From the bathroom came a grunt of effort, and then a loud splash.
I’d need to surprise him, catch him off guard. So I slipped back in my seat, setting the knife under the right side of my skirt. Then I quickly leaned over and bound my legs back to the chair, reached my hands behind me, and rewrapped my wrists with the tape.
About two seconds after I finished, Reed walked in, his tuxedo wet from the bathtub. He looked winded and upset.
“What are you looking at?” he snarled. I shifted my gaze to my plate.
He was a hundred times more dangerous now because things were going badly.
But I could be dangerous, too.
He bent over and ripped the tape from my legs, then tore the piece off my wrists and mouth, making me wince as the adhesive pulled at my skin.
“What are you doing to Jonathan?” I asked. “Did you kill him?”
Reed grunted. “It’s not your concern.”
“I thought you said he was like family to you.”
He ignored me. “Let’s get started. I’m tired of waiting.”
“Is my lipstick okay?” I asked.
“You’re stalling, Willa. It won’t help.” He gave me an exasperated look, then turned for the makeup kit. “But I might as well —”
His back was toward me.
GO. GO. GO.
I reached under my skirt and grabbed the knife. Then I propelled myself out of the chair, toward Reed’s back.
He heard me and began to turn around.
But I was already on him. I plunged the knife into his side. He gasped and let out a primal roar.
I gave him a hard shove, and he tumbled backward. Then I ran out of the room, toward the front door. All I had to do was make it to the road and pray somebody was driving by — and that they’d be willing to stop.
What I hadn’t counted on was that, over the course of the evening, my legs had fallen asleep. As I moved, blood rushed back through the veins, essentially turning my legs into unusable stumps. Even though Reed was injured, I wouldn’t be able to outrun him all the way to the gate. I staggered across the foyer, threw the door open, and screamed at the top of my lungs as I crumpled onto the porch.
Then I started crawling, determined to drag myself to the road if I had to.
But Reed grabbed me by the back of my dress and pulled me back inside the house. He slammed the door closed, struggling to get me into a choke hold with his left arm. In his right hand, he held the bloody knife.
He was breathless with fury. “Huge … mistake … Willa …”
The feeling was coming back into my legs now. I kicked backward and threw him off balance. He tried to grab me by the hair, but only succeeded in pulling the wig off my head. I raced for the stairs, scrabbling up on all fours. He was right behind me. I made it to the top barely two steps ahead of him. I could lock myself in Jonathan’s office and climb out the window again….
I ran to the end of the hall and tried to shove the door open.
There was a low, gurgling laugh from behind me.
“Yeah, it’s locked,” Reed said. “I locked it. I locked them all, actually.”
I turned to face him. He hadn’t bothered to follow me down the hall. He stood at the top of the stairs. Blood ran from the wound in his side, staining his white shirt ruby red.
“You think you’re clever, don’t you?” he said. “But you’ve got nowhere to go, sister.”
I glanced at the banister. How far was the drop to the first floor?
“Go ahead,” he said. “Break your legs. See if I care.”
Oh, God.
He stood rooted smugly in place, clutching the knife as if he knew a thing or two about knives. “You’re going to pay for this, Willa. Your poor mama’s going to cry her eyes out when she sees you.”
I was distracted momentarily by something else glinting in the light, besides the knife blade …
Water.
A trail of wet footprints on the floor, between Reed and myself.
Paige?
“Stay back,” I said. “I’m warning you.”
He laughed flatly. “Big, tough Willa. Haven’t you noticed that I keep winning? Didn’t I tell you that I always win?”
I couldn’t let him corner me. I was still woozy from the pills and not moving very fast, but I’d rather be a moving target than a sitting duck. He was hurt, too.
I drew in a breath and charged toward him. As I got closer, I ducked and flattened myself against the wall.
But I didn’t make it. He used his whole body to shove me to the ground. I fell back and hit my head on the sharp edge of the baseboard, so hard I saw stars. Then I scooted as far away as I could, which wasn’t very far.
Reed loomed above me, holding the knife. “Want to know what I’m going to cut first?”
On the ceiling above him, black words bubbled into existence.
Just three short words:
I AM HERE
“Wait, Reed … please.” I held my hands up in surrender. “I just have one question.”
He smirked. “What?”
I took a deep breath. “Do you believe in ghosts?”
His smirk turned to a confused sneer. “Do I —”
There was an explosion of blue light between us.
Reed cried out in surprise, giving me a moment to dash out of his reach. I turned back and looked at him —
At him, and at Paige.
Her ghost stood in the center of the hallway, a girl made of light.
Reed stared up at her in terror. “What … what are you?”
Paige looked over at me. In her gaze I saw sympathy, understanding, sorrow … but also anger. Resolve. Strength.
She turned back to Reed, who was basically reduced to blubbering.
“What is this?” he asked. “What’s going on?”
Paige smiled and took a step toward him. She spoke in a voice of hollow whispers. “This is the kind of dream you don’t wake up from, Henry.”
When he tried to move out of her way, his foot landed on one of the wet footprints and slipped.
He tumbled backward down the stairs.
And then there was stillness.
I crawled to the banister and saw Reed lying unconscious — maybe dead — on the floor of the foyer below.
I glanced up at Paige.
She gave me a look of satisfaction … but also full of regret and wistfulness.
And then she disappeared.
I raced down the stairs, past Reed’s body, and into the guest bathroom.
The faucet was still running. The bathwater was pink with blood from Jonathan’s wounded head. The water level had just reached his mouth. I shut the water off and then hauled him over the edge so he was lying down on the floor. I turned his head to the side, and a bunch of water streamed out of his mouth. But he still didn’t wake up.
Oh, God, what if he never woke up?
I could not sit there and watch him not breathe and not open his eyes and not be alive anymore.
It would break everything that was left of me.
“No, no, no,” I said. “No, you are NOT going to die tonight!”
Desperately, I racked my memory for the first aid I’d learned back in ninth grade. I wrestled him into a sitting position and drew my balled-up fists into the soft space beneath the center of his ribs. As I did it, I felt emotions rush through me, raw and unprocessed, and for a moment I closed my eyes and went back to that morning at the YMCA trying to save my father.
Live, I remembered thinking. Live, Dad. Live.
Now I thought, Live, Jonathan.
Please live.
Suddenly, his body began to convulse with a series of racking coughs. I ran out of strength to hold on to him, so I laid him down on his side and watched and waited as he came back to life.