going to die of a heart attack if his heart kept stopping like this every few minutes, slamming so hard it just shuddered itself to a halt.
He stared at his mother. “He...was here?” he croaked. “He was here and you didn’t tell me?”
“Well he didn’t come here to see you, now did he?” she tutted, then flapped her hands at him. “Go. Shoo. Go pull that stubborn old fox out of his hole.”
Summer didn’t need to be told twice.
He was already on his feet, darting toward the door, shedding the blanket in his wake.
“Stay dry!” his mother called after him, and he waved a hand back before flinging the door open and bolting out into the rain.
He might just catch his fox after all.
And all he needed was just...
One minute with him, to plead for one last chance.
* * *
Fox could hardly see the road ahead of him.
The storm came down in heavy sheets, wind billowing until it made curtain-like patterns in the silver droplets striking down and splashing in waves against his windshield. He was moving at a crawl, keeping a far distance from the dim red spots of the tail lights yards in front of him, barely covering any ground as he took the highway toward the interstate, following the winding roads between the trees.
If it got any worse, he’d have to pull over and wait it out.
When all he wanted was to put Omen behind him and be somewhere, anywhere else.
He squinted through the windshield, though, as the car ahead of him—a silver SUV—slowed, then stopped...then plowed forward, sheets of water pluming up to either side. Fox couldn’t quite make out what they were doing until he drew closer, though.
And stopped at the foot of one of the highway bridges spanning the Mystic river.
A bridge that was currently barely visible under the rising floodswell of the river in spate, the water moving slow and lazy but pouring over the rails.
The SUV had managed to power through, making it to the other side with water sheeting in its wake like some kind of strange boat.
If the SUV had made it, Fox could too.
Don’t, a small inner voice of reason whispered to him. Wait. Turn back. Go back to Omen, go back to Summer, look at why you’re so desperate to run away that you have to leave now and you’re about to do something...to do something...
Dangerous.
Beyond dangerous.
Just because she died in this river doesn’t mean you have to, as well.
But even if that voice spoke so clearly, it was still so quiet. So much more quiet than the roar of his beating heart, the blood in his veins, the sense of desperation that said to get out. To run. To put as much distance between himself and the thing that frightened him as he could, because if he didn’t...
He might run back to Summer.
And he was more afraid of Summer than he was of the washed-out bridge.
Wasn’t that bitter irony.
That soft, sweet puppy of a man...
Terrified Fox beyond all reason.
He closed his eyes, resting his brow to the steering wheel.
Then breathed in deep, slowly pressed his foot down on the gas, and inched forward.
The strength of the current hit him as the Camry edged onto the bridge; the water might look slow, but he could feel it rocking against the car and pushing with a terrible force. Gritting his teeth, he picked up speed, forcing the Camry forward; it was barely more than a hundred yards, just a short hop to the other side, he could make it, he could make it, he just had to remember he was safe inside a two thousand pound vehicle and the water wasn’t touching him and he wouldn’t hyperventilate, black out, lose control...
He had one bad moment as he hit a bump in the concrete on the bridge—and for a moment it felt like the car was about to lift off and float away, pitched over the side and sinking down, down, as water under the wheels left him drifting, skewing. Barely breathing, his lungs caving in, he wrenched the steering wheel, floored the gas, lurched forward. He heard the water sucking up into the engine, heard it coughing, sputtering, but he kept his foot on that gas pedal and made the Camry move, spraying up water to either side of him as he went tumbling in a clumsy skew of tires off the foot of the bridge and onto the highway on the other side.
Right as the engine started choking,