Would Agatha ever consider reading them? Or would she just pin the crimes on me instead? It wouldn’t fix the problem, wouldn’t change the fact that someone is doing this, but it would give her an out, a person to blame. And after our latest meeting, I have no doubt she plans to find me guilty of something. Why wouldn’t she sink me for this? It would be easy. All she has to do is claim I have Owen’s key.
I sit up, inhaling sharply.
Owen’s key. He had it on him when he went into the void. Agatha accused me of having it and I don’t, but he did. Maybe he still does.
It’s the one option I haven’t considered. Haven’t wanted to consider. Is it even possible? A void is a door to nowhere, but it’s still a door. And every door has two sides. What if the voids aren’t being opened from this side? What if someone isn’t throwing people in? What if they’re just trying to get out?
What if Owen’s trying to get to me?
No.
I fall back against the mat and force myself to breathe.
No. I have to stop. I have to stop seeing Owen in everything. I have to stop looking for him in every moment of my life. Owen Chris Clarke is gone. I have to stop bringing him back.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. And then I feel the scratch of letters on the list and take it out, expecting another name. Instead I find a message:
Access granted. Good luck. —R
Roland. Something untangles in my chest. A thread of hope. A fighting chance. I get to my feet, and I’m nearly to the locker rooms when I hear the crash.
TWENTY-FOUR
IT CAME FROM somewhere across the gym.
The crash was far enough away to sound low, loud enough for it to echo around me, but it started in the far corner, the same direction Coach Metz went. I sprint across the gym floor and through the door marked OFFICES, only to find myself in a small hallway full of trophy cases. None of them seem disturbed, and besides, the crash was deep, like something heavy falling—not high, like breaking glass. Doorways stud the hall, each with a glass window insert; I make my way down the corridor, glancing in each room to see if anything’s off.
Three doors in, I look through the window and slam to a stop.
Beyond the glass is a storage room. Inside, it’s too dark to make out much more than the metal shelves, half of which have toppled over. I pull my sleeve down over my hand and test the door. It’s unlocked.
I step through, flicking on one of the three wall switches, illuminating the space just enough to better see the shelves. Two of them have fallen forward and caught each other on the way down. Balls and bats and helmets are now scattered across the storage room floor.
I’m so focused on not tripping on any of the equipment that I nearly slip on the blood.
I catch myself midstep and retreat from the fresh, wet slick on the concrete. I look up at the air above the blood, and my eyes slide off of a new void. The air catches in my throat as I listen for sounds of life around me, hearing only the thudding of my pulse.
But this scene is different from the others.
There was no blood at Judge Phillip’s house. None in Bethany’s driveway.
An aluminum baseball bat rests on the ground beside my shoe; I crouch and grab it (careful to keep my sleeve between the metal and my fingers to avoid leaving prints), then stand and turn in a slow circle, scanning the darker corners of the room for movement. I’m alone. It doesn’t feel like it, but that strange sense of wrong must be coming from the void door, because there’s no one here. My eyes flick back to the blood. Not anymore, at least.
I notice a clipboard resting facedown a foot away from the blood. When I turn it over with my shoe, I see my name written in my own hand, and my stomach twists. With a concerning clarity I realize this is evidence. I reach down and free the paper, pocketing it with a silent apology to the coach.
I clear the debris from the floor and kneel a foot or so behind the bloodstain, setting the bat to the side as I tug the ring from my finger and place it on the concrete. The void door will have burned through most of the memory, but maybe there’s something. I press my palm to the cold concrete, and the hum drifts up toward my hand. Then I stop.
Because something in the storage room moves.
Right behind me.
I feel the presence a second before I catch the movement in my periphery, first only a shadow, and then the glint of metal. I will myself to stay crouched and still, one hand pressed to the floor as the other drifts toward the bat a few inches from my grasp.
My hand wraps around the bat at the same instant the shadow surges toward me from behind, and I spring up and turn in time to block the knife that slices down through the air, the sound of metal on metal high and grinding.
My gaze goes over the bat and the blade to the figure holding it, taking in the silver-blond hair and the cold blue eyes that have haunted me for weeks. He smiles a little as he drags the knife along the aluminum.
Owen.
“Miss Bishop,” he says, sounding breathless. “I’ve been looking for you.”
He slices the knife down the length of the bat toward my hand, forcing me to shift my grip. As soon as I do, his shoe comes up sharply beneath the metal and sends it sailing into the air between us. In the time it takes the bat to fall, his knife vanishes into a holster against his back and he catches my boot with his bare hands as it connects with his chest. He twists my foot hard to the outside, knocking me off balance long enough to pluck the falling bat out of the air and swing it at my free leg. It catches me behind the knee, sending me backward onto the concrete.
I hit the ground and roll over and up onto my feet again as he lunges forward and I lunge back. Or at least I mean to, but I misjudge the distance and the toppled shelves come up against my shoulders an instant before he forces the bat beneath my chin. I get my hands up at the last second, but it’s all I can do to keep him from crushing my throat. For the first time I see the blood splashed against his fingers.
“Either you’ve gotten stronger,” he says, “or I’m worse off than I thought.”
“You’re not real,” I gasp.
Owen’s pale brow crinkles in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I be?” And then his eyes narrow. “You’re different,” he says. “What’s happened to you?” I try to force him off me, to get leverage on the bat, but he pins me in place and presses his forehead against mine. “What have they done?” he asks as the quiet—his quiet—spills through my head. Tangible in a way it never was in my dreams. No. No, this isn’t real. He isn’t real.
But he’s not like the Owen from my nightmares, either. When he pulls back, he looks…tired. The strain shows in his eyes and the tightness of his jaw, and this time when I try to fight back, it works.
“Get off of me,” I growl, driving my knee into his chest. He staggers backward, rubbing his ribs, and I grab the nearest bat and swing it at his head. But he catches it the instant before it can connect and rips the metal from my grip. It goes clanging across the concrete floor, bouncing through the pool of blood on its way and leaving a streak of red in its path.