“Ezra,” Diah whispers.
I shake my head and push him away.
“Ezra, tell me.” Diah clutches the hem of my shirt and pleads with me.
“They turned her.”
Diah lets go of my shirt and walks past me and up the stairs. He doesn’t say a word, doesn’t make a sound, except to close the door of his room, and then he screams so loud the chandelier in the entry way rattles.
He didn’t want that for her. None of us did. Liz was content with her life, and she was happy with Diah, and probably Elijah, and Franklin Smith took away the one thing she wanted to keep her own—her mortality.
“Henry,” I whisper, turning back to my brother, who’s righting the table and sweeping up the broken glass. He looks up at me with furrowed brows and I squeeze my eyes closed. “I can’t hear him anymore.”
“What was the last thing you saw?”
“Stabbed,” I choke out. “He was stabbed in the neck with a silver blade.”
My dad walks out of the kitchen and studies the mess I’ve made.
“Does it feel like your heart has been torn out of your chest?” he asks, standing near Henry.
“No. Just…quiet.”
“Then he’s still alive.”
Knowing that should make me feel better, but it doesn’t. It only serves to make me worry about how much pain he’s going to be in once he regains consciousness.Ifhe regains consciousness. I push that thought out of my head and walk to the front door.
It has a tinted glass pane that doesn’t let light in, but doesn’t warrant curtains, and I can tell the sun is rising. I flatten my palms against the wood and bang my head against the window over and over until Henry steps up and taps me on the shoulder.
“You should go rest,” he says. “There’s nothing to be done now.”
I don’t expect to sleep, but I don’t want to be watched, so I give him and my father a nod, then go upstairs. I’m halfway there when I hear tires crunching on gravel. I look over my shoulder and Henry and my father are both staring at the door. Diah is out of his room and down the stairs so fast I don’t even have time to blink.
I’m still not hearing Declan in my head, but a feeling of utter dread festers in my gut. I pry my fingers off the bannister and force myself to go back, joining them in the entryway. A black sedan pulls up in the driveway. The windows are tinted black like a limousine, and the sun reflects off the hood.
The driver’s side door opens and Jones gets out. I recognize him from Declan’s mind. He walks around and pops the trunk, and I know. I just fucking know. Diah scrambles for the door and Henry is fighting him, but Diah shoulders him out of the way and tears the door open. The porch is shaded, but the driveway is in the light. Jones hefts a blanket-covered bundle out of the trunk and drops it onto the ground.
“Let me go!” Diah kicks at Henry, and our father, who is holding him back as well.
Jones leans over and plucks at the corner of the blanket and pulls it back, revealing Liz’s battered and far too pale body.
“Liz!” Diah shouts, and Jones folds the blanket and drops it into the trunk.
Liz can barely move, and I see the silver wrapped around her, like the chains they’d used on Declan. She stretches a hand out, and her skin sizzles from the silver, then after a moment, it starts.
The skin on her hand bubbles, then pops, and she cries out, but it’s weak. The blisters build their way up her outstretched arm, cracking and oozing their way up to her shoulder. She’s crying, so soft we can barely hear it.
“Let me go!” Diah fights against Henry like he’s a tornado, reaching out to Liz. She claws her burned fingers into the gravel and tries to pull herself toward the shade of the porch, but it only moves more of her body into the sun. The silver around her burns her as much as the sun and I can’t separate her moans from Diah’s screams.
“Liz! Elizabeth!”
My father steps in front of Diah, his back to the scene that’s playing out before us and he wraps his arms around my brother and pins his hands to his sides.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I’m sorry, but you can’t go to her.”
“She’s alone!” Diah sobs. “She doesn’t. She can’t.”
“That’s a warning,” Jones shouts from the side of his car. He holds up a black bag and tosses it toward Liz. “And this is a promise.”
