“I love you,” Daniel said. Then he turned and ran down the dark hallway.
“Daniel!” I shouted after him. “Wait!”
But his flashlight beam vanished down the stairs.
“Daniel!” I screamed again, just as another bolt of lightning cracked the sky. It was followed by a deep rumble that shook the floors.
I thought about running after him. But what if he came back? What if he brought Hudson here to get them both to safety—and I was gone?
I hated it, but I closed the door and shoved the dresser the rest of the way in front of it. My arms ached. My heart pounded.
Then I grabbed my phone and dialed 911.
Pacing. Trembling. Furious. Confused.
What the hell was going on here?
Cynthia was real. She’d been real all along. Daniel knew about her. And now she was loose, tearing this place apart.
That meant I hadn’t hurt Rascal. It hadn’t been me. However, dread soon swallowed my relief.
Who the hell was this woman?
And why had Daniel and Hudson kept her locked away?
A lifeless recording answered my 911 call: “All operators are busy assisting other callers. Please stay on the line.”
I listened to the message a few times, cursing under my breath. The storm must have slammed into the mainland hard: power outages, fires, fallen trees, flooding. Who knew what was happening out there? And they weren’t getting to us over that road until the storm passed. It would probably be hours.
I hung up to preserve my battery.
For a moment, the house was still. The only sound was the wind howling outside. I turned on my phone’s flashlight. The pale beam cut through the room in strips. Everything looked the same as before. The bed was made, but no nightgowns were laid out. The wall still held the discolored outlines where old pictures had once hung. I sighed with relief. At least no fresh photos had appeared, like in some horror movie.
I swept the light across the makeup table.
And froze.
The pig figures.
Those damn pig figures.
They were there again, lined up in a perfect row, smiling like they were proud of themselves. Their little painted eyes glinted under the flashlight, cartoonishly cheerful. Too cheerful.
The high-pitched ringing rose in my ears.
I shut my eyes hard. Pressure exploded behind them. Pain flared in my skull.
A flashback hit.
Bright. Blurry. Disjointed.
I was holding one of the pig figures, small and round, offering it up to someone towering above me.
My father? My mother?
Whoever this person was, he or she slapped the figure from my hands. It clattered across the floor and broke.
“You always had the most useless hobbies,” came a low, gravelly voice from behind me. It rolled through my skull like thunder.
