“He’ll kill us if he catches us,” I call out to Lily as we head for the front door of the house, coughing against the smoke.
She pauses, fumbling around through the smoke for the doorknob. “You go,” she says and suddenly she has something in her other hand… something silver… a gun? “I’ll take care of him. I’m better at this stuff anyway.”
It makes something deep inside me twinge and I find myself shaking my head, my eyes skimming to the flames and the smoke. “No. Not this time.”
Her grip on my arm tightens, her nails pierce into my skin, split open my flesh. “Just go. You’ll never be able to do it.”
Her words are painfully right. “But what about Evan—” There’s a thud and before I even know what I’m doing, I snatch the gun from her hand. I’m not even sure what comes over me. If I really am bad or if her words have finally gotten to me, but at the moment I don’t feel like myself. I feel like Lily.
When I see him walking through the fire and smoke toward me, I aim it at him. Flames engulf the wood, beams crash to the floor. Ashes spill all over my skin, singe my clothes, grey smoke swirls around, but even through it I can see him smiling at me.
“Do it!” Lily cries as the man grows closer and closer
I start to squeeze the trigger, but when I see his eyes, his face, his life, I can’t do it. I may hate him, but at the same time I love him. I may want to kill him, but at the same time I’m not a killer.
Flames ignite, roaring brightly, and smothering everything with smoke. I can’t breathe and I fall to the ground on my knees, choking for air. “I can’t do it.”
“Maddie.”
“Well, I sure as hell can.” Lily points the gun at him, smiling as she pulls the trigger, and when his blood splatters, it feels like it’s on my hands too. Like we’re one and the same.
“Maybe we are,” she whispers. “Then again, you might be too weak to be me.”
I look up at her and for the briefest moment, I think about taking the gun and aiming it at her, but then the fire ignites, a gun fires, and then everything smothers in flames
The fire shifts… fades… sucks us both away… I’m being carried... I move somewhere else. I can’ move… I claw at the ground. My flesh. Four white walls surround me… the number 14 brands in my mind, just on the other side. I have to get out. The smoke and rain is gone and all I can see is the florescent lighting and feel the cold air.
I’m alone.
No you’re not. We’re in this together.
They tell me I’m crazy.
But I’m not!
I see her.
She’s real.
She didn’t leave me to die.
“I’m not crazy! Let me out!” I pound on the door. Scream at the top of my lungs, but no one hears me. My fingernails dig in to the door and I scrape at the metal until my fingers bleed, until some of my fingernails rip off.
Calm down. Everything’s going to be okay. I’ll take care of you. I always do. After all, you’re too weak without me.
“You keep saying that,” I say, continue to bang at the door, panting and trembling with fear. I haven’t seen sunlight in days. Haven’t breathed fresh air in ages. I need out. “But it’s never okay. My weakness has won.”
It will, though. But you need to calm down. Panicking’s not going to get us anywhere.
“But I want out. I want to breathe the fresh air again. Want to be out of this place.”
“You will be,” she promises as I turn around and sit down on the cement floor with my head resting against the door, tucking my damp blond hair behind my ears. I stare at the scribbling on the wall. The sentence that I wrote over and over again: I’m not a killer. I’m not a killer. I’m not a killer. “Just trust me. I know a way to get us out, but it’s going to have to be me.”
“Why?”
“Because you don’t have it in you to escape—you never have. Remember what happened last time.” As she says it, she shows me images of the things she could do to get us out. They make me sick. Disgust me. But a lot of the things I’ve done here make me feel the same way.
So I make a choice, but it doesn’t even feel like a choice. It feels like it’s the only thing left to do. So I shut my eyes and let her take control over me. Seconds later, the place is on fire and I’m running through the forest, barefoot, cold. But finally free.
Chapter 27
Maddie
Someone stabs me in the arm and I’m jerked awake, my eyelids shooting open. I quickly sit up, backing away from Preston, like a cornered cat hovering against the wall. My hair stands on end and my pulse is racing as the room spins round and round in magical colors. “Don’t touch me,” I snap, aware that my face is covered in tears. I’ve been crying. I’m shaking. I’m terrified. “Don’t you fucking dare touch me!” My voice sounds like an echo that bounces off the walls and slams back against me.
Preston’s eyes are wide and full of concern as he tosses something aside… I squint and try to see what it is, but my vision is blurry. He elevates his hands in front of him. “I’m sorry. But you were screaming and crying and I couldn’t wake you up…. “What happened? Please, tell me what you saw.” He’s too close. I can’t breathe. Can’t process if I’m in reality now or if I was just a minute ago.
It takes me a minute to catch my breath. Takes me a minute to realize I’m not locked behind that door or shooting someone or running in the woods. In a burning building, letting Lily shoot a man… or me shoot a man and blaming it on Lily.
“I have to go,” I slur as I attempt to climb off the lounge chair but end up stumbling and Preston has to catch me in his arms. We crash into the wall and his framed degree falls to the floor and the glass breaks. “I need to go.. get out of here...”
“Maddie, please just wait a minute.” Preston holds me in his arms as I blink and blink and blink, trying to get the room to stop twirling like a merry-go-round on crack. “We need to talk about what just happened.”
“Nothing… happened.” I wiggle out of his hold and stumble over to the chair. I pick up my bag and sling it over my shoulder before staggering over to the door.
“Maddie, would you please—”
I stumble into the hallway and slam the door closed before he can say anything else. Then I take off, but only make it a few steps before I have to brace my hand on the wall. I hear Preston coming up behind me and he says something in my ear.
“What did you do to me?” I mutter, my skin dripping with sweat as I reach the exit door and burst through it out beneath the clouds and the trees. My mother’s already rushing toward me with her phone in her hand. Preston probably already called her.
I fall to my knees on the sidewalk, feel the skin split open, feel blood gush out, saturate my skin, like so much other blood has.
“What did you do to her?’ My mom asks furiously as she storms across the parking lot toward us.