⊹ Book 2 of the Aldergrove Duology ⊹
{ONC 2023 Shortlister}
Desperate to see his dead mate again, Sebastien makes a deal with the Devil. But the price he has to pay is much more complicated than simply handing over his soul.
...
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⤠ ≻ ◈ ≺ ⤟
Sebastien tossed and turned all night. Every time he was about to drift off, the sound of something screeching outside woke him. And if it wasn't a shrieking animal or the walls rattling, it was the sight of Clementine's lifeless face that kept him up.
He rolled over onto his right side and looked at Caleb, who was sleeping on the floor wrapped in several blankets. His eyes shifted to the books they'd both been reading before deciding it was time to sleep and then he stared out of the window. All he had to do was feed that phantom and he'd get the answers he needed for Lord Caedis. He looked at Caleb again. The part of him that was trying to be a better person told him to wait until the morning and grab a prisoner, but the part of him that was hung up on who he used to be urged him to drag the kid down into the crypt and use him as a sacrifice.
That was all it would take. The kid was right there.
No. He wasn't that guy anymore. It wasn't right to manipulate, use, and kill anyone he pleased. Clementine taught him that there were people out there who deserved to die, but Caleb wasn't one of them. All Caleb wanted to do was find a way to save his mother from the disease something out here was spreading. Sebastien wasn't going to kill him. Caleb deserved better than that.
He rolled onto his back and glared up at the ceiling. Just one more day. He could survive one more day without Clementine....
Right?
Sebastien closed his eyes and tried to sleep.
But a voice crept in through the cracks in the walls.
"Sebastien..." it called.
He frowned in response; he was sure that it was the phantom getting impatient, but when he glanced at the window, the creature wasn't hovering out there and staring in at him.
"Sebastien..." it called again.
With an aggravated frown, he sat up and shuffled closer to the window.
And there it was. There he was.
The hitchhiker.
He stood at the edge of the murky forest bordering the estate, appearing as a normal human man...but as a flash of lightning cut through the fog, the man was suddenly a rotting corpse.
Lightning shimmered again, and he was a crooked skeleton on the ground.
And when it struck a final time, the hitchhiker was gone.
Sebastien's frown thickened. Why did he see that again? First on his way into Alderon, and just now.... What did it mean? Why did the mere thought of a hitchhiker put him on edge?
