The Last Echo

by Kimberly Derting

  Her fingers fumbled over a variation in the wooden surface. A window frame.

  It was above her head, and she balanced on her toes, trying to feel for a latch, but there was nothing. At least not that she could reach.

  Her shoulders sagged defeatedly, but she kept going . . . somewhere there had to be a door.

  She turned another corner and came to the front of the building where the trees had been stripped away, creating a large clearing. There was something along the perimeter . . . something that looked like fencing. But it was leaning and gapped in places, as if it had succumbed to years of disrepair.

  The building itself, Violet realized, was a barn, and she looked up at the huge double doors.

  The closer she examined it, even in the dark, the more she realized how run-down it really was. She hadn’t noticed the way the paint had flaked beneath her fingers and the way the boards were soft, like they were rotting. She hadn’t seen the thick clumps of grasses springing up from the foundation at her feet. It was crumbling . . . a bad sign.

  Violet scanned the shadows that stretched ahead of her, searching for another building, maybe a house. But there were none that she could see. Just a wilting old barn.

  She staggered forward. It didn’t matter; if this was the only shelter she could find, then it would have to do. She needed to stop, just for a little bit. Just long enough to come up with a plan.

  Until then, she’d have to rely on her senses to warn her if danger approached. If Caine came near.

  Estrangement

  FRUSTRATION LICKED THROUGH HIM, SETTING his veins on fire.

  He shifted the beam from his flashlight over the forest floor, angry that she’d eluded him for this long. He didn’t know how that was possible. She was all alone . . . in the woods . . . in the dead of night. She couldn’t get far. And she couldn’t avoid him.

  Yet, so far, she’d done just that.

  He was angry now. Furious with himself.

  How had he made such an error? How had he miscalculated so grievously?

  She’d tricked him, that’s how. She manipulated him into believing she was the one.

  And he’d believed her.

  He slammed his fist against the solid tree trunk, ignoring the fact that he’d just torn his wound open and was bleeding again. He didn’t need her, he told himself, words he’d repeated before. There were other girls. Better girls.

  But before he could find one of those girls, he had to stop this one. He had to find her and give her one last kiss, silencing her forever.

  He stood there, trying to decide which way to go next, trying to tamp down the fury that made him irrational. He had to be clear. He had to think. He didn’t know what he would do if she got away, didn’t know what his next move should be.

  And then he saw it. Something that he’d almost missed as he’d been casting the flashlight’s beam across the shadowy terrain. There was something out of place. Something white.

  Everything in him went on alert as he lumbered toward it, his feet landing heavily as his eyes searched everywhere, looking for her. Hunting her.

  He stopped as he plucked the small piece of fabric from the shrub it was hanging on. He recognized it, of course, this particular piece of fabric. It was a piece of lace from the nightgown, the one the girl was wearing.

  Which meant she was close.

  He was on the right track.

  Chapter 24

  INSIDE THE BARN IT WAS EVEN DARKER THAN IT had been outside. The doors hadn’t been locked, but the rusted hinges were old and protested loudly when Violet finally pried one of them ajar. She’d only managed to create enough room for her to squeeze through before it had creaked shut once more behind her.

  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 i
t, 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.”

  He lowered the light, just slightly, and Violet caught a glimpse of that perfect smile. “If you insist.”

  And then the flashlight hit the ground, and almost immediately they were plunged into darkness as Violet heard it shatter at Caine’s feet. Her stomach dropped. She couldn’t see him. She couldn’t see anything. She had no idea where he was.

  And then she took a breath.

  She calmed herself, reminding herself just how wrong she was. Reminding herself that she knew exactly where he was. She just needed to stay focused.

  A ghost of a smile curved her lips as she realized that she had the upper hand now. “What’re you gonna do now, Caine?” She took a calculated step forward, clutching the pitchfork, ready to use it. “You can’t see me, but I can see you.”

  There was a lull, a long void, and Violet wondered if he’d even heard her. And then a low moan filled the still air. The sound grew, ripped from Caine’s throat until it was a hoarse keening, like the wail of a child.

  Violet jumped back, startled by the noises that were coming from him. She heard him drop to his knees as he scrambled for the pieces of the flashlight.

  She didn’t wait to see if he found them. She took her opportunity to run for the side door she’d seen when the flashlight had been working.

  But she didn’t get far. As she passed him, Caine clawed at her, his hands desperate, ripping and tearing frantically as he clutched at her coat—at his coat. Violet got tangled up and turned around, until the tines of the pitchfork were no longer pointed at Caine. She tried to swing back around so she could strike him—or stab him—but it was too late. She was disoriented and the weapon was useless as his grip on her tightened.

  She threw the pitchfork down, letting it clatter to the ground, and at the same time she let her arms go limp and felt them slip out of the jacket, setting herself free. She kept running, leaving Caine clutching the coat and not her.

  She didn’t have much time; he’d be up and after her in a matter of seconds. She wouldn’t make it to the door on the opposite end of the barn—the one she’d seen when she’d been hiding in the tack room—and he was blocking the only other way out.

  That left her with one choice . . . up.

  Violet scrambled up the steps, which were more like a makeshift ladder than actual stairs, and even without her ability to tell her that Caine wasn’t coming yet, she’d have known. She could still hear him, scrabbling around on the floor. Still trying to piece the shattered fragments of the flashlight together, and she wondered why it mattered so much to him.

  She knew now that it had been a mistake coming into the barn, that she’d trapped herself. But she still had a chance; she could still get away if she was careful. And smart.

  The opening in the loft floor was small, and Violet thought that maybe, during daylight conditions, she might have been able to find something she could drag over to block Caine from coming up. Something to barricade herself inside.

  But that wasn’t the case. Instead it was even blacker up here than below, something she planned to use to her advantage. She clambered up quickly, her heart in her throat despite her head start.

  Once on semisolid ground, on the boards that ran across the tops of the rafters, she tried to move noiselessly. She stayed on her hands and knees, reminding herself how precarious this was, that these planks could be rotting or cracked or just plain weak, like the ones on the outside of the barn. Every movement felt risky, but staying motionless wasn’t an option. So she crawled, hoping he couldn’t hear which direction she went. Hoping he was too preoccupied with his futile task to notice her. At least for the moment.

  Violet heard a violent crash from below, and knew that Caine had thrown the busted flashlight against one of the walls. His rage was palpable, and she huddled farther into the corner, hugging herself as tightly as she could.

  If he was desperate before, now he was infuriated. Of the two, she preferred desperation.

  She held her breath, listening as he grappled with the steps. He was larger than she was, and his weight made them shudder and groan. She silently prayed they would snap beneath the pressure, even if it meant she’d be trapped up here, all by herself.

  But they didn’t, and she heard him reach the top at the same time her skin prickled painfully, like a coat of needles.

  Unlike her, he stood upright. She knew because when he spoke his voice came from above her. “Come out, come out, wherever you are.” Violet hugged her knees tighter, hoping he couldn’t see her nightgown—or her—pressed into the darkest corner of the grimy loft. “I promise not to hurt you. I promise you . . . won’t . . . feel . . . a . . . thing.”

  She cringed, shaking all over. Adrenaline tore through her as she concentrated on one thing. Him. She tracked him by the imprints he bore.

  She calculated his position as he walked three steps away from her, and then he turned and walked two more directly toward her. Her heart failed to beat for several immeasurable seconds. Her eyes widened as she felt the tremor of his boot landing squarely in front of her and she could smell every inch of him, basted in burnt rubber. Awash in death.

  When he turned the other way, Violet’s blood began to pump once more, filling her with a dread so overpowering it threatened to engulf her. This might be her only opening, she realized as with each step he took, the distance between them grew.

  She hesitated, unsure that her plan—her only hope—was wise, but recognizing she had no other options. And then, because it was the only thing she could do, she fled, moving as quickly as she could, not caring that he could hear her now. Not caring that she was reckless and clumsy.

  Just needing to reach the stairway before he did.

  Because if she could get out of this damn barn, she might survive.

  She was only halfway down the steps, her hands braced on both sides of the ladder, when she felt his hand reach down, his fingers bunching and tangling into her hair. He was bent over the opening, coming through it facedown. But he had enough leverage to stop her, jerking her and making her lose her footing altogether until she was dangling in midair. Her feet swung and she kicked wildly. She crashed against the ladder with enough force to knock the wind out of her.

  “Nice try!” he snarled, hauling her up once more. He was stronger even than Violet had imagined, and she fumbled to get ahold of the wooden steps in a desperate effort to keep him from pulling her all the way back up to the loft.

  After several failed attempts, she finally managed to slide one of her feet through the rungs and she hooked it there, locking herself in place. He jerked harder, and she shrieked in agony as she felt clumps of
her hair ripping free.

  “Why are you making this so hard?” he ground out, his large hands reaching down, trying to get a better grip on her.

  But Violet refused to be a victim this time. She’d already been rescued by Jay, by her uncle, by Sara and Rafe. She hated that she hadn’t been able to save herself then.

  This time, however . . . this time there was only her. And she refused to let Caine win.

  She reached up, hitting and scratching him, trying anything she could to make him release her. But nothing worked. He was slowed by her efforts, but so was she. She kept her leg wrapped around the ladder, but each time he pulled her, she felt her grip falter.

  Finally, she lifted both of her hands and wound them into his hair. She squeezed her fists as tightly as she could and she anchored her legs around the steps as firmly as possible. She jerked downward, pulling at him with every ounce of strength she could muster. Pulling him with everything she had.

  Until he was falling . . . down . . .

  . . . down.

  She hadn’t realized how easily he would fall until she felt his leaden weight crash against her. He was like a stone, crushing her against the wooden ladder she clung to with only her legs. The splintering sound from the wood was bad, but Violet was much more concerned when she felt his hands grasping at her, clutching for the folds of her cotton nightgown. She realized he’d gotten a handful when she was wrenched downward. Yet even as she heard it tear, he kept tumbling, falling past her.

  Her tenuous hold slipped, and then she was plunging too, her arms flailing wildly, a scream frozen in the base of her throat.

  The only sound she actually heard was the sickening thud he made when he collided with the hollow wooden floor beneath them. And something else, something she had no time to process before she too landed . . . falling on her stomach, her arms and legs completely ineffective in breaking her fall as dust rose up, choking her and making it impossible to breathe at all.