This isn't weird.

Surprise

Something was wrong. Something was... off.

Well, of course something was wrong. She'd finally worked up the courage to reach out to Ben, and he'd refused to so much as speak to her. She had every reason in the world to feel sick and uneasy, to want to turn back around, crawl into bed, and hide.

And yet it felt like... something else. There was a strange undercurrent of adrenaline beneath her grief, raising the hair on the back of her neck, a palpable readiness to run.

But that was just classic Millie, wasn't it? Suffer an emotional setback, and fuck right off. Not today. Paul had been nothing but kind to her. He was, what, nineteen? Still young enough to trust that people he cared about wouldn't just abandon him on a whim. She wasn't going to let herself be the person to disillusion him of that. It didn't matter that her heart was disintegrating inside her chest. For once, she wasn't going to inflict her damage onto somebody else. Not this time.

Not this time.

The parking lot was unexpectedly crowded, and finding a spot big enough to park a minibus took some effort. Millie wasn't sure what town they were in, but if it was the sort of place where the bookstore was more bustling on a Friday night than the bar across the street, she couldn't help thinking it would be a nice place to land. It was a fairly urban area—she could see several bus stops lining the streets. Ample public transportation. Good to know. She made a mental note to ask where exactly they were before they left. The future was murky, but sooner or later, she'd have to stop moving.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Paul asked.

Could you stop being so perceptive for five goddamn minutes? Millie thought, annoyed. "Fine," she replied with a smile.

They found a spot in the very back corner of the lot just as a light smattering of raindrops began to splash against the windshield.

"Better get inside before we get caught in the rain," Paul said, climbing out. Millie hurried along after him, but the closer she got to the bookstore, the stronger her impulse to flee became. By the time she was pulling open the door, her pulse was racing. Just from running across the parking lot, she told herself. She was out of shape from six months of hiding indoors from the Texas heat.

It was crowded inside. Back at her old store, she'd only ever seen it get this packed during storewide sales. Bookworms, she knew, were notoriously rabid about discounts. Whatever sale they were having here must have been a big one.

"Come on," Paul said, taking her by the elbow. "We're a little late."

"Late?" Millie repeated, but he didn't elaborate as he pulled her along through the crowd, weaving between the other customers milling through the aisles.

Late?

What did he mean, late?

Then it dawned on her, with an irrational spike of anxiety—this wasn't a sale. This was an event. And there were only a few very specific types of events that took place in a bookstore. As they moved toward the back of the building, the crowd grew thicker, but the customers grew quieter, until only a single voice could be heard through the hush.

A familiar voice.

"Our story begins with a girl..."

Oh, god.

No.

"A green-eyed girl, who was nimble and quick and half-wild. She was..."

She willed her body to stop, to dig her heels into the ground and resist the hand pulling her along, but it wouldn't obey. The voice grew clearer, deep and smooth, its hypnotic cadence filling her body with a sickening eruption of horror and dread and... sparkles.