Chapter 7

I was running.

My feet were heavy, weighed down as though the sand itself wanted to keep me there, dragging me back into the nightmare. The beach stretched endlessly before me, silver under the moonlight, but no matter how fast I tried to go, I wasn’t moving quickly enough. My breath tore out of me in shallow, broken gasps, my throat burning as panic clawed at me.

And then I heard her voice.

“Elizabeth!”

Lucy’s voice echoed behind me, sharp, high-pitched, chilling. My heart slammed against my ribs. I turned for a fraction of a second and saw her.

She was dressed in black, her hair wild as if the wind itself had twisted it, her face pale but her eyes blazing. In her hand gleamed the knife, clutched tight like it belonged to her, like it was an extension of who she was. She looked insane. Her face twisted in a smile that wasn’t a smile at all, but a promise.

She looked at me like I was prey. Like she wouldn’t stop until she destroyed me.

“No!