The Last Echo

She didn’t mind, though, the sound—the screaming of the hinges. It would serve as one more warning if Caine were to find her. High above, the commotion she heard sounded ominously like the flapping of wings . . . dozens of wings. She prayed they belonged to birds.

She stumbled along, finding her way in almost total blackness.

The musty scent of old hay and grains and dust swirled around her, and she could feel the crunch of straw beneath her feet. A part of her warned that she’d just backed herself into a corner, while the other part insisted she just needed a few minutes to recover. And this was shelter. She wouldn’t stay long.

She crept along the wall, arms out. She passed what she assumed were stalls, but she was too afraid to go inside. She worried about what else might be in here with her: spiders, rats, possums . . . bats. Maybe even something more feral, like coyotes. She really didn’t know what kinds of animals made homes in abandoned barns.

Finally she found an alcove behind the long row of stalls at the far end of the barn, and she slipped inside, feeling around for a corner she could hide in. She batted at cobwebs, swiping them from her face, her hair, her coat, and her hands. She did her best to make a small nest of straw so she could sit. Just for a minute.

It was hard to relax as she strained in the darkness, checking to be sure Caine wasn’t near. She thought about her parents, and her aunt and uncle. She thought about Jay, and blinked back hot tears.

She wondered if they knew yet. She wondered if they were as scared as she was. She huddled in a ball, wishing it were someone else’s arms around her instead of her own. And then fatigue—and the sedatives Caine had dosed her with earlier—won out and her eyelids became heavy.

It wasn’t the barn door that woke her, or even the pungent scent of burning rubber. It wasn’t the flashlight bobbing over the landscape of the barn’s interior, shining light on dust motes so thick it should’ve been difficult to even breathe.

It was something else that pulled her from the slippery depths of sleep, somewhere she never should have been in the first place. It was the sound of the floorboards groaning with the weight of each hollow step he took over the planked floor.

She was fully awake then, her eyes huge as she peered out from her hiding space and saw his light searching. She waited, knowing that he was stopping at each stall, searching inside, and her heart thundered painfully. Leaping silently to her feet, she stayed low, crouched.

By the peripheral light of the flashlight, Violet could see several things at once. On the opposite end of the barn, there was another way out, a side door. Unfortunately, even if she decided to run for it, he would see her, and most likely catch her before she could get there.

There was also a loft overhead, with a staircase she could surely reach. It was directly ahead of her, just a few short feet away. But even if she made it to the wooden steps, there was no way she could climb to the top without his notice.

“I know you’re in here,” his voice rang out as if reading her mind, and Violet’s blood ran cold. “You can’t hide forever.”

He was right. She was running short on options.

She searched her immediate area, the alcove in which she’d taken refuge. Not an alcove at all but a tack room . . . or what had once been a tack room. She recognized it from the summer she’d spent working at Chelsea’s uncle’s farm when they were twelve. They’d made three dollars an hour to muck stalls, which was a fancy way of saying they’d scooped poop for mere pennies.

But she remembered enough about stall-mucking to know there might be something useful here. And Caine was coming closer by the second. She felt dizzy as she dropped to her knees, clumsily groping as she scoured the floor for something, for some sort of weapon.

She found a bucket and a stiffened leather glove, both useless. Her fingers sifted through more cobwebs and dirt as her heart hammered louder and louder, her mouth growing drier and her breathing erratic. She could hear his footsteps . . . each one louder and heavier and closer. Her skin tightened, tingling everywhere.

Just when she realized she would have to run, when she realized she was out of time, she felt her fingers close around something. A handle. A solid wooden handle.

She had no idea what it belonged to, but she squeezed her eyes shut as she tugged it, willing it to be something useful. Something sharp. Something dangerous.

The scraping sound it made when she’d moved it made Violet involuntarily freeze. She knew he’d heard it too; there was no way he hadn’t heard it. She’d just given away her location.

The smell of burning rubber got stronger as she pulled on the handle one more time, this time dragging it free from its hiding place, from beneath the filth and the hay that had obscured it from view.

And when she saw it, her heart stuttered.

It was a pitchfork. A rusty old pitchfork.

It was perfect.

“You’re not really going to hurt me, are you?” Caine’s voice, like his face, was sweet, very nearly angelic, and Violet had to continually remind herself what he really was. What he really intended to do to her.

“Stay away,” she warned, holding the pitchfork between them. She’d never been more afraid, or more sure she could actually harm someone. Maybe even kill them.

He lifted the flashlight so that it was too high, too bright in her eyes, intentionally blinding her. She felt off-kilter, but she wouldn’t let him get the upper hand again and she lunged forward, thrusting the pitchfork in his direction. “Drop the light. I mean it, Caine.” She hated the feel of his name on her tongue. It had been easier when he’d been nameless, faceless. “I don’t want to, but I swear I will stab you.”