“Are you kidding me?” Julian yelped, voice sharp with panic. “Get in, you idiots, it’s freezing!”
Barrett caught Phoenix by the shoulders, steadying him, while Jeremy wrapped a blanket around both of us, his arms strong. I let myself sag against them, every muscle trembling with cold, adrenaline, and something dangerously close to tears. The storm swirled around us.
Phoenix grabbed his head. “I have to go. You have to let me go. The kids are there waiting for me.”
He didn’t sound like himself and not because his teeth were chattering but more as he must have sounded as a little boy.
“Shit.” Jeremy clapped his hands in front of Phoenix’s face. “Are you on something? What the fuck is going on?”
“I think he is.” I was amazed I could talk at all. “But I think we need to let him go. I think… I think he’s remembering where he was kept. We’re here for that.”
Julian shook his head. “He can’t go wandering out there.”
“No, obviously not. Maybe we could drive there.” I put my cold hand on Phoenix’s face. “Could we drive there or do we have to walk on the beach?”
He stared at me and blinked slowly. “I think we can drive. But we have to get to the kids.”
“I don’t love that either.” Barrett pounded his hands on the steering wheel. “None of this is safe.”
Julian frowned. “It’s not. But what if he can’t remember where this is tomorrow? Don’t we kind of at least need to find it now?”
“Fuck. Okay. Everyone buckle in. Phoenix, whatever this is, you’re a dead man tomorrow.”
Barrett put the car in gear, tires crunching over the snow as we lurched onto the icy road. We all needed to learn to drive; it wasn’t fair that Barrett always had to do this. The SUV felt cramped, the heater blasting stale warmth that didn’t quite touch the nervous chill that had taken over my whole body. Nobody spoke. Phoenix sat hunched in the front passenger seat, his breath fogging the window, fingers kneading his knees as if he might spring through the glass if we took too long.
“Which way?” Barrett said as we reached the end of the driveway.
“Left.” Once again, Phoenix sounded so young. I stroked my cold hand through his snow-melting hair.
“This could all be just an elaborate nothing.” Jeremy shook his head. “He’s not necessarily even seeing what we think he is seeing. Or remembering. He might be just totally out of his mind.”
That was also possible. “This doesn’t seem like Phoenix on ketamine or anything I’ve seen him on before.”
“Well unless he’s been possessed by a demon or something he has certainly done something tonight.” Jeremy glared ahead at the road in front of us.
Julian popped him in the back of the head. “Not helpful.”
“Not trying to be.”
Headlights tunneled through the darkness, catching the flakes and the vague suggestion of trees beyond the ditch. Every few hundred feet the SUV slid, a gentle fishtail that made us all catch our breath, but Barrett kept us steady. The only other sound was the faint shudder of Phoenix’s teeth and the steady tick of the hazard lights. Thank the universe that Barrett was such a good driver. Like most things he did in his life Barrett did this really well.
Two miles never felt so far, but that was roughly how long we drove with Phoenix giving us directions before he told us to stop. In the distance, a house finally appeared, rising out of the storm like something conjured: three stories, black shutters, a wide porch buried in drifts, and all its windows blank and dark. The driveway ate the car nearly to the axles, but Barrett forced us through, the engine whine echoing against the massive, silent house.
We sat for a moment, breathing, waiting for someone to make the decision to move. Phoenix finally seemed to stir. He opened his door, letting in a bitter blast of snow, and stepped out without looking back. I dashed after him, Julian right behind me. We were all going to die of frostbite or lose a toe or whatever happened in these situations. Seconds later, Barrett and Jeremy were with us, too.
Phoenix didn’t hesitate. He walked around the side of the house, past the porch and the sagging snow-laden hydrangeas, his feet sinking with each step. We trailed after him—Julian glancing back at the house, Jeremy swearing under his breath, Barrett with his arm around Phoenix—and I pressed my hands to my lips to keep them from shaking. No one would believe what the Lents went through regularly. They seemed like such a polished, perfect family in New York City.
My head was freezing. What little hair I had wasn’t getting it done for me right now.
At the edge of the property, where the manicured lawn ended and the woods began which would probably lead to the beach if we kept going, stood a large, weathered garden shed. The padlock hung open, the door slightly ajar as if someone had left in a hurry last fall. Phoenix pulled it open with a whine of old hinges. Inside, the shed was empty except for the faint scent of gasoline. He stood in the doorway, silhouetted against the weak spill of the SUV’s headlights, and we crowded behind him, silent, waiting, as the snow filled in our tracks and the woods loomed black and endless behind us.
“This is where they’re supposed to be.”
I stared at the shed. It was huge inside. Probably had felt bigger when they were little especially if they were terrified.
Yes, this was where they had been held. I stared at Jeremy. “I don’t think he’s hallucinating this. How would he have known it was here?’
He nodded. “I agree. Okay. We’ve found it.” He put his arm around Phoenix. “You got us here. The kids aren’t here right now. That isn’t your fault and it never was. Come on. We’re going home and tomorrow after we figure out what is going on with you, we will come back. But we’re getting out of this snow. Alatheia is freezing. She is in pajama pants, and I don’t know why it’s taken us so long to notice that but we are all going to die if we stay out here. So come on. You don’t want to hurt Alatheia. I know that.”
