[This post is from Marin’s point of view.]
My stomach lurched and I swallowed back bile that rose unbidden in my throat. I couldn’t. I couldn’t lose it, not right now, not right this second.
Keep your shit together, they need you.
It was exactly what Thom had told me when I left him in our bed, fever-wracked and kitten-weak. We’d been keeping it quiet, how bad he’d gotten. We weren’t going to be able to do it much longer.
I just wanted to know what was wrong with him.
I saw Phelan blanch and knew that he was just as terrified and unsettled as the rest of us—he was just doing a much better job plastering on a brave face. He wasn’t in denial. He was faking it, just the same as I was.
Something was coming. It was just a question of what. Even here, even in the height of summer, storms didn’t look like that and they didn’t come like this. Never exactly like this.
It had almost been a year since everything had come crashing down.
I squeezed my eyes shut again, fingers tightening around my mug. I felt sick, swallowing back bile again.
Who is it? Who’s coming for us?
My gut screamed a name but I wanted it to be wrong. I wanted it to be wrong so badly I could taste it.
But I didn’t think that I was, not for a single heartbeat.
She was coming and there wasn’t a damn thing I could do to stop it, not this time.
Brighíd had never been able to—what hope would I have where she had failed?
I turned away from them, gulped down coffee as if it would help settle my stomach. I wanted to scream, to run.
I couldn’t do any of that. All I could do was wait.
It was only a matter of time.
