She brushes away the snow—and rocks back on her heels.
It’s a tooth, capped with a crown.
She wipes more of the snow and dirt away and her bare fingers trace a curved row of teeth in a bone the color of the grey sky.
A human jawbone, wide and raw. Like Caleb’s.
“It’s interesting what you find in the woods,” Elijah says.
Sarah straightens, slowly, too numb and bewildered by this discovery to say anything but his name. “Elijah?”
Elijah looks wistfully at the jawbone. “I think a lot about how it must’ve felt to stab Dad over and over again. To watch him bleed out. To stand over him and let him know who’s more powerful. To stand there and know you’re alive and he’s not.”
Sarah’s legs lock into place. “Elijah, what are you saying?”
Ben laughs in her head.You know what he’s saying, you stupid girl. You really can pick ’em.
Elijah’s smile is sad and apologetic. “This is why we don’t have knives.”
Sarah stares down at the bone. Jacob Vass’s jawbone, gaping like the photo in the dining room, broken open so he’ll always be screaming.
The ease with which Caleb took care of the mess after Ben died makes sense now. And afterward she’d lain in the arms of a killer?—
He lay inyourarms, killer, whispers Ben.
The revelation hits like a wave of nausea. Sarah’s legs give way and grabs a tree to steady herself. The bark nips at her palms, but she barely feels it. “I can’t believe?—”
“You’ve spent a lot of time with him now. You don’t think he’s a little—off?”
Elijah’s words echo inside her head, and she gets the nagging feeling she’s heard them before. She can’t remember who said them. It might have even been her. But it doesn’t matter. She just has to get into Ben’s car and drive away. She’ll sort it out later.
“That night, when you and Caleb—” Elijah blushes. “I came into your room because I was afraid for you. I think you woke up and saw me.”
“What about the others? Stuart McGee and Joseph Singh?” Sarah asks, although she knows the answer.
“They’re buried here too.Youunderstand. That feeling, to stand over someone and feel alive—it’s addicting.”
Sarah nods, or shudders.Fight or flight, her body screams. It’s definitely time for flight.
Running away and leaving your mess behind again?Ben whispers.
Sarah staggers in the direction from which they came, breath rattling in her lungs. Elijah follows. “Did you like the story about the screaming in the woods? I thought of it. Some of our guests really have complained about the sound of the wind,” he says.
Sarah stumbles again. Bare branches like Elijah’s pale fingers snag on her coat, her hair. Pulling her in, demanding that she stay. There were never ghosts screaming from the woods. It was all in her head. Or maybe they were screaming for different reasons. They were crying a warning, not an invitation.
She doesn’t know what’s true anymore. Black is white, up is down. She might as well still be living with Ben. Her pulse booms, the only constant in her life, the only thing she can be sure of. Her internal compass spins and spins until it points to the only exit.
“Elijah,” Sarah rasps. “Let’s get out of here.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The first thing Sarah grabs when she returns to the house is her knife. Nowtheknife, the only one in the house. It’s at the bottom of her backpack, wrapped in the cheap washcloth. She digs it out and shakes off the cloth, dazed by Elijah’s bombshell.
Caleb murdered his father. Maybe it had been in self-defense, maybe it was to protect Elijah. Like she’d done to Ben, but Caleb grew a taste for it, and two other men fell to his appetite. An appetite for standing over someone and feeling alive. Feeling free at last.
You know how it feels, Ben whispers.
Sarah tells him to shut up.Her parka is still open, and she slides the knife carefully into the kangaroo pocket of her hoodie.
