Page 61 of Kiss Slay Replay

The raven on the ground takes flight, instigating a mass exodus. I look up. There is no more night. Only feathers.

“Go! Please!”

Wyatt darts forward, grabs Ravi by the arm, and drags him up the stairs into the reception hall, then closes the doors behind them.

“Come on,” Danny says, heading toward the cabins, back in the direction we came from. He’s not moving particularly fast, not running—he takes these long, stumbling strides.

He’s sick. He’s unwell.

“I should call you an ambulance.”

“We’re almost there,” he says.

I can see the cabins, but they feel miles away.

Behind us, the cawing starts up again. It’s such an awful sound. Throaty and mean. It’s so loud that when another noise cuts through, the shock of it throws off my balance and I roll my ankle, knock into Danny, who cries out in pain.

Crack.

I look over my shoulder and see that the birds have surrounded the reception hall, the white building swarming with black ravens. They’re looking in the windows. No. They’re pecking at the windows. They’re pecking at the glass. Lunging. They’re trying to get inside.

Danny whimpers beside me. “My arm. It’s burning. It feels like it’s burning.”

I turn to him. “Just hang on a little longer, all right? I’ll get you help. Just a little longer.”

“Tick, tock. Tick, tock.” A voice worse than the caw of a thousand ravens, than glass shattering, than the screams of everyone I love.

He’s behind us. He’s behind us. He’s right behind us, his gaze searing into my back.

“Danny, run!”

I grab his good arm and sling it over my shoulder, and I try to carry him but he’s too heavy, and slow, and I can only really put weight on one foot, and I’m on the verge of losing hope when I remember what Steph said about the latch of her cabin door not working.

“Here,” I tell Danny, pulling him up the steps to Steph and Jace’s cabin, the closest one. I shove him through the door and close it behind us. “Hold it.”

Danny turns around and stares at the door. His eyes have glazed over. They’re darker than I remember. His pupils are dilated.

“Hold it! The latch is broken. We need something to keep it shut. I’m going to push some furniture in front. Just one sec.”

He gives a vacant nod and walks up to the door, presses against it.

There’s a dresser in the bedroom that’s heavy but manageable. I slide it into the living room using pure adrenaline. Danny backs away, and I shove the dresser up against the door, then tip it onto its side, so it’s taller than it is wide. I close all the curtains, not that it matters. That thing knows we’re in here.

If he wants a way in, he’ll find one.

It occurs to me that this is exactly what happened last time. This is exactly how I got myself killed last time.

“Fuck.” I take a breath. “I’m sorry. It’s going to be all right. It’s not the same this time. It’s different. It’s not going to end the same.”

“Okay,” Danny says. All color has drained from his face. The black of his pupils leaks into the whites of his eyes.

“Danny…”

He collapses to the floor. He doesn’t catch himself. His suit jacket falls open, and I can see now that his hand is rotting. His fingers are gray and shriveled, covered in open sores. Around the cut is swollen, dark, and iridescent. The feather-like pattern has spread past his wrist, his forearm, up into where his sleeve is folded, the extent of the damage hidden from me.

I manage to prop him up against the back of the couch. He’s trembling, clearly in pain. I don’t know what to do.

“Willa. Hey,” he says. “Sorry about earlier. I don’t know why I’m such an asshole. Let’s go to Tokyo. I want to take you to Tokyo.”