Before she can move or speak again, I run.

I turn around and bolt through the doorway, up the stairs, through the toothpaste-green hall out into the night.

I grind the key into the Nissan’s ignition. The engine roars. I peel away from the curb, into the deserted Main Street. Rain bashes against the windshield. Wind shoves the car sideways. The trees around me thrash. I clutch the wheel, roaring out of town, driving as fast as I can without skidding off the wet road, until I’m bumping up my own driveway.

It’s only when I’m in my room, with the door and window locked, sitting on the bed with both feet pulled up so nothing in the darkness underneath can grab me, that I finally slow down long enough to think.

And what I think is that I’m acting like a total psycho.

Did I actually just run away from a professional meeting set up by my guitar teacher—a meeting with a gorgeous woman who offered me a music contract—to hide in my bedroom?

Yes.

Yes I did.

I go back and sort through the things she actually said. You know who I’m with. You’re meant for this. Okay, a little weird and intense, but she was both trying to flatter me and to push me into signing something by making me afraid I’d lose my chance. That’s what dealmakers do, right? There’s nothing in her words that should make any sane “adult” run away in terror. But I let some stupid phrase like You are going to be so, so sorry and the color of her eyes scare the shit out of me.

Plus, Flynn set up the whole thing. Flynn vouched for her. Flynn, who’s right up there with Goblin in the circles of people I trust.

Goblin. I lean down and look under the bed. There are no yellow eyes glimmering back at me, no stinky cat breath wafting out. It figures that just when I need some comfort, my cat decides to spend his night somewhere else.

Jesus. I press my forehead into my hands.

So she had mud on her shoes. So what? That doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t mean that there’s something out there in the woods, watching me, creeping closer and closer.

What the hell is wrong with me? Why do I take every good thing—a record deal, representation, a free guitar, Frankie—and turn it all into some kind of threat?

I’m paranoid. I’m mentally ill. I’m messed up.

Because when I focus on the things I actually know, instead of things I imagine, I’ve got next to nothing.

And that’s what I’m still telling myself when something pounds at my bedroom window.

Thea

I’ve been standing behind my usual tree, in the leaf-filtered rain, waiting for the light. My clothes are soaked through. My hair twists into damp ropes against my back. I could walk right into the river and not be any wetter than I am right now. But the rain doesn’t matter. I barely feel it.