Free Pyxis: The Discovery (Pyxis Series) by K.C. Neal Page B

my grandmother measured ingredients into a yellow ceramic bowl, the chipped one she always used when we baked.
    Some part of me had the sense that I should ask Grandma Doris about the pyxis , Harriet Jensen, the list of names, and all the rest. But I couldn’t bear to bring it up and shatter the moment. I’d ask her after we got the cheesecakes in the oven, I promised myself.
    But when I glanced out the window over the sink and saw the dirty gray fog piling up against the glass, I knew I’d waited too long. My heart in my throat, I turned to scream that we had to run. But I was alone. The crust mixture turned to ash under my fingertips, and in place of the raspberry syrup was a pyxis bottle filled with muddy, brown liquid.
    I heard the front door swing open with a faint groan, and my breath caught in my chest. Footsteps shuffled heavily in the entry, and I watched the kitchen doorway, too terrified to move. A shadowed form appeared, and I knew with a certainty that chilled me to the center of my being that this person, or creature, wanted me dead. Not just dead, but completely erased, wiped from existence. Adrenaline coursed through me, and I willed my body to spring into action, but it was like trying to move underwater.
    With the shadow creature in front of me and the black fog pressing on the window, I felt the world closing in. I was going to die.
    I woke up thrashing, with a scream dying in my throat. Terror still gripped me, and my legs tensed with the urge to run. I shivered hard, freezing in my pajamas. I reached out to pull my bedspread around me, and I switched on the bedside lamp. Light flooded my bedroom.
    Just a dream, just a dream , I mentally chanted over and over. I sat up and raked my fingers through the tangled mess of my hair. My hands were ice-cold.
    I piled my pillows behind me and propped myself up against the headboard. I wasn’t going to risk resuming the nightmare. Despite what I tried to tell myself, I knew deep down it was more than just a dream. Exhaustion finally overtook me around two in the morning, and I nodded off into a dreamless sleep. An hour later, I awoke to my phone vibrating on the bed next to me.
    It was a text from Mason: We r back in Tapestry. Text me when u get up!

||14 ||
     
    I COULDN’T FOCUS ON anything the next day at school. Mason wanted to see me after my shift.
    I’ve cleared all my usual Friday night engagements, his text said. Dork. I appreciated that he was trying to be lighthearted, though. Maybe he was nervous that it would be awkward, too.
    Ang and I decided not to distribute any more cookies that day—we wanted to wait and get Mason’s take on everything—which just made our shift seem to drag on forever. Plus, none of our previous victims came in, so we couldn’t even make more observations about their behavior.
    The coffee shop stayed open later on Fridays, so when seven o’clock finally arrived, instead of closing down the till, I handed it off to Del. Ang and I split our tips, and I swung by the café for food to take to Mason’s. I packed enough for his whole family. Ang dropped me off at Mason’s house in her mom’s Volvo.
    I waited for her to start driving away before I knocked on the Flints’ door. My hands were shaking a little, and I was grateful I had the bags of food to hold onto.
    Mason opened the door, and I felt an involuntary smile forming on my lips. “Hey! I brought us—”
    My words turned into a squeal as Mason picked me up in a bear hug and spun me around, forcing most of the air from my lungs. The bags in my hands made it impossible to hug him back. He set me down and held me at arm’s length, openly examining my face. His sandy-blonde hair curled across his forehead and over his ears, longer than he used to wear it. It seemed like he’d grown about a foot, and he smelled delicious, like soap and sunshine. He looked like a hotter, more mature version of the Mason I remembered, and I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about