Where The Ice Gives Way (Charlotte and Blake) novel Chapter 237

apter 238-What Did You See?

Jessica

I have no idea how I managed to drive home.

I remember the road in pieces. Streetlights smearing gold as the windscreen. My hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly my knuckles ached. The low hum of the engine. The sound of my own breathing, too loud and too shallow in the quiet of the car. Every dark gap between trees looked like it might move. Every shadow at the edge of the road looked like it might sprout for.

The house glows softly through the front windows when I pull into the driveway. It should not look normal, but nothing is normal anymore. Not the porch light, not Dad’s work boots by the door, not Mum’s little row of pot plants sitting along the front step.

Everything looks exactly the same.

And I am not.

I sit in the car for a few seconds after I turn off the engine, staring at the front door while my chest keeps pulling tight in strange little waves. My fingers are staff when I finally force them off the wheel. My legs feel loose and unreliable when I climb out. The cold bites at my face, but even that feels distant like my body is standing in the driveway while the rest of me is still back at the park, kneeling in the snow with my hand buried in impossible black fur.

I forget my parents are still awake until I open the door and step inside.

Mum and Dad both look over from the lounge.

Dad is stretched out in his usual corner of the couch, one hand curled around the remote, glasses low on his nose. Mum sits beside him with a blanket c

her lap, the blue glow of the television flickering across her face.

Mum’s smile fades.

“Jess?” she asks, already sitting forward. “What happened?”

“Nothing.” The word comes out too fast, too thin, too obviously a lie.

Dad reaches for the remote and turns the television down. The cheerful noise of whatever show they were watching shrinks into a murmur, and the sil

left behind feels too big for the hallway.

“You look pale, sweetheart,” Dad says.

“I’m fine.” I drop my keys into the bowl by the door, but they hit the ceramic with a sharp clatter that makes me flinch.

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Mum gets up and crosses the hallway toward me, her eyes moving over my face, my hands, my shoulders, like she is looking for a simple explanation.

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