Page 273 of Let Me In

I kneel to fasten the clip.

And that’s when Cleo darts through the gap.

Fast.

So fast I don’t even hear her paws. Just the blur of movement in the corner of my eye. A flash of pale fur vanishing into the dark edges of the woods.

“Cleo!”

My voice breaks in the middle. It’s not loud, but strangled. Thin.

I freeze for a beat.Stay inside,Cal said. Use the tethers.Don’t go out.

But my body moves before my mind can catch it.

Barefoot. No coat. No thought.

Just Cleo.

And fear carries me out into the dusk.

Through damp brush and the hush of trees. The light disappears almost instantly behind me. The forest wraps around me like breath I can’t quite catch. Cold air clings to my skin. Leaves slap against my shins. My breath burns in my throat and clouds the path behind me.

“Cleo!”

My voice trembles through the underbrush.

She doesn’t answer. Doesn’t bark. Doesn’t cry.

My feet slip on wet roots, and my heart beats like a drum in my ears, drowning everything else.

Then—an impossibly tall shadow looms ahead.

I stop. Skid to a breathless halt, lungs burning, feet half-sunken into the soft earth.

Because he’s there.

The Watcher.

Still as stone.

Shadowed by the trees. Moonlight cuts the shape of his shoulders, but his face stays blurred, swallowed by the hush of branches.

But I see her.

Cleo.

Tucked into the crook of his arm like she’s been there the whole time.

She’s calm. Blinking. Unhurt. Her ears twitch once, like this is normal.

I stumble backward, knees giving, and I land hard on the forest floor, a yelp catching in my throat.

The Watcher doesn’t move.

He doesn’t look angry.

But he doesn’t look anything.

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