hard frown pressing across her lips.
… It couldn’t be him. It absolutely couldn’t be him… could it? McCain?
There was no way for him to push through from the past to the future. Yet who else would be in my house? The Lonely King was dead – there was no way he was alive. I’d seen his eyes rolling into the back of his head, felt the life leave him.
But who else could it be? Could it be one of his lackeys, maybe? One of his last faceless assassins who was taking a passing swipe at me for my part in their boss’ death?
We didn’t say a word as we reached the door. She turned to me and waited as I pushed a hand into my pocket. Then I cursed. “I’ve lost my key.”
“But this house is magical.” She turned her head up and stared at the house with a distinct frown pressing across her lips. “I can feel it. If you want to open the door, it will accept your command.”
Though I’d always kind of had the sense that the house was magical, it had never been described to me in such simple terms. Testing the theory, I reached a hesitant hand out, locked it on the handle, and opened it.
Bridgette pushed forward, shunting the door all the way open. “It’s your house, so it can’t stay locked for you.”
Locked? A truly cold sensation washed down my cheeks. I hadn’t heard the lock unclick. No. It had been open.
My body felt as if I’d swallowed a concrete pylon as I took a shuddering step into the house after Bridgette.
My eyes were so wide, it was a surprise they didn’t fall from my skull and roll along the floor.
Bridgette, if she’d seen my distress, ignored it as she walked into the house, twisting her head from side-to-side. Either she was checking for an attacker or she liked the décor. Eventually, she turned and nodded at me. “So where’s the contract?”
“Upstairs,” I said through a tight gulp of a breath. I pushed past her, intending to head up the stairs to the attic. That would be when I noted the mud tracks along the carpet. Large – they had to belong to a big man. A man as big as McCain.
“What is it?” Bridgette insisted, her voice now so tight with worry, it was obvious she was taking my hesitation seriously.
I didn’t answer. I reached out a hand, clamped my sweaty fingers on the banister, and slowly walked up the stairs. With every step I took, I swore my heart beat harder until it felt as if it wouldn’t just ram out of my rib cage but would pulverize itself.
He was in the house. Or something was in the house. The terror clawing up and down my back couldn’t be lying. And yet, at the same time, I wasn’t using my precognitive abilities. It wasn’t the damn fireflies dancing back and forth across my vision telling me what would happen next. No. Just plain old common intuition the likes of which I’d once relied on before I’d entered this ridiculous world.
By the time I made it to the third-floor landing, I was an absolute mess of nerves. And yet there was something, something that was pulling me on. Something I couldn’t fight. It felt like inevitability, like finally coming to the end of some journey.
Bridgette was a single step behind me. And though I couldn’t see her, I could feel how tense her body was from here. I swore the air around her was charged with pure fright.
I didn’t say anything to her as I walked down the corridor. I stopped abruptly several meters from the stairs that led up to the attic. They were down. Max was usually very protective over those stairs. He always ensured I retracted them when I wasn’t up in the attic, so I would never ever have left the
