My face flushed as I mumbled, “Sorry.”
A girl screamed over to the right. I swung to look, when the bar went black. Someone else screamed, and someone laughed a crazed sound. Sam stopped singing abruptly. My skin prickled as silence descended over the bar, the air growing thick with the sound of heavy breathing. The glass windows let a pale swell of light into that part of the bar, at least.
Someone made a ghost noise and a guy laughed.
“Ammmy.” I was sure I heard my name, the sound straight out of a nursery-rhyme nightmare.
An ice-cold hand gripped my arm.
Sarah.
I almost screamed, but fear kept my throat devoid of sound. I snapped my head in her direction, bobble-eyed and terrified, but the blackness made it impossible to see anything. I tried to yank my arm away, but she was too strong. I was stuck, trapped like an animal. My mind whirled. I could lift my other hand to throw her, but she wouldn’t let go and I would fly too. My body would break when we slammed up against a wall, and if I moved, she could snap my neck or tear my head off and splatter it across the room. Whatever she was going to do to me would be gruesome, painful, dramatic. The knives sheaved on my waist would be my only hope. My fingers slid toward my blade.
“Stop, it’s me, you stupid fool.” Monique’s voice broke through the roar in my head.
The lights flickered back on, and laughter and talking bubbled around the room once more. I blinked to adjust to the sudden change.
Monique let go of my arm.
“Where is she?”
“I don’t know,” Monique said. “Stay here, I’m going to check the back alley.” She threaded through the crowd once more.
Sam started playing again. Above the music, I was sure I heard my name being called.
“Amy.”
Someone giggled; it sounded like a child. Chills rolled over my shoulders. I swung my head and watched, transfixed, as the dark-haired girl who had spoken to me before walked through the room. There was nothing unusual about her, nothing beyond her hollow, drug-drawn eyes, and yet I couldn’t pull my gaze away.
She rubbed Sam’s name off the black board with her fist, smearing the chalk across like a foggy, soundless broadcast.
The hairs rose on my neck.
I squinted. She had something in her other hand, but I couldn’t make out what it was. People crossed in front of my path, and I lost her for a moment, but when they moved off, the girl had written something in red chalk. I made out only a T behind her hair.
Where the fuck was Georgie? I needed to find her, but some force I couldn’t explain compelled me to watch the girl. She turned and looked straight at me. Her hands were tucked behind her back. Her lips moved into a smile. Too wide for her petite face, it held all the friendliness of a killer clown. Behind her legs, crimson splashed to the floor.
Blood. There was so much blood.
A girl nearby staggered back and screamed. A few around her turned to see what the commotion was and froze, staring. Sam stopped playing, his eyes filled with horror. A man fought his way through the crowd, trying to help the girl, yelling at people to move.
The girl stepped to the left and pulled her hands to her sides. In her right hand she held a knife, the blade, covered in red, sparkling under the lights.
“Knife!” someone yelled. Gasps and cries filled the room as the crowd scurried back. The man rushing to help paused. But it was her other hand that drew my attention. From her other wrist, blood pumped from a deep slash running down her forearm.
And behind her on the black board written in blood it read:
Tick-tock.
The girl’s eyes stayed locked on me with that manic smile on her face. My head spun as horror shot through me. This girl wasn’t on drugs, she’d been mind-controlled. I couldn’t lift my hand to pin her arm so she couldn’t stab anyone—there were too many people in the way. I couldn’t do anything but stare. She held eye contact and kept grinning at me with that deranged smile. And she?—
She lifted the knife and drove the blade into her throat.
People screamed. The room tilted and the walls closed in. I knew two things at that moment.
Sarah was in Portland, and she had Georgie.
Chapter 30
