Page 131 of Saints & Sinners
Whatever it was, my feet began moving without warning. I couldn’t help it as I followed the sound, anyway, weaving through the maze as the whispers grew louder and more insistent.
I sucked in a sharp breath as I rounded a corner, and there it was. Another sigil stone, this time embedded into the maze’s wall. Except this one didn’t look like the one I’d found before. It was pale, almost silver.
I hesitated.
It could be a cursed one.
Every instinct in me screamed for me to turn around, to leave it alone, but I couldn’t move. It was as though my feet were stuck in quicksand. I couldn’t escape it. There was something so magnetic about the stone. It was pulling me toward it, an invisible force that wrapped around my mind and body.
“No,” I whispered, shaking my head, but my feet finally moved as if they were no longer my own. I reached out, my fingers trembling as they hovered over the stone.Don’t touch it. Don’t touch it.
I couldn’t stop myself.
The moment my fingers brushed the surface, shadows swarmed me, and I stumbled back, feeling the darkness wrap around me like a shroud. The maze disappeared before me, and I couldn’t see anything except figures.
I turned to see Hunter standing before me. His expression wastwisted and cruel, resembling the hatred in his eyes whenever he used to look at me—before everything happened, before I... fell for him.
“Why are you here, Grace?” he asked, though his voice lacked any warmth.
I tried to speak, but my words were stuck somewhere between my mind and mouth.
He stepped closer, and something in him changed.
His eyes.
They weren’t grey anymore.
They were black, an endless void that seemed to pull the light from the air around them.
A chill swept through me as his darkened gaze penetrated my soul, slicing every single one of our memories.
“Did you really think I was the hero?” he whispered, smiling a slow, sinister smile. “You’re so naive, Grace. You always have been.”
“No,” I choked out, shaking my head. “You’re not real. This isn’t real.”
But that hatred never faded from his eyes as more versions of Hunter appeared around me, each one worse than the last—his hands covered in blood, his laughter sharp and cruel, his voice whispering things I couldn’t understand but knew were just harsh words, tormenting me.
It’s not real. It’s not real.
I clutched at the necklace around my neck. I focused on that instead and squeezed my eyes shut.
“Open your eyes, Grace.” Hunter’s voice sounded like it was coming from behind me.
I shook my head.
“Open your eyes!”
“This isn’t real!” I screamed, the sound tearing from my throatas I fell to my knees, and everything went silent.
My breaths came in sharp, ragged gasps, and I slowly opened my eyes to the maze, snapping back into focus around me. The cursed stone lay in front of me, its glow fading to nothing.
“Grace!”
I looked up, my vision blurry, but there he was.
Hunter.
Please be real, please be real.
