Martin was speaking, his voice sounding detached from his body. “What were we all thinking about just before it happened?”
The others looked at him. Robin felt Patrick shift and was childishly irritated at the intrusion. Whatever Martin was getting at, she wanted no part of it. She only wanted to crawl inside Patrick and curl up and never come out.
Martin looked around at all of them, insistent. “I think we should talk about it, while it’s still fresh in our minds.”
Robin felt Patrick turn completely from her. He towered over Martin, who seemed half his size. “Are you crazy? After the way it went off on you?”
Cain turned on Patrick, the anger leaping from one to the other, electrifying the room. “And who was that coming from?”
Patrick whirled on Cain. “Say what?”
Cain faced him, hands clenched at his sides. “Whose subconscious was it tapping? Sounded like right-wing frat-boy bullshit to me.”
Their shadows loomed on the wall as the two advanced on each other, voices rising.
“You calling me out, freak?”
“I’m calling what I see, asshole.”
Robin suddenly found herself back in her own body, as if jerking awake from a too-real dream. She stepped quickly between Patrick and Cain.
“Stop it. It’s bad enough, isn’t it?”
Cain and Patrick faced off tensely, glaring at each other over Robin’s head. The air crackled between them.
But then Cain stepped back.
Robin breathed an inaudible sigh of relief, and felt a stab of disappointment that it had not been Patrick to step down.
“Let’s all just…leave it. Get some sleep,” Cain muttered, glancing away from Robin.
Nobody moved.
The wind gusted outside, pushing at the windows, like an animal wanting in.
Lisa’s voice was flat, dead certain. “No way am I going anywhere alone.”
And Robin knew it was not enough this time for the two of them to stay together for moral support. Two girls were no match for whatever she’d seen in the mirror.
The five of them looked around at one another in the firelight.
“We could stay down here.”
Everyone turned to Martin, startled. He glanced at Robin. “Bring some bedding down…” His eyes indicated the floor, where the glass shards still glittered like daggers.
There was wonder in Patrick’s face as he looked at the smaller boy. “You’re way into it, aren’t you? You’re just itching for something to happen.”
Martin stared back at Patrick. “Aren’t you?”
Robin tensed at the challenge. Patrick bristled. The two boys stared at each other, Patrick big and hulking, Martin small but grimly determined.
Cain shook his head, disgusted, and started for the doorway to the hall.
Patrick suddenly called out after him. “Good luck with those pipes, dude.”
Cain stopped in the arch of the door, turned slowly.
The five looked at one another again, not moving.
CHAPTER TWELVE
She was dreaming… of chaos and fire… blistering, unbearable light, filling her, scorching her.
She screamed with her entire being….
And exploded, shattering into a million pieces.
Then darkness and the iciest cold. Cast out…cast off…she had never felt so abandoned, so completely alone. Nothingness around her…howling wind…howling rage.
My body… where is my body?
Her discarnate being shuddered with a cry of fury….
Robin’s eyes flew open at the sound of a gasp. She bolted up to a sitting position.
She was in the lounge. A few dying red coals in the hearth illuminated sleeping shapes crashed out on the floor. Robin remembered dragging the mattresses down from the boys’ floor, sweeping up the pieces of mirror as best they could, pushing the shards with the janitor’s broom into a corner far away from them.
She shuddered through her entire body. Cold. So cold. Her teeth began to chatter.
Something moved in the dark.
Robin twisted around in terror and saw that Patrick and Lisa were wide awake, sitting up beside her. Robin caught her breath, whispered into the shadows. “What is it?”
Patrick swallowed. “I heard… somethin’.” He looked as disoriented as she felt, uneasy, still surfacing from sleep.
Lisa’s teeth were chattering, too; her eyes were wide, glistening in the dark. “I felt something. On top of me. I’m scared. I mean…really scared.”
Robin could barely speak. She forced out, “I know,” and took in a shallow breath.
Then she stiffened, staring in front of her. Her breath was showing in the air, as if the room were freezing.
Patrick and Lisa were staring at the air in front of her, and she knew they saw it, too.
Lisa gasped out, “God… what’s going on?” Her words came in frosty puffs.
Robin reached out and clasped Lisa’s hand, felt her riveted with pure terror.
A soft banging started, like the wind slamming shutters. The three of them went rigid, listening through the shadows.
Suddenly, a shape rose up in the dark in front of them.
Robin flinched back; Patrick jumped.
Then Robin recognized the lean, tensile strength of the body, realized it was Cain, sitting up from his mattress, his hair mussed from sleep. She felt the others relax slightly as they identified him, too.
He lifted his eyes toward the soft banging, whispered into the dark, “It’s a window…I think.” He did not sound entirely convinced.
Patrick spoke through stiff lips. “Jesus…it’s freezing.” His eyes were glazed; he swallowed through a dry throat. Robin wanted to reach for his hand as she’d reached for Lisa’s, but she felt enveloped in a drowsy, almost drugged paralysis.
Lisa whispered, and her words made Robin’s blood run cold. “I think…I think there’s something here.” She was staring toward the fireplace, her eyes wide as saucers.
Robin turned her head reluctantly, not wanting to see, but compelled.
Above the glowing bed of coals, the smoke in the fireplace was curling strangely, more like the spiral patterns of cigarette smoke than wood smoke. Then as they all watched, mesmerized, something seemed to breathe through the smoke…long, deep breaths.
All four were frozen in terror in the murky darkness.
Patrick choked out a strangled sound. “I’m out of here.”
But he didn’t move. Can’t, Robin thought. None of us can.
And then she thought, Martin.
With great effort, she turned her head toward the last mattress—and gasped at the sight of Martin’s sleeping form.
The pieces of broken mirror stood on edge around Martin’s head, the shards arranged to point at him like a halo of daggers, as if the shattered pieces had assumed malevolent life and crept up on him, poised to kill.
Robin stared, numb. Martin opened his eyes. He seemed to sense her attention and started automatically to reach for his glasses.
Robin cried out, “No!”
The panic in her voice froze him. He stared up through the shadows.
Cain spoke forcefully, a command. “Don’t turn your head. Just sit straight up.”
Martin raised his head from the mattress stiffly, carefully, nearsighted eyes blinking.
Robin grabbed his hand and pulled him forward, away from the glass. Cain found his glasses on the carpet and put them in his hand. Martin fumbled the spectacles on and stared down at the glass spears in dazed incomprehension.