Whispers at Moonrise

the voice of the screamer. The high-pitched sound told Kylie it was female, but there were no notes of familiarity to it. None.
    It didn’t matter. She felt it—the familiar fizz, the telltale buzz in her blood that happened when she moved into protective mode.
    Her breath caught in her throat; everything inside her said someone needed her. She had no choice but to answer the cry for help. She bolted toward the woods.
    “Kylie!” Miranda screamed out. “Don’t run!”
    Right before Kylie entered the thicket of trees, she called back for Miranda to go get help.
    And fast.

 
    Chapter Thirteen
    Kylie ran like the wind.
    Nothing slowed her down. Nothing could.
    Not the thick underbrush.
    Not the overhanging limbs.
    Not even the seven-foot barbed-wire fence telling her she was leaving Shadow Falls property. Don’t you dare leave Shadow Falls property. She heard Burnett’s warning ring in her head, but she ignored it. She followed the screams.
    She even ignored her fear that she was running full-speed ahead into a trap set by Mario and his friends. It didn’t matter. She was a protector. She had to protect.
    After several minutes of running on pure adrenaline, her breath heavy, she sensed the scream and the screamer getting closer. Then she saw it.
    Not the screamer.
    She saw the fog—the thick, low-hanging cloud that moved over the underbrush, as if swallowing the ground up. It moved in a way that said the force behind it was more than Mother Nature. This was some unnatural power.
    A power that traveled at breakneck speeds.
    Logic told her to run, but the screams grew louder, and instinct kept her feet moving right into the mouth of the fog. Movement to the left caught her eyes. A girl raced to escape the thick mist. Her long black hair stirred around her head, reminding Kylie of the picture of Medusa she’d seen in a Greek mythology book.
    Still a distance away, the girl’s gaze met Kylie’s. Relief sparked in the runner’s eyes. Doubt sparked in Kylie.
    Was this real, was the girl real, or was this another vision? Was the girl truly running for her life, or was she running from a death that had already claimed her?
    Questions bounced around Kylie’s mind as her feet hit the earth. Faster, she told herself when she saw the fog almost at the girl’s heels. “Run faster,” Kylie screamed.
    Dead or alive, helping the stranger felt essential. The sound of the girl’s rapid footfalls echoed through the trees, until her speed helped her escape the mouth of the fog.
    Then, as if in slow motion, the girl tripped, lost her footing, and hit the ground. Hard.
    The thud of her fall bounced off the trees.
    Kylie watched in horror as the fog moved in. She pushed herself, sensing the need to reach the girl before the strange fog. The fizz in her blood gave her strength.
    Coming to a sudden stop beside the lifeless body, Kylie snatched the unconscious girl into her arms. She weighed next to nothing. When Kylie looked up the fog was almost upon her. Running on instinct and perhaps panic, Kylie shot off.
    Her feet pounded the underbrush into the ground. She hadn’t gotten ten feet when the feeling of being lured hit her again. Come to us. Come to us. The wind, the trees, everything whispered the same message.
    She stopped running. Her breaths came short, in and out. She swung around. “What do you want? Who are you?”
    Her heart slammed against her rib cage. Cradling the girl closer, Kylie stared at the fog.
    The thick gray cloud hovered twenty feet back, pulsating as if a heart beat within. The air around it stirred as if it breathed.
    That’s when she stopped being able to breathe, because … because freaking hell, fog wasn’t supposed to breathe. Fog wasn’t supposed to be alive.
    Before Kylie could react, the cloudlike air shifted and separated into two different masses. While she didn’t sense an evil presence, she could no more deny the fear biting at her backbone than she could deny her own need for oxygen. Part of her instinct screamed to run, another part screamed to stay.
    The fog inched back a few more feet as if it sensed Kylie’s dread.
    So she waited.
    She watched.
    She listened.
    Listened to her name being called.
    Kylie. Kylie.
    Listened to the words spoken that came with the wind—whispered softly like a breeze stirring in the leaves. We mean you no harm.
    “Who are you?” Kylie called out.
    The girl in Kylie’s arms shifted. The weight that had felt lifeless now stirred with life.