"Too late," she whispered.
The fire exploded upward.
Jude threw his arm in front of his face as heat roared toward them. A shadow surged through the trees, Rose's silhouette.
Natalie stood in an instant, her smile twisting, her eyes now glowing.
She turned to Jude, lips parting in something like a moan. "You almost had me."
And then she was gone.
Running into the woods.
Rose and the others followed.
Jude's heart pounded.
This time, it wasn't Susan who vanished.
It was Natalie.
And they had failed.
The forest was darker than it had ever felt. Not just night-dark, but drenched in something deeper, thicker, like a shadow that had sunk into the ground itself. The six of them stood frozen in place long after Natalie had vanished, long after Rose and the others had disappeared into the woods like smoke, taking the fire's glow with them. Only the faint hiss of dying embers remained, and the soft whisper of wind in the trees.
No one spoke for a long time.
