Текст книги "Within These Walls"

Автор книги: Ania Ahlborn

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Текущая страница: 21 (всего у книги 28 страниц)

Someone had given it to her.

Just like someone had done the same for Jeff.

Just like someone had passed on the cross, first to Schwartz, then to Lucas.

“Holy shit,” Lucas whispered. “The visitor . . .”

“Mr. Graham?”

“The visitor,” he repeated. “Check the visitor. The woman. It was her. It had to be.”

Lumpy Annie went silent on the other end of the line.

What have I gotten into?

Laughter sounded from beyond Lucas’s study door.

He blinked, his heart tripping over itself.

It was a pair of girls. They were laughing on the other side of the wall. Laughing at him.

Lucas dropped his phone onto his desk blotter, launched himself up and out of his chair, and rushed across the length of his study to yank open the door.

But rather than hearing more laughter, his mouth fell open at what he saw instead. Despite the darkness, he could make out the outlines of the living room furniture in the moonlight. An armchair was stacked on top of the couch. The coffee table was somehow balanced on top of the chair. Couch cushions were piled high on top of the table. It was an impossible Jenga puzzle defying gravity.

Something in his chest loosened. An involuntary gasp escaped his throat. Suddenly, he was remembering the upside-down family photograph in the living room, recalling Chloe Sears’s dead-eyed stare and doped-up smile flipped onto its head. There had been the girl in the orchard. Somehow, despite the security system, they had found their way inside and moved things around. The washed-up writer and his little girl were, in someone’s messed-up opinion, getting exactly what they deserved. Because who the hell moved into a house like this? Who chose to live in a place tainted with blood and death? Someone was fucking with him.

“Jeanie?!” His daughter’s name slid past his lips, and while he was trying to subdue his panic, his voice sounded startled, strained. He was unsure why he was calling for her. He didn’t want her to see what was going on in the living room, certain that if she set eyes on that physics-defying stack of furniture, she’d freak out.

He forced himself out of the study. Darted across the living room. Diverted his eyes from the furniture tower, as though looking at it for too long would reveal some sort of voodoo curse. Why did I speak to Mark that way? Scanning every dark corner as he bolted to the far wall of the room, he slapped his hand over the light switch.

The overhead lights refused to come on.

That was when Lucas began to genuinely panic.

Oh God, they’re still inside.

Somewhere close, they were watching his temperature rise. Holding their hands over their mouths. Grinning behind their palms. Statuesque in their stillness.

He took the stairs three at a time, nearly launching himself into Jeanie’s room. The door flew open. He struggled to catch it by the knob before it slammed against the opposite wall. He missed. Jeanie jumped with a start. In the cold laptop glow of her room, she shoved a piece of paper underneath her bed and leaped up.

44

VIVI HAD GOTTEN used to spending time by herself and she was starting to enjoy the solitude. If she wasn’t in front of her computer or on her phone, she was sitting in the shadows of her closet, staring at the printed-out photographs of her newfound idol. The small photo Echo had given her of Jeffrey Halcomb remained constantly at hand. Even his handwriting was compelling—sharp and dangerous, alluring. She imagined rock stars writing the way he did. The difference was that Jeff was better than any rock star. Those guys were nothing but an illusion. Jeff Halcomb, though . . . he knew Vivi existed. The proof was right there, scribbled onto the back of a snapshot. Somehow he knew, and for some reason, he cared.

If anyone was going to be able to communicate with Jeff’s fallen family still present in this house, it would be her. It was almost as though, rather than her father bringing her to Pier Pointe, it had been Vivi who had drawn him across the country instead. It was a crazy theory, an impossible thought, but she felt connected, in touch with her potential to reach into the netherworld more than she had ever been before. The shadows that lurked in that house were making her intuition stronger. They were silently, invisibly encouraging her to continue her search for answers. To not give up. To help them even if she didn’t know how.

We’ll show you how.

If she just kept pushing forward, they would lead her in the right direction. Pushing forward meant more research. The more she learned, the clearer her direction would become, and over the past week, Vivi had learned a lot.

Breaking out her new black stationery from its plastic wrap as soon as she and her dad had come home from the mall, she had written “BLOODY MARY” across the top of the page in silver ink, then powered up her laptop and began to surf.

There were a bunch of stories about Bloody Mary, but none of them could pinpoint exactly where the urban legend had come from. There was Mary Tudor, daughter of King Henry VIII—a woman who grew up watching beheadings, burned people at the stake, and was pregnant with a ghost baby that was never born. There were rumors that she bathed in blood to stay young, and that if you wanted to summon her, you had to whisper I stole your baby while staring into a dark mirror.

There were tales of Bloody Mary being an evil witch who drowned children for fun. Some said she was a sad mother who had lost her only child in a flood. Sometimes you had to lock the bathroom door for anything to happen. Other times, you needed a lit candle so you could see your own reflection. Or you were advised to spin around in a circle three times. But a few elements always remained constant: the bathroom, the darkness, the mirror, and the chanting of her name.

Vivi had shown those articles to Echo when she had come to visit, and Echo had smiled and nodded and suggested that, perhaps, a ritual was just what Vivi needed, that maybe the tales of conjuring Bloody Mary could lend inspiration on how to reach out to the spirits that lingered in the rooms of the Montlake house.

“But I haven’t seen anything in the past few days,” Vivi had confessed. “It’s like they’re gone. Except they can’t be, right? They can’t just disappear?”

Echo had shaken her head, agreeing that the ghosts that lived within that house couldn’t simply up and leave. “Maybe they’re waiting for something,” she’d remarked. “Perhaps they’re just being patient. It’ll be a lot easier to help them if you can ask them how. Open the door. Have faith and don’t be afraid.”

Don’t be afraid: that was easier said than done. It was true that over the past few days, the house had felt different, almost safe. And yet Vivi still avoided the blue room at all costs, not yet able to shake the image of the girl in the mirror, her eyes rolled back in her head, her mouth gaping wide and her ratty old sweater dripping with blood.

But she took Echo’s advice anyway and, over the next few days, came across a multitude of stuff she already knew. There was a bunch of stuff about channeling and being a medium. She read about trigger objects: an item that a spirit may be drawn to because they knew it in life, and consequently encourage them to communicate. But she didn’t have anything that could possibly lure Jeff’s family out of the shadows—at least not that she knew of. Maybe there was something somewhere in the house. Perhaps they wanted her to go on a treasure hunt, but that would be difficult to do without her dad raising his eyebrows. Would he even notice? She wasn’t sure. Her father had done exactly what her mom had predicted—he had locked himself away. Vivi had spent the last handful of days eating pizza and takeout. At first she had to ask her dad to order that stuff, but now his credit card was a permanent kitchen fixture, ready and waiting on the ugly orange counter.

Vivi had nearly skipped over the Ouija board stuff. She didn’t own one and it seemed like a waste of time reading about it. But tonight, one article stopped her in her tracks. The blue Google link read: MAKE YOUR OWN OUIJA BOARD—TALK TO SPIRITS, RAISE THE DEAD.

She looked up, allowed her gaze to drift, slow and deliberate, across the walls of her room. Was that the way they wanted her to reach out?

Ghosts don’t care whether your Ouija board is officially licensed by Hasbro, the article explained. If you have a spirit who wants to communicate, it’ll be satisfied with a homemade spirit board.

It was perfect. A ritual, just like Echo had suggested.

She chewed on a fingernail, then tore out the pages of notes she’d taken from her pad of black stationery paper. Turning the pad lengthwise, she stared at a picture of a homemade board glowing on her computer screen. She took a deep breath and began to copy it, her odd sense of anxiety growing with each letter carefully penned onto the page.

That’s when her door flew open and the overhead light blazed to life, nearly scaring her to death.

45

THE LIGHT CLICKED on just as it was supposed to. The power to the house hadn’t been cut. They must have removed the lightbulbs from the downstairs fixtures, Lucas thought. They must have done it to conceal themselves, so that I wouldn’t see them, because they’re still here in the goddamned house.

“Dad!” Jeanie gave him a glare. “What are you doing? Get out of my room!”

Lucas shot a look around the place, the high pitch of panic ringing in his ears. She’d been reading or writing or doing whatever she had been doing by nothing but the glow of her computer screen. She had jumped up like she was hiding something. But there was no time to ask what she had shoved beneath her bed the second he had barged in.

“Come with me,” he said, and grabbed her by the arm. There were strangers in the house. God only knew what they wanted, how demented they were, what they were capable of.

“Ow, Dad, stop!” Jeanie struggled to free herself, but Lucas refused to loosen his grip. They moved down the stairs, his kid nearly stumbling behind him. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Where are we going? Stop pulling me, Dad. I’m going to fall!”

Lucas avoided the living room, veered left into the foyer, and yanked open the front door without disarming the alarm. The system began to beep, warning them that if they didn’t punch in the correct code, the entire house was going to scream bloody murder in T-minus thirty seconds. He pushed Jeanie out the door and stopped, realizing he’d left his cell phone on his desk.

“Don’t move,” he told her.

“But—”

“Do what I say!”

Jeanie immediately stiffened at his tone, a soldier coming to attention.

He ran back inside the house. The furniture was still awry, still threatening to collapse to one side or the other and send the coffee table crashing into their flat-screen TV. Lucas darted into his study and snatched his phone off the desk. He stopped for only half a second, his stomach pitching once again. Every picture on his corkboard was hanging upside down, as if hammering home the point . . .

You’re not alone in here.

And maybe that was why he had snapped at Mark the way he had. Maybe he hadn’t been himself. Maybe . . .

Don’t be stupid.

He met Jeanie outside just as the house alarm began to wail. Jeanie slapped her hands over her ears, protecting herself from the mind-numbing pitch. Lucas caught her by the shoulder and directed her away from the house only to stop short.

“Holy shit.”

“What?” She turned to look at him, then spun around to try to see what he was seeing. “What?”

“The car,” Lucas said flatly.

Jeanie turned her attention to the gravel driveway and gaped. And while he couldn’t hear her clearly above the blaring of the alarm, he could still make out enough, and that’s what assured him that he wasn’t losing his mind.

“Shit,” she said—possibly the first time he’d ever heard her curse. “The car,” she said. “Dad, where is it? Where did it go?”

46

Wednesday, September 1, 1982

Six Months, Thirteen Days Before the Sacrament

SHE HAD BEEN wrong.

Wrong about everything.

Wrong about them.

It happened during a switcheroo—they still made her go. It didn’t matter if she was pregnant. Robin stayed behind with Eloise while the group piled into both Avis’s and Maggie’s cars. Maggie drove her Volvo. Gypsy drove Avis’s hatchback. Just recently having learned to knit from Lily, Avis had wanted to stay home and work on the tiny sweater she was making the baby for winter, but she said nothing when they told her to get ready. Nearly four months pregnant, she squeezed between Sunnie and Lily while Jeff took the front seat.

The house Jeff picked out was beautiful. Overlooking the beach, it had the biggest picture windows Avis had ever seen. She tried to imagine it during the day while the rest of the group milled about, wondered if, perhaps, the couple had a baby. If they did, maybe she could pocket a few onesies and a couple of toys. But when she wandered too far away from the group, Jeff called her back. And so she stood in front of the enormous window and stared out into the darkness, wondering what it would be like to be a mother. Would she be allowed to stay home to take care of the baby then? Or would Robin or Maggie be regulated as the babysitter while Avis was forced into a life of crime?

The girls picked through a well-stocked pantry and a meticulously organized refrigerator while Kenzie and Noah eschewed their redecorating for a more artistic approach. Rather than moving the furniture around, they chose to stack it as high as it would go. With a coffee table on top of a chair on top of a couch on top of a rug, they cackled as the tower of furniture began to tip. They had the stack perfectly balanced when a slash of headlights cut across the living room wall.

They froze like deer, their gazes darting from one shadowed face to another. All eyes stopped on Jeff. Avis hardly heard what he said, deafened by the thud of her anxious heartbeat, but she could read his hand gestures well enough.

Stay quiet, don’t move.

It was late. The home owners were more than likely coming back from dinner. The group could only hope that the occupants had had a little too much to drink, that they’d go upstairs without so much as looking in the direction of the living room. If they did, the group of intruders would be left to sneak out undetected. But the longer they waited for the home owners to come inside, the less likely an easy exit seemed.

They could hear a couple arguing before they ever unlocked the front door.

“Oh, of course,” a woman’s voice snapped. “Let’s just give them all our money, shall we? Screw it, let’s sell the house, sell all our possessions, live in a cardboard box in their driveway. Would that make you happy?”

Avis’s stomach twisted with the familiarity of the fight. She’d spent her youth listening to her parents throw barbs that were almost identical. With so much money between them, she never understood why they clashed over something they had so much of. She still didn’t understand it, and doubted she ever would.

“I don’t need that to make me happy.” A man’s voice. The sound of keys hitting a sideboard. “You shutting up about what I do with our finances, that would make me happy.”

“Oh, because I’m useless, is that it?”

“Well, you’re damn well not fucking useful, Claire.”

A moment of enraged silence.

A light flicked on in the foyer.

Avis gritted her teeth. She suddenly needed to go to the bathroom more than she had in her entire life. She felt woozy and hot. The baby didn’t like all this stress.

“If my staying home is such a burden, you should have opened your stupid mouth when we were discussing whether I should go back to work.”

“Work?” A harsh laugh. “You mean that Avon shit you sell? You call that a job, Claire? Really?”

Another light went on.

Avis took a deliberate step away from the shard of light that cut across the hardwood floor. The ocean roared behind her, invisible in the darkness beyond the window.

“Well, I apologize that I didn’t become a scumbag lawyer like you . . .”

“Scumbag,” the man muttered. “Right.”

“Right!” Claire barked back. “I think you’re a scumbag, Richard. I think you’re a prick.”

“Good.” Another mutter.

“Great.” A chirp in return.

She could sense Richard stalking through the hall toward the kitchen, toward the living room it opened into. One flip of the switch and they’d all be exposed. She held her breath, squeezed her eyes shut, bit her lips to keep herself quiet. On the opposite side of the room, Jeffrey looked more impatient than worried.

“Let’s end it, then,” Claire said, stalling Richard’s trajectory toward the kitchen.

“What?”

“I said, let’s end it,” she said coldly.

Avis tried to imagine how the woman looked. A short, professional haircut, probably blond. Slender, lots of makeup, the kind of person who steps into the house and immediately pulls off her high heels. It took her a second to realize she was picturing her own mother, prim and proper despite her anger, still pretty in light of her features twisted by fury. She didn’t want to be like her mother. She’d prayed nearly every night for God to help her raise her child right, to not be harsh and critical and uncaring, to not repeat history.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Richard said. Avis pictured him lifting a dismissive hand at his wife. She hated him despite not knowing who he was, hated him for how completely smug he sounded. Just like her father. Just like them both.

“Ridiculous?” Claire’s voice inched up an octave. “Why, because you think I don’t know you’re sleeping around? Is that what makes this so ridiculous, you piece of shit?”

Avis’s thoughts jumped to Maggie. To Jeff. Her mouth went acrid, like an invisible hand had stuck a penny beneath her tongue.

Another pause, another loud exhale. Finally, Richard retorted with a clipped “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” His shadow filled the mouth of the hallway.

That’s when he stopped, as if sensing that something was off.

“Don’t know what I’m talking about,” Claire murmured. She stomped up the stairs, leaving Richard alone on the ground floor.

Avis’s gaze darted to Jeffrey, who lifted his hand in a silent gesture.

Don’t move.

He’d gotten demanding these past few months, especially after Avis had lost it on him. He’d been less patient, more distant. A lot like her dad.

Through the darkness, she watched Maggie reach out and catch his hand in her own.

Blood. She was tasting blood, having bitten down on her lip hard enough to cut through the skin.

The glint of Gypsy’s cross caught her eye. Maggie was wearing it.

She’s not one of us.

Suddenly, a scream was clawing up her windpipe. Enraged. Scorned. You’re supposed to love me, she thought. You aren’t supposed to be like him, not like my dad.

Scumbag Lawyer Richard was still standing motionless in the hall, staring into the darkness of the living room. He was trying to see through the shadows that veiled the familiar. The wait was agonizing, the pause lasting an eternity. Avis wanted him to hurry up and flip on the light. At least then she could bolt from her spot and throw herself at her former friend. She wanted to tear Maggie’s hair out by the fistful and shove it down her throat. I’m carrying his baby, you bitch!

Finally, Richard moved.

The living room lit up in a blaze of light.

For a second, Avis couldn’t see.

The darkness makes us blind.

When Avis finally regained her vision, she was distracted by how young Richard looked—maybe a little older than herself, tall and handsome in a rumpled suit. Nothing like her father.

Richard’s gaze was frozen on the stack of furniture, as though too preoccupied to see the people standing static in his living room and kitchen. When his attention finally shifted, he looked right at Avis.

Her stomach dropped.

“Who the fuck are you?” His inquiry seemed to be exclusively pointed at her.

Gasping, she opened her mouth to speak.

Nobody. I’m worthless. I’ve never been anybody and I never will be. I’ll never belong anywhere. Not here, not there, not like you and Claire.

Richard shifted his weight to the left, toward a black telephone mounted on the wall.

“Wait.” Deacon stepped forward. He held his hands palm out to show that he was unarmed, that he didn’t want anyone to get hurt. “Before you do that,” he said, nodding toward the phone, “just let us make a quiet exit. We leave empty-handed, you don’t have to spend hours with the cops.”

Richard stared at Deacon as though he was seeing a guy in a pair of cowboy boots for the first time. It was a perplexed, almost mystified look, one that was utterly confused by what he’d just heard.

“We don’t need any trouble,” Deacon said. For a moment Richard appeared to be considering the option. But then his attention wavered, his gaze paused on the precarious stack of furniture in the center of his living room. The inevitable spark of violation ignited somewhere deep inside his guts.

“Are you fucking kidding?” He glared at Deacon, shooting down the offer with a sneer. “Who the fuck are you people? Look what you’ve done to my house!”

“It’s just stuff,” Sunnie whispered, her words clear in the temporary lull. Richard veered around, his eyes wide, his indignation growing by the second.

“It’s my stuff, you bitch.”

“Hey.” Deacon continued his steady approach, which was clearly making Richard uncomfortable. “There’s no need for that.”

“Yeah.” The word rolled off Gypsy’s bottom lip in a sultry growl. “Scumbag.”

“Richard?” Claire.

Avis chewed the inside of her cheek. She wanted nothing more than to get outside, to escape the scene, to protect the tiny person growing inside her. Maggie was still holding Jeff’s hand. She was looking right at Avis, as though challenging her to make something of it. Or maybe it was just Avis’s imagination. Unbalanced. The intoxication of fear, the shock of being caught.

“Stay upstairs!” Richard yelled up to his wife.

“Richard, what’s happening?” Claire obviously wasn’t good at taking orders. She came down the hall and exhaled a gasp. Her eyes were wide, stunned at the strangers standing throughout her kitchen and living room, most of them still as Greek marble. “Oh my G—who are you?” She glared at Deacon. “What do you want? Get out of here, all of you! Get out before we call the police!”

“No,” Richard said. His upper lip curled in a defiant sneer. “They aren’t going anywhere.”

“What are you talking about?” Claire shot him a look. “Tell them to leave!” she insisted, but Richard shook his head.

“Look what they did to the living room. They’ve damaged our personal property. This isn’t kid’s stuff, Claire. This has to be reported.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, Rich!”

“Look, we don’t want any trouble,” Deacon said again.

“Then you shouldn’t break into people’s houses,” Richard shot back.

“We didn’t break in,” Clover muttered.

“Yeah. The sliding glass door was open,” Gypsy purred. “Almost like you wanted us to walk right in.”

Richard gave Claire a furious look. Apparently Claire had a habit of leaving doors unlocked.

“Fine,” Deacon resolved, “go ahead and call the cops, but we’re leaving anyway.” He motioned for the girls to start making their way toward the door. Young Sunnie was the first to scamper into the foyer. Clover and Gypsy took their time to saunter past the home owners, their heads held high. Maggie remained where she was, her hand gripping Jeff’s. Avis, still by the giant window, happened to be the farthest from the hall. She was left to bring up the rear. But it seemed that when she reached Richard, he realized he was letting all of his suspects go. With the phone clutched in one hand, he grabbed Avis as she passed, jerked her away from the boys, and looped the phone wire around her neck in a quick, fluid motion.

She cried out in surprise, struggling as Deacon and Kenzie lurched toward him.

“Don’t!” Richard warned. “I’ll choke her, you shitheads. It’s my right! You’re trespassing and I’m protecting my wife and my property. I’m a lawyer. I know what’s what!”

Deacon lifted an arm to keep Kenzie at bay.

“Leave her alone!” Noah yelled. “She’s pregnant!”

“Good,” Richard countered. “All the more reason for you assholes to not do something stupid. Now, all of you, sit the hell down.” He waved the phone receiver at the only couch that had been spared of Noah and Kenzie’s stacking game. Deacon gave Richard a defiant glare. When Noah and Kenzie looked to Jeffrey for guidance, Jeff—still standing in the kitchen, still holding Maggie’s hand—nodded.

Do what he says.

Deacon’s fingers curled into fists, but he followed his two brothers across the room.

“Oh, so you’re the brains of the operation?” Richard asked, peering at Jeff. “You too, pal. Move it!”

“Sure,” Jeff said, lifting his shoulders up in a nonchalant shrug. “Not the first time I’ve been arrested, man. It’s cool. Just let me take her with me.” He pushed Maggie toward the hall where the other girls waited. She gave him a hurt look of rejection, but Jeff had far more pressing matters to attend to. He stepped around the kitchen counter and steadily approached Avis, Maggie all but forgotten behind him. The cord was tight around Avis’s neck. She could smell onions on Richard’s breath. Onions and the mellow smoothness of an after-dinner Scotch.

“She’s fine where she is, pal,” Richard said, tightening the cord the closer Jeffrey came. But Jeff refused to back off. Out of the corner of Avis’s eye, she saw him draw out a knife. It was huge, the biggest one he’d managed to pull from the knife block on the kitchen counter.

Avis’s eyes went wide.

Claire bleated a little scream.

Richard tensed.

“Hey, all right, all right!” Richard unlooped the cord from around Avis’s neck, as though backing off would cause Jeff to forget the whole thing. “Just calm the hell down! You want it to play out that way, then just go.” He’d suddenly changed his mind about the cops. “Get the hell out of here. Leave us alone.”

“Well, you see, we already gave you that option, Dick,” Jeff said. “And then you had to threaten my unborn child, all in the name of a precious couch.”

When Richard realized Jeff wasn’t backing off, he grabbed Avis by the arms and shoved her forward, hopeful that the sudden move would throw Jeffrey off. Or, perhaps, that she’d impale herself on Claire’s biggest kitchen knife. In the throes of such tragedy, he and his wife would be able to make a break for it.

But Jeff simply sidestepped Avis as she tumbled to the floor with a muffled cry. He caught Richard by the forearm and sank the blade into his neck, just below his Adam’s apple.

Claire’s scream was at full volume as Avis scrambled away from the arterial spray like a cat spooked by a loud and sudden noise. Richard collapsed onto the floor as Avis scurried toward the hall, gasping, unable to believe her eyes.

“For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.” Jeffrey spoke calmly, ignoring Claire’s wailing. “Some have been led astray from the faith in their greed.” His attention shifted to Claire. “And have pierced themselves through . . .” He jerked the knife out of Richard’s throat. A lake of blood bloomed at his feet.

Claire fell to her knees, groping at her husband’s neck, trying to put the blood that was pouring from his wound back into his body. Richard’s mouth opened and closed as he gasped for air, each attempt only drawing more blood down his throat. Within seconds, his gasps turned into wet gurgling. Claire’s screams grew worse—bad enough to have Jeff shooting his brothers and sisters a look. If she kept howling the way she was, someone was liable to hear her.

“Shut her up,” he told them. The girls were the first to fall upon her. Sunnie and Lily tore at her hair. Clover held her arms. Gypsy shoved a wadded-up dishrag into Claire’s mouth. They dragged her away from Richard’s body, his blood streaking across the carpet in wide, impressionistic arcs.

And then Jeffrey turned to Avis and held out the knife.

“Your turn,” he said.

Avis stared disbelieving at the blade. Richard’s blood dripped from its razored edge. She shook her head, not understanding, refusing to understand. There was no way. Jeff couldn’t be asking her to do this. But before she could convince herself that she was seeing things, that she was making the whole scenario up in her head—nothing but a side effect of skipping her meds—Jeffrey grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her to her feet, forcing the knife into her hand.

“We sacrifice ourselves for each other,” he said. “Our lives mean nothing separately. Together, we are eternal.”

She shook her head frantically, jerked her arm out of Jeff’s grasp, and threw the knife down, revolted by the blood that was now smeared across her palm. “No,” she whispered, her gaze jumping to the girls, to Claire, to the way her struggle had gone from panicked strength to resolved weakness. Claire was giving up. She had hardly fought, and already she was ready to fold, much like Avis. She had struggled to be part of the family, and now she was ready to run as fast and as far away from them as her legs would allow. But she wouldn’t manage to make it through the front door. Shooting a wild-eyed glance at her surroundings, she saw that the boys had moved to block off potential points of exit. She looked to Deacon, imploring him for help. From the first day she’d met him on the beach, she’d always considered him a friend. And yet Deacon didn’t make a move to protect her. How could he allow this to happen? What had happened to peace and love? What had happened to the euphoria he’d promised her she’d find? She wasn’t Avis, she wasn’t.

“Why are you doing this?” Her gaze jumped from one face to the other. “Why are you doing this?!” She spun around to look back at Jeffrey only to find that Maggie was next to him again. She had picked up the knife.

“Maggie . . .” She wept the name. Maggie, her one true friend. The friend that should have been enough but wasn’t. The friend Audra would have abandoned had Maggie not forced her way into the group. The friend she resented despite all she had done.

“Maggie,” she whispered again. Maggie gave her a sad sort of smile and stepped forward. She took Audra by the hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze.