He gets into the car and speeds out of the driveway, gravel kicking up and flying through the air. Liz isn’t moving anymore, but she looks right at my brother and her eyes look so fucking sad.
“Jed,” she whispers, before going still.
“No!” Diah tries to climb over my father. He’s hysterical, and he claws his way up my father’s body, screaming until his voice cracks. My father peels him off and Diah takes a swing at him. His nails catch and scrape against my father’s cheek. It catches us all off guard and gives him a second to break away. He manages some leverage and he’s on the porch, flying toward the driveway wailing Liz’s name.
“Let me go to her!” Diah cries, lunging forward. Henry catches him by the ankle and he falls, slamming chest first onto the ground. He throws his arms out to catch himself and, in the light, begins to burn immediately.
Henry drags him back into the house and sits on the ground, pulling our inconsolable brother into his arms. “You can’t go because you’re older. You’ll burn faster. You know this.”
Diah is sobbing Liz’s name, and he makes another attempt to break free, but his heart isn’t in it anymore. His heart is burning before our eyes in our driveway.
“Diah,” I whisper, kneeling down next to him and Henry. I wrap them both into my arms and Diah goes weak under our dual embrace.
Liz’s skin is sizzling, and I can smell it, and hear it, and I think I’m going to be sick again. I scoot the three of us inside and our father closes the door and locks it.
“Boys,” my mother’s quiet voice is right above us, and her fingers graze over my shoulder. I look up at her, and she gives me a sad smile and a small nod of her head, then she holds her hand out for Diah.
He unfolds himself from us and crawls toward her, wrapping himself around her legs with a strangled cry. She leans over and pulls him up, acting every ounce the proper mother, and she leads him upstairs to his room without another word.
Henry and I straighten ourselves and our father stands at the door, looking out the protected window, his arms folded over his chest and his eyes focused on Liz.
Or what’s left of her.
The sun has done it’s work and her skin has bubbled and burnt, cracking and fading to ash before his eyes. He shakes his head and looks up, tracking the sun through the sky. The three of us stand there for hours, and the sun ascends toward its peak, not knowing what destruction it’s brought.
Mom comes back downstairs and joins us, resting her head on Dad’s shoulder. He slides his arm around her waist and pulls her against him protectively, and I’m jealous because I want to protect what’s mine and I can’t.
I couldn’t.
“He’s sleeping,” she says, and we all nod, watching the sun in silence.
* * *
We’re still there when the sun dips toward the horizon. It hasn’t set yet, but there’s a wash of shade over the driveway. Diah comes downstairs without a word and pushes past us. He unlocks the door and walks outside, collapsing onto his knees on the spot where Liz met her end. He uses her shirt to move the silver chain out of the way, then he grabs the bag Jones dropped and reluctantly turns back to the porch.
“I don’t know what to do,” he rasps. “What are we supposed to do?”
“Say a prayer, darling,” Mom tells him, and he nods, shoving the bag against my chest and retreating back upstairs.
I finger open the black drawstring and pull out a bottle filled with blood. My hands shake and slip, and my father reaches out and catches the bottle before it hits the floor.
“Declan,” I whimper.
My father unwraps a piece of twine from the throat of the jar and hands it to me. It’s attached to a card that only has two words on it.
A promise.
“I want him dead,” I growl, envisioning all the ways I’m going to send Franklin Smith to his end once I get my hands on him.
My dad opens the bottle and I’m brought to my knees. Declan’s smell, so strong and familiar, but tainted with something I don’t understand.
“What is it?” I ask, blinking up at him.
He recaps the bottle and drops it back into the bag. My mother takes it from him and glides away from us into the kitchen.
“Silver,” he answers. “They’re poisoning him.”
Rage unfurls from the very core of me, radiating outward until I don’t have control over my limbs. I scream so loud my mother comes back from the kitchen, her fingers clasped together over her heart. I punch a hole in the wall beside the window and storm up the stairs.
