The wind swept across the street, giving me goose bumps. My legs froze, and suddenly, another gust of wind came up and made an eerie noise in the treetops. It cracked behind us. I looked around, as Bayla had done, but there was no one there.

“Playing hide and seek is scary,” I said and pulled my cloak even further around me.

“Let's walk faster, please.”

Bay sounded scared, exactly like she had a few weeks ago in the forest when we'd met those men. And right now, it was exactly the same. Dark, cold, and windy, just like it had been on campus when Adrian had taken me with him.

Crack.

Bay and I startled and wheeled around.

Crash.

A branch had come crashing down directly two meters behind us, where we had just been standing.

“Holy shit,” I whispered, immediately feeling much more awake.

Bay looked at me, terrified.

“It's just a branch,” I laughed, but she pulled me on.

Then it suddenly became pitch black as the lanterns went out.

Bay sucked in a sharp breath.

Countless Halloween pumpkins glowed around us, but so dimly and threateningly that my goosebumps intensified.

“The lanterns always go out at this time of night,” Bay said, quickening her pace.

“And what about that one?” I said and stopped abruptly.

A single lantern flickered in front of Bayla's house. But it wasn't the lantern that suddenly put me in a state of shock.

A man dressed completely in black was standing there, grinning in my direction, his eyes pitch black.

Bayla must have seen him, too, because she grabbed my wrist.

“Larissa, do you see that, too?”

The branches creaked above us in the treetops, as if the next one was about to come down.

“Yes...” I confirmed in a shaky voice.

The bald man smiled.

We ran off. I pulled Bayla with me, but she was slower than me, even if she didn't trip over the branch I got stuck on.

“Larissa!” Bay shouted in panic and pulled at my arm. My balance was so off.

“Where are you going, ladies?”

Bay and I both screamed at the same time as the man appeared right in front of us. He grinned grimly and showed us his teeth. They were all pointy.

My eyes widened in shock.

It suddenly smelled disgustingly of decay.

I got to my feet and pulled Bayla in the direction of the lantern.

We had to get out of here!

Bayla and I ran, and the wind pushed against our bodies. Leaves flew across the road, and branches continued to crack in the distance. However, we came to a halt just before Bayla's garden fence.

“So, you want to play with me, pretty girls?” The man landed on the ground in front of me and straightened up. Had he just jumped this far? “Because I love games.”

I backed away, but that didn't stop him from grabbing me by my neck and yanking me to the ground, where I banged my head on the hard curb.

Dazed, I grabbed the back of my head, which felt strangely wet. Black dots and white spots danced before my eyes.

“Larissa!” Bay shouted behind the man, but it was too late.

I tried to wriggle free. Panic rose up inside me. Endless panic.

The psychopath had found us, and now he was pinning me to the ground.

I was about to die.

He began to wrinkle his nose and sucked in a deep breath. Then, the veins around his black eyes began to stand out.

I screamed as loud as I could, and as he moved his head closer, I squinted my eyes and thrashed around, but he grabbed my hands and squeezed them on my stomach.

Then, three seconds later, I felt a sharp pain in my neck.

Chapter 67

Julian

I had just spoken to Mady on the phone. How could she have allowed my fifteen-year-old sister to go to a goddamn club? I would have to talk to her. In private. But until then, I would have to deal with Mia.

I sat in my car on the way to the club, struggling to figure out how to deal with her.

Luckily, Dad was asleep on the living room couch and hadn't noticed any of the drama. He would probably have blamed himself for Mia's behavior, as he always did. Even though everyone in our family knew who was really to blame for our situation.

The fact that Mia was in the Dark Lion Club had shocked me so much that I'd been on the verge of a transformation like I hadn't been for a long time. My whole body had simply wanted to get away. Out into the woods, just away from here.

How much I desired to separate this part of me, to get rid of it completely.

I turned into the driveway of the club, where I had to be careful not to run anyone over. The entire square was parked up, and drunks, but also simply careless students, staggered across the dimly lit parking area, out and into the former wood factory of this part of town.