The Whispering Dead (Gravekeeper #1) - Darcy Coates Page 0,76

setting any more traps.”

“I’m not. He won’t know.” Gavin’s jaw twitched. He kept walking, passing behind the man on the bridge, but the next words slowed him to a halt.

“All right, suit yourself, runt.” The man’s face was haggard and tired, and his bleary eyes followed indistinct shapes moving beneath the ice. He seemed to have tuned Gavin’s presence out.

A strange expression flickered through Gavin’s eyes. Keira could detect resentment, and hatred, and some sort of deep, consuming restlessness. He glanced toward town. It was at least twenty minutes away by foot. No other humans disturbed the smooth, white fields. And the older man leaned far over the bridge, his weight resting on the stone wall.

“No,” Keira whispered, but nobody heard her.

A wild emotion had taken over Gavin’s eyes. He stared at the man’s back, fists flexing at his side, then, faster than Keira had expected, rushed him.

The man gasped on a cry as Gavin’s hands hit the center of his back. He grabbed for the stones he’d been resting his forearms on. His reflexes were dulled, though, and the stones were slippery with ice.

Keira wanted to close her eyes to avoid seeing what happened next, but she was powerless to look away. Shock flitted over the man’s weathered face as he plunged over the bridge and toward the river below. The ice, an inch thick, broke under his weight. He disappeared under, then reemerged, thrashing in the hole he’d created. Keira shook her head, desperate to escape the vision. The man was drunk, and his coat was thick and rapidly absorbing freezing water. He clawed at the edges of the ice but couldn’t find a grip.

“No,” Keira said again, but there was nothing she could do. He disappeared under the ice, pulled by the current, until all she could see was the outline of something dark floating down the river.

Gavin stood at the bridge’s edge, where the man had been just a moment before. His breathing was fast. A flush of color coursed over his face. And then he smiled, and a shocked kind of laughter bubbled out of him. As the streak of dark color faded into the distance, Gavin Kelsey hiked his jacket a little higher and, still smiling, turned to jog back to town.

Keira’s vision blurred as spots of strange lights danced over her retinas. She came back to herself in increments. Mud stuck to her face and pain sparked through her skull as the deluge washed over her. She’d been struggling while unconscious and had managed to roll onto her stomach. Gavin loomed over her, one knee pressed into the small of her back, his hand tangled in her hair. He pulled, and she smothered a groan.

Gavin was panting, but when he spoke, he sounded ecstatic. “Not so tough now, are you?”

Keira tried to roll him off. He was heavy, and she couldn’t get traction in the mud with her twisted ankle. Every time she moved, he dug his knee deeper into her back. Her arm was on fire, but she clenched her teeth and refused to let him hear her cry again. Puddles of muddy water flooded her mouth as she tried to breathe.

Gavin bent forward so he could whisper into her ear. “Dane called my dad. He said someone was on his property. I said I bet I knew who it was. And sure enough, your little house was empty.”

Think, Keira. He doesn’t have his knife anymore, but that doesn’t stop him from being dangerous. I can’t get out from under him. So what will make him voluntarily move off?

Gavin chuckled. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “You really hurt me in that hole of a convenience store. I stayed up last night with an icepack, thinking. I can’t call the police, or you’d just leave town. Burning your shack down is too impersonal. But look, you had to go and make it easy for me.” He applied extra weight to the back of her head. “Want to know why it’s so easy?”

“Get your gross, greasy hands off me,” she snarled.

He was so close to her ear that she could feel his breath tickle over her cheek. “Because no one cares about you. You’re the wild girl who wandered in from hell knows where. If you disappear, they’ll think you just up and wandered back out. No one will be worried. Most won’t even notice. And your little friends can beg and complain all they like, but the police won’t go looking for you.