Charlie laughs and reaches for me again. “That’s not true.”
I lean away from him, pressing against his truck. “It is true,” I say, slipping my fingers into the door latch. “I’ve done terrible things. You’d hate me if you knew. You’ll probably hate me for this, too, but it’s for the best.”
Charlie shakes his head. “What are you talking about?”
I don’t answer. Instead, I open the car door behind my back and slip into the front seat, pulling the door closed. Before he can reach for the latch himself, I hit the lock.
“Sorry!” I yell. Charlie bangs against the glass, and the muffled fwump fwump echoes through the truck.
“Sofia!” he shouts, but his voice sounds far away. I shift the truck into drive. If I see how betrayed he looks, I know I won’t be able to do this. I close my eyes when I hit the gas and keep them closed when the truck lurches forward.
By the time I open them again, my vision is clouded with tears, and I wouldn’t be able to see his face anyway.
• • •
I look up Lake Whitney on my cell while I drive, and follow the directions to a misty flat park surrounded by dense woods. I slow Charlie’s truck as the road narrows and curves into the trees. The moon peeks over the distant hills and reflects off the steely lake, turning the trees gray and silver through the fog.
Houses line the waterfront, and just as I start to worry that I’ll never find Riley in time, the road curves again, ending in front of a private beach and a thick cove of fir trees. Beyond the tops of the trees, I see a dark, slate-colored roof and chimney. I shift the truck into park and push the door open, but I leave the engine running, like Charlie did. Riley and I might have to make a quick getaway. Shoving my hands in my sweatshirt pockets, I hurry down the rocky gravel driveway.
I immediately recognize Riley’s family’s lake house from the photograph. It’s a low, sprawling cabin made of weathered gray wood. Floor-to-ceiling windows cover one entire side of the house, showing a darkened room filled with sleek, modern furniture. A narrow wooden dock stretches far out into the lake. I picture Riley and Alexis spreading their beach towels across the wood and slow to a walk. I’m sure this is the right place. But it looks empty.
Then something moves on the porch, and I turn, narrowing my eyes.
Riley’s huddled beneath a blanket on one of the wooden chairs, holding a cup of tea. She flinches when she sees me walking toward her, then sets the teacup on the ground and stands. The blanket drops from her shoulders.
“Sofia.” Her voice cracks when she says my name. “Oh my god. I thought . . .”
She lets the end of her sentence trail off, but I know what she was going to say. She thought I’d died in that house with Brooklyn. She thought the fire had killed me.
“We have to go.” I don’t mean for my voice to sound flat and angry, but it does. As relieved as I am that Riley’s not hurt, I can’t just forget what happened last night—the fact that she left me to burn, the things she did to Brooklyn and to me.
She studies my face, and something inside her cracks. Tears pour down her cheeks.
“Sofia, things got really out of control,” she says. “I don’t know what . . .”
The truck’s engine sputters, interrupting her. I step forward and grab her arm.
“We can talk about all that later,” I tell her, glancing nervously over my shoulder. “But right now we have to get out of here.”
Riley frowns. “Why? What’s wrong?”
“Grace,” I say. “She’s dead.”
Riley’s eyes widen in horror. She takes a step back. “No.”
“It was Brooklyn,” I continue. “You were right about her all along. She’s evil. She killed Grace, and now she’s coming after you.”
Riley lifts a hand to her mouth. The quiet unnerves me, and goose bumps rise on the back of my neck. I wrap my arms around my chest.
That’s when I realize—the car engine. I don’t hear it anymore.
“Oh, god,” I whisper. I turn around and take a few steps back over the rocky driveway. Riley’s feet crunch over the gravel behind me. When I see the spot in front of the beach where Charlie’s truck is still parked, I freeze.
Brooklyn leans against the hood, tossing the car keys from hand to hand. When she sees me, she smiles.
“Hey, Sofia,” she says. “Catch.”
And she throws the keys into the lake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
Brooklyn steps away from the truck. Her smile is all teeth, and the longer I stare at it, the more it looks like a grimace. Brooklyn ripped the skin off Riley’s face with those teeth. My knees buckle, and I nearly fall to the ground right there.
“Oh, god.” Riley releases her breathe in a hiss. “Brooklyn.”
Brooklyn wrinkles her nose. Her feet crunch over the gravel. “Hey, lover. Miss me?”
“Brooklyn, think about this,” I beg, but she steps past me like I’m not there. A hammer sticks out of the waistband of her jeans. My stomach turns. No one blocks my path to the dirt road now. I could run to the main street and flag down a car. It was what Riley did to me in that burning house. It would be poetic, almost. The muscles in my legs tense to run.
Flames crackle beneath Brooklyn’s toes. With every step she takes, she leaves a curl of fire behind her. It burns blue at first, but then the fire crawls over the white gravel in the driveway and its edges burn orange and red.
Any hope I had of running vanishes with the growing flames. I had to know, on some level, that Brooklyn was capable of this. I saw what she did with the candle in the attic, but I let myself believe it was coincidence, luck. Now I stare at the fire, watching it curl into the air and lick the ground. It’s evil—she’s evil. There’s nowhere I can run to escape her. No matter where I go, Brooklyn will find me.
“You like?” Brooklyn asks. Riley opens her mouth, then closes it again. Brooklyn frowns. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you impressed?”
“I—” Riley’s body flies backward, and the words are ripped from her throat. She slams against the lake house wall. The gray siding shudders as she slides to the ground. She looks dead, but then she lifts a trembling hand to her face to push her hair out of her eyes.
Brooklyn stops a few yards away from the house. Flames lick at her toes and feet, but she doesn’t seem to feel them.
She lifts her arms, holding them out to her sides like a cross. In the dim light her skin looks ghostly white, and the injuries from Riley’s knife and the matches stand out in stark contrast. The red cuts and clotted blood seem almost fake, like they were drawn on using that cheap, oily paint that comes with Halloween costumes.
Before my eyes, blood moves back into the wounds and disappears, and the skin stitches itself together, leaving behind only faded pink lines. The stub of her pinkie stretches and grows, becoming whole again. It’s like watching one of those nature shows where time speeds up and a flower blooms in seconds. The evil hovers around us, thick and suffocating. I couldn’t run now, not even if I wanted to. The air weighs down my limbs like mud, holding me in place.
Brooklyn’s scars grow fainter, then disappear completely. She rubs her hands over her arms, grinning. “That was fun,” she says.
Riley releases a choked sob. She lowers her head again, and her hair swings over her tear-stained face. She clenches her hands in front of her.
“Hail Mary,” she whispers. “Mother of God . . .”
“Your God doesn’t care what you have to say,” Brooklyn snarls. “Now, do you want to see a real crucifixion?”