“It was awful. I was just getting ready to take the dogs out to relieve themselves. I’d unlocked the door, and I turned around to get the doggie bags off the table, and that’s when they ran in and grabbed me. I let go of the leashes. Leopold and Loeb tried to take one of them down, but then he shot Roger and they ran off into the woods. I should have known they wouldn’t be too far.” She nuzzled Leopold’s neck, tears swimming in her eyes. “They came as soon as I called them.”
“How come none of the hotel staff reacted to the shot?” I asked.
“He used a silencer.” Deborah shuddered. “That’s how I knew this was serious. That guy was a professional killer. I was so scared. I kept hoping and hoping that you wouldn’t show up. They kept asking me who I was, how I knew you, Hazel, but I didn’t say a word. They seemed to lose interest in me after a while – they were here for you.”
Coldness settled on my chest as I studied the motel block. I hadn’t planned on covering up a death today. No one had come out of the other rooms, and there didn’t appear to be any cars parked in the lots outside.“Is there anyone else staying in the motel?”
Deborah shook her head. “The family next door to me left yesterday.”
“Just in case, could you go and check? Knock on the doors or peek in the windows – whatever you have to do. Make it quick.”
Deborah handed me the leashes and ran off. Trey fussed the dogs while Ayaz watched him, looking broody. Quinn rested against me, his head on my shoulder. I ran my fingers through his thick surfer hair and wished I had a softness to me like his mother, something that could ease the violence that still hummed in his veins. Ass-kicking I could do, but comfort wasn’t my thing.
Greg and Loretta stood a little away from us, their heads pressed together as they spoke in low voices. When they saw we returned, they came running over.
“We took care of Roger,” Loretta pointed to the bushes. “And disposed of the bloody blanket and cleaned the room. It looks as good as new.”
“I’m so sorry.” I wrapped my arms around Greg’s neck, wanting to squeeze the bad things out of him. “I wanted to protect you from this.”
“You weren’t the one who loosed the arrow,” Greg shuddered. “It’s not like I didn’t know what I was aiming for, what it would do when it hit the target.”
“I know it doesn’t feel like it, but you did a good thing. You saved my life.” I squeezed him tighter, hoping to imprint the memory of him in my body to carry to the stars. “I’ll never forget that.”
Deborah came back. “I’ve checked out early and paid the bill. There’s no one else in the motel. I knocked on all the doors and I even checked the registration book when the clerk’s back was turned.”
“Good.” I handed her the leashes. “You and the dogs need to get out of here.”
She shook her head. “I don’t want to leave you.”
“You have to. You can’t come back to school with us, and I don’t know who else Vincent told about us and about you. They could come back to try and finish what they started.”
“He won’t have told anyone,” Trey said. “That would be admitting he was wrong, that he let us get the better of him. In the eyes of the Eldritch Club, he’d be responsible for all their woes.”
Deborah rubbed the welts on her wrists where Vincent had tied her up. “I don’t like the idea of going back to my house.”
“Find my sister.” Ayaz touched his finger to thenazarpendant he wore – the ward against the evil eye that had protected Zehra for so many years. “Hazy can contact her. If anyone can protect you, it’s Zehra.”
I handed my phone to Deborah. “Ayaz is right. Call her.”
After a quick conversation with Zehra, Deborah climbed into her Jeep and Trey tossed her the keys. Leopold and Loeb settled onto their blankets, leaving a wide space for Roger. My heart ached to watch them look around for him.We’ve all lost someone.Deborah reached through the window and grasped my hand. “Thank you for saving me, Hazel.”
Instinct propelled me forward. I leaned through the window and wrapped my arms around her. Our first hug as aunt and niece. I wished it could be the first of many, but it was probably our last. “You saved me first.”
As she drove away, I raised my hand, palm facing to the sky, and drew up the dark things inside me, the things that Vincent Bloomberg never failed to draw to the surface. A minute later, smoke curled from beneath the windows of Deborah’s unit. Ayaz took my hand, pressing his warmth against the burning in my palm. The scar on my wrist blazed as flames licked up the motel walls. From inside, a smoke alarm blared – too late to save the building.
Hotel staff rushed out with extinguishers. In the distance, a siren rang. We retreated into the woods, our steps silent against the chaos.
Burn it all down.
We trudged up the peninsula, one foot in front of the other. My legs felt leaden, weighed down with the weight of this – of all the deaths burning on my conscience. Greg might’ve felt responsible, but Damon’s death belonged to me. I got everyone into this mess. I made the plan. Another notch to add to the belt, another ghost to haunt my closed eyelids.
Back at school, I left Greg with Loretta, Andre, and Sadie, and the four of us crawled into Trey’s cloud of a bed. I slept curled around Quinn, one arm over his shoulders, the other tucked around the bag of passports – our hard-won prize.
* * *
Finals week blended together into one long string of anticipation. We studied. We sat exams. We told no one else about seeing Vincent, about Quinn’s father’s death. Every time there was a noise outside a window or a commotion in the corridors, I expected to see police storming the school with guns at the ready, coming for us… for me.
They never showed up.
