“We need some real blood—this is going to be kind of unpleasant, maybe look away.”
Simon removes the Band-Aid; the wound on his left forearm from Tuesday is nearly scabbed over. He grits his teeth and snicks the box cutter—doesn’t think too much, just slices through the already-tender skin.
“Ew,” Brittany says.
Blood wells up. At least the box cutter isn’t too blunt.
Simon hisses all the same. “Hold still.”
The blood runs down his forearm in two thick runnels, falling for the side or coursing into his palm. A high-pitched whine kicks off in his brain at the sight of all that red. He ignores it, distributes as much blood as he can over Brittany’s disguise—spatters on her face, her jeans, the front of her shirt, her resting arms, her upturned open hands.
“That looks better,” he mutters.
“This is like, the nastiest Halloween costume,” she whispers. “There wasn’t this much blood when my teeth fell out.”
Simon pauses. “Your teethfellout?”
“Yeah. They’d been loose, then they fell out both at once. The man in the coat took ’em. I didn’t get money from the Tooth Fairy or anything.”
She seems put out about it. Simon doesn’t want to tell her how relieved her explanation makes him; he’d been worried about much nastier scenarios.
“Okay,” he says. “I think we’re done.”
He does an assessment: It’s not as good as the makeup inHellraiser, but it’s not the worst camouflage. Convincing in the short term is all they need. Brittany’s going to have to put on a performance. Is she capable of it? Simon’s not sure. But she’s highly invested and reasonably bright. If it doesn’t work, at least they gave it a shot.
“Brittany, listen,” Simon says quietly, as he puts the leftover paper in his pocket, pinches the wound on his arm. He makes sure the girl meetshis eyes. “I’m going to have to say a lot of crazy stuff to convince them that you’re dead. Whatever you hear, just remember I don’t mean it.”
“Okay.”
“And if this all goes badly, I’ll try to keep the door open to this room, so if you get a chance, you should run.”
“What about you?”
Another gut punch. But he keeps his voice low and firm. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. You just get out, you understand?”
“Okay.”
He wants to tell her she’s a good kid, the best kid, but he can’t afford for either of them to lose focus. “So, go over it for me—what are you going to do?”
“Play dead,” she whispers. “Run if I get a chance.”
“You got it. You ready?”
“Yeah.”
He stands up, blinking against the rush in his head, and faces the door. Out in the warehouse, the sounds of individual voices getting closer: Simon takes some deep breaths, because this was how it was always going to be. His arm is stinging, and his headache is ratcheting inside his skull. A sharp, serrated pain stabs behind his left eye, but he can’t think about that now. He tries to let go, like the doctor suggested, tries to release the tension from his muscles, but his body feels stiff, his hearing has a tinnitus whine, his blood is crystallizing into ice ...
“Good luck,” Brittany whispers.
“You too,” he mutters back. They’re as ready as they’re going to be.
Bring on the storm.
Chapter Twenty-Six
October 1987, Saturday
Nomi spends nearly ten minutes crouched behind a junker in the rain, wondering if she’s making a mistake. Maybe no one’s here at the warehouse; maybe they’ve taken Simon and Brittany elsewhere. She’ll have to go through the list in her pocket, one property at a time, in a laborious—
