Kit tried to take a step towards him, but Jack held firm. “We can’t.”
I need to go to him!Kit forced his way forward, bulldozing over Jack’s wish for them to stay where they were.
However, Quin, or Lawrence, sidestepped away. Kit stopped in his tracks, waiting to see which one of them was in control. The ghost brothers drifted forwards, flanking him.
When Quin’s hand reached towards the window, Kit had his answer. Lawrence undid the latch on the wooden shutters and threw them open.
Kit had expected streaming sunbeams from the window. Instead, only a few faint rays spilled light across the petrol-covered wood. Still, the sudden brightness had Kit stumbling backwards. Jack, however, sent some sort of opposing signal to his brain, so he fell in a heap, hands too uncoordinated to catch himself. The shock of hitting the ground with such force had him gasping in pain.
“Kit, are you all right?” Quin asked, sounding concerned.
Jack got them to their feet, but Kit remained cautious. “Are you actually Quin?”
Quin opened his mouth, but spoke out of sync with the way his lips moved. “It’s me.”
Go to him!Kit urged.I’m strong enough to take him out.
“He’s standing in thesun,” Jack pointed out.
Kit looked at where Quin stood, shoes damp with the petrol that had soaked into the floor. The fumes had to be affecting him, especially with his strong nose.
The light at Quin’s back cast a long shadow. Frustration marred his face. “I can’t regain control of my legs,” he gritted out.
Kit propelled himself forward with stilted movements, Jack too uneasy to make the process smooth. They stopped in Quin’s shadow, and Matthew appeared alongside them, a true spectre in his silence.
Quin appeared relieved at Kit’s progress. “You’re going to knock me out again, aren’t you?”
Kit tried to nod, but he only overrode Jack enough to give an odd jerk.
Quin’s shoulders slumped, and he leaned back against the windowsill. “Get him out of me.”
Jack tilted his head. “We can’t. You’re in the sun. You need to move away from the window.”
Tell him to come to me.
“Come to us,” Jack said, raising their hand.
Several things happened at once. Quin lurched towards them, Kit tried to wrench back to stay out of the sun, and Matthew flew at Quin. The touch of Quin’s hand to Kit’s own was only a fleeting relief, however, because before Kit could process what was happening, he was being yanked into the light.
Kit hadn’t felt the sun for forty years. And this sun wasn’t like the gentle heat of a mild autumn afternoon, the warm caress of a sunny spring day, or even the sweat-inducing humidity of a hot summer evening. This sun was an oil burn on every exposed patch of his skin; the stinging, searing pain frying his nerve endings. It was a domino effect, spreading over him in fits and starts as his body woke up to the agony, before starting anew.
Kit tumbled into Quin as a silent scream wracked his body. He caught sight of his own arms—mottled pink and stark, sickly white. He pushed back, desperate to do anything, but Jack was as engulfed in the pain as he was. Neither of them had control. Kit was a marionette with his strings cut.
“Darling, you’re as gullible as when I first took you.”
The words, even murmured as they were, echoed in his ears. Kit shuddered, and he frantically tried to pull himself away from Lawrence’s touch. However, with Quin’s body being the only thing blocking him from the sun once more, Kit found himself stuck in a perverse embrace with his creator.
He tried to speak, but his tongue seemed welded to the roof of his mouth. He couldn’t tell if it was from the burn, or from Jack’s fear, which clouded every other sense.
“I suppose this is a rather fitting end for you, after all.”
Kit blinked up at Lawrence. It was like Kit had travelled back in time as he looked up into the eyes of the monster who’d once stolen him off the street.
Jack, I need control, now!
Jack flailed, but Lawrence held Kit’s arms, keeping him stuck. His fingers dug into Kit’s blistering skin, sending fresh shockwaves of agony through him.
“I blame myself, Christopher,” Lawrence said. “I should have bothered to hunt you down when you left. That was my mistake.”
