Sinister

Chapter Twenty-Two

Sinister

Chapter Twenty-Two

Leighton sat up in bed, gasping for air and covered in a sheen of sweat. In her dream, Jack Norton had been chasing her through the forest, stumbling and ridiculous. She had run, her feet bare and scraped, until she broke the trees and into Rudd's shop. They had all been there, all the people she had seen die. They were lined along the shelves, still and covered in frost.

Leighton rubbed her fists into her eyes, biting down hard on her lip in an attempt to shake off the last tendrils of the nightmare. It wasn't until she was completely lucid that she saw them. Hundreds of black stones filled her room.

The stones lined her bookshelf, sat on her pillows, nested at the bottom of her closet. There was a line of stones along the bottom of a frame with a picture of Leighton and her mother, another collection of stones scattered along her windowsill. Almost every inch of her room was completely covered.

Leighton made a sound of surprise in the back of her throat. Her heart constricted and then took off sprinting, ready to leave her chest. She couldn't swallow or move. Something was wrong.

Killian was supposed to be on her side. He was supposed to be helping her and Tate find a way to save her soul. He wouldn't have marked her this many times. He wouldn't have marked her at all.

Leighton pushed her blanket off of her, cringing as rocks poured over the side of her bed and hit the ground. She swung her legs over the edge of her mattress, pushing aside rocks with her feet so she'd have somewhere to stand.

Leighton heard her door open and looked up sharply, expecting Karen but only finding Tate. His eyes swept over the room, his shoulders and face taught with tension. Finally, his eyes rested on her and stayed there.

"This wasn't Killian," he told her.

Leighton nodded, hysteria threatening to take over everything. "Who?"

It was only then that she noticed how ragged Tate looked. His eyes were red and swollen, his skin pale and sullen. His eyes, beautiful and tormented, were ringed with dark circles and sunken.

"Killian's gone," Tate informed her, "gone, taken, dead. I don't know but there's another marker now, Leighton. I felt the change last night and left to find out what happened. We have to leave." Leighton took a moment to process this information. Killian was gone. Tate's brother and their only ally was gone.

"Leave?" Leighton repeated dumbly, mind still trying to play catch-up. "Where?"

Tate shook his head, eyes once again taking in the amount of stones. "I don't know," he said, taking off his red baseball cap and wringing in his hands. He swore and ran a hand through his dark hair. "I thought―maybe there's a chance...I don't know."

Leighton's body felt heavy. She sat down on her bed, hair brushing against her ribcage. "I can't leave," Leighton mumbled, "I have to think about my mother."

"You have to think about your life," Tate urged. "Killian and I used to be friends with another Reaper pair. I don't remember them but Killian was telling me about them before... before he... left. I thought maybe they could help us, shelter us maybe... I don't know."

Leighton looked down at her hands, thinking of Braden's touch, her mother's touch, Tate's touch. "We can't run from this, Tate," she told him, mouth moving without her being mindful of its motion. "You can stop clocks but time keeps going."

Tate swore and left the room. Leighton waited for him, listening as he banged around her house, shuffling through her things in mad search of something. He resurfaced a few minutes later clutching a box of garbage bags.