Court of Frost and Embers (The Pair Bond Chronicles Book 1)

by Leeann M. Shane

  All I saw was a flash of pale skin darting into the tree line.

  Cover busted, I took off, running down North Crystal Road as fast as humanly possible. My hot breath misted around me. My heart hammered in my ears. I felt… him. I tasted the metal tinge of fear on my tongue. The roar of panic in my ears. He was so close the fog of fear eclipsed the moon. It was pure, dark night.

  I cut across the road and launched myself within the tree line. I was immediately entrenched in shadows. The dank moldy smell of moss filled my nostrils. Plants hit me in my face. I wasn’t sure where I was going, fully aware that if I got lost in this forest, I may as well make a cabin and live there forever. I’d never get out.

  I stopped, letting my heartrate catch up to me.

  I also listened.

  I waited for the sound of pursuit, but there were no sounds other than my hectic breathing and my pounding heart. But I’d seen him. I’d seen someone. I knew it.

  I whimpered, making the choice to turn back the way I came before I could outtalk myself. I couldn’t keep going deeper. Not if I wanted any kind of help.

  Having no idea how long I’d ran, I was surprised by how quickly I found the road. Surprised, and disappointed. I hunched down carefully near a trunk and made myself as small as possible, waiting for any signs that I wasn’t alone.

  I sensed him before I saw him.

  Like a breath on the back of my neck, I felt his presence a second before he stepped onto the road a few feet down from me.

  As hard as it was, I held my breath in, not wanting the cloud to give me away. I carefully hunched down even lower, something crawling over my hand. I didn’t dare look down. I didn’t look away from him.

  He was tall, wearing all black. Black jeans, black shirt, and a black jacket; his boots were sturdy and black. His hair was as dark as the night. I didn’t even know he had hair until he ran his hand hectically through the thick, inky fortress. He studied the road. Slowly and meticulously. He was looking for me.

  His head turned to the left, down the road where I hid. I ached to pull in a breath—my eyes watered—but I didn’t dare risk it.

  He narrowed his eyes, and I feared he could see me. See me in the dark as if I were out in the open doing a come and get me dance. I could have sworn that our eyes locked, but that was impossible. He was too far away. A trail of terror traveled over every inch of my flesh. My tongue was thick in my mouth. My chest ached from holding in my breath.

  He took a step closer to my hiding spot, and the moon hit his face just right.

  My heart stopped.

  Sudden, deep confusion mixed with my surmounting fear.

  It wasn’t difficult to place his face.

  But it also wasn’t possible.

  I quickly contemplated if I’d lost my mind somehow. If I was walking on a plain of instability and hadn’t known it until that moment.

  It was possible. With what I’d seen…

  The man looked at the part of the forest I’d just came out of. He went close to a downing of ferns I’d trampled and then he kneeled, bringing the plant to his nose and inhaling it like some kind of hunter.

  He closed his eyes and his throat bobbed. When his eyes opened, they were dark, terrifying holes. He took off into the forest. He had done so incredibly fast; I wouldn’t have even known he’d moved if I hadn’t already been watching him so closely.

  I waited another second before I couldn’t take it anymore. I pulled in a much-needed breath and then I rose from my hiding spot, taking off down the road. I looked back a dozen times, but I didn’t see anyone. After crossing a few roads, I didn’t feel him. When I made it to Granny Londa’s house and locked myself inside, I sank to the ground and let a sob out of my throat.

  It got stuck and I couldn’t get it out, the panic catching up to me. My body shook uncontrollably. The house was dark. I scrambled to turn on a light. The cat jumped to the bottom of the stairs and I screeched, taking off for my bedroom two stairs at a time.

  I slammed my bedroom door shut and sank down to the floor, trying and barely succeeding to calm myself down. I wanted to run into my parent’s room and tell them what happened. They’d know what to do. They’d protect me. Instead, I could hear Granny Londa snoring and I was alone.

  Struggling to my feet, I tore off my clothes and changed into my pajamas. I had to move, or I’d crack. I peeled my curtain back and peered outside. It was too dark to see anything.

  Or anyone.

  Trembling, I slid under my covers and pulled them over my head. My heavy breathing filled the silence. I tried to force myself to sleep. I closed my eyes, but that didn’t help to keep me in the present.

  No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t forget who I’d seen tonight. Chasing me through the forest like a wild animal.

  It had been Maxell Heathestone.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In the morning, I had a blissful few seconds where nothing felt wrong. I was in Port Inlet under awful circumstances and I was alone, but in a short span of time, that was becoming my norm. Things were as expected.

  The sliver of sky that peeked through my curtains showed an opaque overcast day with no rain yet. My alarm clock broadcasted that I had five more minutes to sleep. I reached over and turned it off before it sounded. But I felt wrong. Something was out of balance. My body was sore, and when I moved to get out of bed, I groaned at the pains shooting through my legs.

  My thigh muscles were tight and painful. I could barely lift my legs. My lips were chapped when I pressed them together. My body had stories to tell, but my mind wouldn’t allow it. I was in a state of pure and utter denial. I didn’t even question why my ankle was tender walking to the bathroom.

  I took a long hot shower, working my sore muscles out with the palms of my hands. I washed any clues off me and dressed in thicker clothes than normal. My jeans were looser than they had been. I was losing weight. I wore a gray hoodie under my black raincoat. I put my hair up and then I went in search of my backpack.

  I normally left it beside my nightstand, but it wasn’t there.

  That was my first glimpse into the reality that awaited me.

  I went to see if I’d left it downstairs, but it wasn’t there. The living room light was on though, and the shoes had been tipped out of the cubby.

  That was clue number two that I was repressing my thoughts.

  Last night came into my conscious like a swarm of hornets, stabbing me with memories. I couldn’t find my backpack because I’d never made it home with it. I couldn’t remember where I’d lost it exactly, but it could be anywhere. In the forest, on the road—anywhere between that long lonely road and home. My muscles were sore because I’d ran for my life last night for what felt like hours. My chest ached from my heavy breaths.

  But worst of all, I could still see his face.

  His unbearably handsome face.

  I knew it wasn’t possible that I’d seen Maxell last night. I’d never met him—couldn’t meet him—but I also couldn’t shake the proof in his features. He’d looked just like the boy in the picture Misty had shown me. Only that boy’s eyes were no longer warm. They’d been cold, unflinching dark holes. I hadn’t seen him up close, so I couldn’t see if his eyes were the same. His eyes were the deciding factor. If I’d seen them, I could comfort myself with the knowledge that I’d been attacked by a regular creep.

  And not a creep that was supposed to be missing.

  I put my face in my hands and tried to think. Think, Emmie, think.

  First off, I had to tell someone. I’d been chased last night not for fun, but for something nefarious. I’d tasted fear like I never had before. I had also never felt so alone, but also okay with having only myself. It was weird, but I protected me last night… sort of.

  I went upstairs and knocked tentatively on Granny Londa’s door. Her bedroom door was heavy, grained wood. There was one of those older styled doorknobs, the kind with large keyholes. I knelt on my knees when she didn’t answer and peeked through the an
tique keyhole. Faintly, I could make out her feet. She made a noise and then rolled over, turning her back to me.

  It was a hard pill to swallow, but the truth was, she didn’t care anyway. I knew she received checks for letting me stay here. I also knew that if there were no checks, there was no home for me to call my own. There wasn’t anyone to tell about last night. I had to be okay with that.

  Or the loneliness would start to rot in me. It would turn my insides into decay, and soon it would show on the outside. Something about my insides on my outsides made me ill.

  I passed the cat in the hall. He wasn’t sleeping anymore, though he had been when I came down and then back up. He watched me closely.

  “You believe me, don’t you?” I asked, sitting at the top of the stairs to pet behind his ears.

  He purred, moving into my touch. “You’re probably going crazy,” his eyes said, though his little whiskers remained still.

  “I didn’t imagine what I saw,” I insisted in a hushed tone. “You can’t make up a face. And even if I got it wrong and it wasn’t Maxell but someone who looked just like him, that still means someone was chasing me.”

  By the time I finished, I had the cat in my arms, and I was shaking him in my face.

  He let out a meow. “Put me down, woman.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, placing him on his favorite rug. He did a circle and then curled into a ball, giving me one last look of annoyance before I left him and went downstairs into the kitchen.

  I found the drawer with aspirin and threw two back with some water. I wasn’t hungry, but if I didn’t do something helpful, his face would fill my mind. Misty’s voice would follow.

  “The saddest part is that Sam swears he’s still alive. She said she can see him at night, and he comes to visit her, but that he doesn’t look the same or act the same. She thinks it’s his ghost.”

  Was that who’d attacked me last night? Maxell’s ghost? If so, what was his beef with me? I didn’t know him. I wasn’t even in Port Inlet when he went missing.

  Better question was what he was going to do to me once he’d caught me.

  Even better, had he given up?

  Or was he out there right now waiting for me to step foot out of my front door?

  I shivered, cramming a half-crumbled granola bar in my mouth. I was mid-swallow when there was a short but hard knock on the front door. Two quick heavy raps. I nearly choked, rushing over to the door. I listened on the other side before I looked through the front window. There was no one there, but something caught my eye.

  It could be a trap.

  It probably was a trap.

  But it wasn’t like this house was ironclad. If whoever it was wanted to come in, I couldn’t stop them.

  I tentatively placed my hand on the knob, turning it quickly and shoving my head out in the hopes that if there was someone out there, I’d catch them off guard and not the other way around.

  But there was no one outside. There were however a large pair of wet footprints leading up to the door and back down; they stopped in the mudline before the trees. I glanced down. Propped up on the ground beside the door was my backpack and umbrella. The sight of them chilled me.

  Whoever had chased me last night had followed me home. They knew where I lived. I snatched up my things and pulled them back inside, going over to the couch and tearing open my zipper. My backpack was muddy and there was a tear over the logo, but nothing was missing.

  Confused, I closed it and sank onto the couch. Serial killers didn’t normally give your things back to you. Unless they were into cat and mouse, but that didn’t entirely feel right. I chewed on the end of my fingernail, trying and failing to work through the past twelve hours.

  Shaking off the chills, I gathered my things and stepped outside, casting my gaze thoroughly around the property. I locked up and tucked my hands in my pockets, trying to ignore the sound of my heavy breathing.

  I was one minute from home and eleven from school when I felt him again.

  Spiders danced across my flesh. I brushed the tingles aside but didn’t stop walking.

  A small whimper fell from my lips.

  I was so focused on watching my back that I completely ignored my front. The forest ebbed near the approaching neighborhood, and that’s where I spotted him standing by the street sign.

  He wore exactly what he wore last night, only he wore his hood up today. It blocked his face but in the short amount of time I’d spent studying him and thinking about him, he had become eerily familiar. I knew the broad plains of his shoulders, the long, strong shape of his legs. The squareness of his jaw and the full suppleness of his lips were the only part of his face that was visible. His eyes were cloaked in shadow. But I felt them on me, like a warm breath traveling down the back of my neck.

  I shivered.

  I’d paused where I stood, weighing my options. Running away worked last night, it could work that morning, too. Before I could dart into the thickest part of the trees, he was gone. A flash of movement darted into the edge of the forest so fast, he became a dark blob before nothing at all.

  I let my breath out in a hectic gasp of air. I crossed the road and paused opposite of the street sign, studying the trees he’d disappeared within.

  Though he wasn’t visible, I felt him watching me. Which meant he felt me watching him, too.

  Why wasn’t he attacking me?

  Wasn’t that his goal?

  And if it wasn’t, then what did he want?

  I chewed on my bottom lip, my feet twitching in my shoes. Half of me wanted to settle this score. To walk across the road, go into the trees, and confront this creep. The other half of me wanted to run away and never look back.

  “Trust your gut,” my father’s voice whispered in my head. “It’s trying to save you.”

  I checked the street for half a second before I ran away and didn’t look back. Panting and sweating, I arrived at school a second before I heard the bell ring outside of campus. I jogged up the stairs and didn’t stop until I was safely inside the double doors.

  Only then did I look back.

  I pressed my face against the square of glass in the door, my breath fogging up the window. Within the fog, I swore I saw a black figure dart behind the trees.

  Thankful the school was indoors, I tried to shake off my panic. To focus, to think—if he wanted to hurt me, he would have. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t have a change of heart between now and the next time he followed me home.

  Misty. I needed to talk to Misty.

  I took off for my first class, rushing inside to a full classroom just as the late bell rang. Everyone turned to look at me.

  “I wish everyone was as enthusiastic as you,” Mr. Greene said.

  I skidded to a halt, heat filling my cheeks. “Sorry.” I immediately sank down at my desk.

  Of course, Mr. Greene picked today of all days to start an assignment. He handed out worn copies of Dracula by Bram Stoker. The paperback was soft to the touch and so many people had read it that the spine lay open flat. The pulsing red title on the cover had a black backdrop, and as I flipped the cover over, I pulled out the check-out card tucked into the small folder.

  The last person who had read this book had written their name in blocky capital letters. The name sent my heart into my throat and I quickly slammed the book shut, closing my eyes, hoping I’d imagined it.

  But when I opened it up again, the name was still there.

  MAXELL HEATHESTONE.

  My hand shot into the air. “Mr. Greene?”

  He glanced over at me as he handed out the last copy in the back of the room. “Yeah, Emmie?”

  “Did you assign this last year?”

  He thought about it, his head tilting to the side, his eyes blinking in realization. “Yes, I did. I taught English 10.” He looked out over the class in dismay. “How many of you had my class last year?”

  A few people raised their hand, two of them being Misty and Finn Jackson.

  �
�I can read it again,” Misty supplied helpfully.

  “Thank you, Misty,” Mr. Greene said, glancing at Finn Jackson. “What about you?”

  Finn shrugged. “I think I got a D.”

  Mr. Greene chuckled and headed to the front of the classroom. “Then you have something to improve upon.”

  None of that mattered to me. What mattered was the fact that Maxell had read the book in my hands, and I’d seen him last night, but he was supposed to be missing, and the boy’s name followed me around like glaring lights demanding my attention.

  “All right, class. We’ll start by reading the introduction together and when we’re done we’ll have a discussion, followed by a chapter test for homework, due tomorrow. We’ll do that until we’re done with the literary piece, and then we’ll have a master test on the novel and a book report to wrap up the unit.”

  No wonder Finn got a D. That was a lot of work for one novel, for which the syllabus had mentioned five more entire novels and a few non-fiction pieces required to pass his class. I rubbed my temples, one of the many hands that remained unraised when Mr. Greene called on volunteers to read aloud. I tried to focus on the text, but for the first time, my mind wasn’t in the book. It was too busy trying to figure out what to do with last night.

  When class was over, I took the homework from Mr. Greene, snatched a page for myself, and then handed it off to the person behind me. I was out of my chair and in the hall waiting for Misty before anyone else. When she came out, I grabbed her arm and pulled her over to an alcove beside the lockers.

  “What the he—” she yelped. “Emmie? What are you doing?”

  I looked around, making sure no one was listening, before turning back to her. I held her eyes. “I saw Maxell last night.”

  She stared at me. I expected her to gasp, to scream in shock. To grab me by my shoulders and demand I tell her everything as she shook me roughly.

  Instead, she rolled her eyes. “Not you too.”