But when I look at the screen again, a choked sob catches in my throat, and my heart sinks down to my stomach like it’s weighted with lead.
Mom is slumped forward, pale and lifeless, and a steady flow of thick blood drips around the hilt of the blade buried deep in her temple.
21
“No!” I stretch a hand toward the screen, tears streaming down my face. “No, no, no, no, no.”
Bishop tenses beside me, and we drop to the floor. My feet haven’t even touched the carpet when Bishop releases me from his grip and disappears. I sink to my knees, drained of the will to even stand without support.
Bishop materializes behind Frederick’s seat. Frederick tries to run, but Bishop snags him around the neck, and they both jerk violently left to right as Frederick struggles against his captor. Jezebel struts up to them, holding a coil of thick rope in one hand and swinging the noose in the other.
“Saw you were a fan of rope,” she says, a sneer spreading across her face.
I look away just as garbled choking sounds fill the theater. My stomach lurches. Something surges up my throat, and I puke. I puke and puke and puke until there’s nothing left to bring up, not even bile, and my throat stings and I’m heaving for air, and I don’t even bother to wipe away the mess dripping down my chin.
I don’t know how long I spend like this, sobbing as I stare at the oily spots floating in my puke, until a shadow falls over me and breath rushes against my ear.
“It’s over.” Bishop scoops me up like he doesn’t mind that I’m covered in vomit, and all the while I want to tell him, “Of course it’s over—Mom’s dead. Her life is over. My life is over,” but I can’t form words, because that’d involve moving my lips and jaw and that’s too much to think about, too much to bear. So I just stare into his dark eyes, and he stares back, and I feel nothing, nothing, nothing. He bends down and kisses me on the forehead. It registers that his lips are soft and that I didn’t think they would be, and that Jezebel is his girlfriend and he just kissed me, but that’s it.
“We hanged him.” There’s pride in Jezebel’s voice, like I should clap her on the shoulder or jump up and down to celebrate.
I look to where she indicated and instantly wish I hadn’t. Frederick hangs from a rope tied to the rafters, his arms dangling lifelessly. His head is bent unnaturally to the side, and his skin is so purple it might be called black. And his eyes—they bulge out of his head, staring at me unblinking and making a whole-body kind of fear rise through me. Even dead he has control over me.
“We used rope,” she says. “Get it? Just like he used on Bishop and your mom.”
I glare at her.
“What?” Jezebel says. Her confused expression clears. “Oh! You want to give it a go?” She holds out her hand, and a knife appears in her palm. I recoil from it into Bishop.
“Jezebel, for Christ’s sake.” Bishop gestures to the screen.
She rolls her eyes, and the knife disappears. “What? It’s only fair.”
Fair. That’s a funny word. Is it fair that I get to live, and Mom doesn’t? That she was the one to die when she wasn’t even a witch, when being a witch is all she ever wanted? The injustice of it fills me with so much rage it tears open a ragged hole in my chest, consuming me, eating me from the inside out. And yet, when I open my mouth to scream or cry or anything, no sound comes out.
I watch Jezebel as Bishop carries me down the aisle, and I realize that I do actually feel something stronger than anger and sorrow and pain: hate. I hate the Priory for what they did, and I hate Jezebel. If she’d just pushed Frederick to let Mom go when she had the knife to his temple, instead of leaving the theater, Mom wouldn’t be dead.
We’re almost out the door when a thought hits me.
“Wait!” I manage, grabbing on to the doorframe for leverage. “What if it’s just a trick? We need to get her out. We need to check if she’s okay!” I’m frantic with the sudden idea that it’s all been some horrible joke the Priory played on me in an attempt to get their way.
But Bishop just shakes his head.
“B-but you can fix her, right?” I ask, hope laced through the words.
Bishop looks away quickly.
I grasp his shirt. “You can fix her, right?”
“Jezebel knows a lot of people,” he says. “She’ll find someone who can get her out of the screen.”
“And then?”
“And then you can bury her. It’s the best we can do.”
I close my eyes right as the doors swing shut behind us.
I don’t know how we find Paige. All I know is that by the time we spot her huddled in an alley a few blocks from the theater, a mess of snot and tears, the sun has crept up over the horizon, and the sky has turned the dusky gray blue of dawn.
“Indie!” She barrels into me so hard it would knock the breath out of me if I had any left.
She searches my face, and all her happiness at finding me washes away. “Your mom, is she … ?”
I give a tiny shake of my head; the simple act forces a painful groan out of me. Paige pulls me against her and lets me cry into her shirt. And then the three of us wearily stagger down a newly awakened Hollywood Boulevard without saying a word.
The car’s right where we left it in the parking garage. It still works, even after the beating it took. So there’s that. I lie in the backseat of the Sunfire, my head resting in Paige’s lap. I don’t remember the car ride, or falling asleep, or being carried up to my room, but it all must have happened, because when I blink my eyes open next, I’m in bed. The sun spills light through the windows, and Bishop is fast asleep in the wooden chair at my computer desk, his head tucked uncomfortably into his chest. I remember Mom, what happened, and my heart aches so intensely it chokes the breath out of me. I burrow back under the covers until sleep dulls the pain.
22
Bishop is gone. A block of sunlight streams through the window, warming my cheeks and lighting up the dust floating above my bed. Cicadas chirp a morning chorus. Children yell and squeal as they play in their yards, and someone nearby mows their lawn. Today’s just another day. My world came crashing down yesterday; my gut and my heart and my head hurt so profoundly I can’t imagine a worse pain. Mom is gone and is never coming back, and today’s just another day.
I want to scream. I want to scream until this hole inside me goes away.
Knuckles rap softly on my door, and Paige pokes her head inside. “Oh good, you’re up.” She steps inside, only to shift awkwardly at the entrance.
“Is she really gone?” I whisper, so quietly I’m surprised she hears me.
She climbs onto the bed and pulls me into a hug. I want to scream, but instead I cry.
We stay in bed all day.
I wake Wednesday morning to clanging in the kitchen. For a bittersweet moment I think it’s Mom, but reality rears its ugly head as I wake fully, and I remember she’s dead.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed. My bones creak from underuse, and when I stand, I waver for a minute before finding my balance. A film coats my teeth, and my bladder feels like it’s going to explode.
I leave Paige snoring in bed and slog across the hallway to the bathroom. Mom’s toothbrush glares at me from the holder next to the sink. I know if I pull open the shower curtain, I’ll find her special smelly soaps sitting in the rack under the showerhead. The ache inside me roars to life. Getting out of bed was a bad idea.