Ren stared at his screen as if he was staring at a ghost.
“I know this,” he said. “I know this, but I just can’t remember.”
I looked up from where I was kneeling by Stuart. “Somebody, help me get him to the couch.” Marcus hurried over and together we helped a half-conscious Stuart walk that direction. As we moved, I glanced over at Ren. “What are you talking about? How is it familiar?”
“What Stuart just said.” The frustration was clear in his voice. “It reminds me of something. And I feel like I should know this, but I can’t get it in my head.”
“Well, let’s just take it line-by-line then,” Ana said. “She lives. Who?”
“Lilith,” Jared said. His voice flat. “That has to be it, right? All of our worrying about how we were going to get Allie back, and it’s all over. Lilith is inside her now. She’s stolen Allie from me, and my sister, too.”
“No,” I said, from where I’d slid to the floor beside Stuart’s sofa. “No, I’m not going to believe it, and neither are you. We don’t know that. I don’t believe it.”
“I don’t either,” Eric said. “I turned to see him standing in the doorway.
“You heard?”
“I heard,” he said, then crossed to me and pulled me up. I collapsed into his arms, then felt Stuart’s hand gently touch my leg. I cringed, lost and confused as I took comfort from these two men.
“I don’t believe it,” Eric repeated. “If it were true, Lilith would have contacted us somehow. We’d know. We’d know, because she’d want to rub it in our faces. To show herself to us first. Lilith in Allie’s body.”
He shuddered. “No,” he said. It’s not true. It’s what she wants, but it’s not true.”
“He’s right,” Stuart said, his voice throaty but discernible.
I turned around, something in his tone tugging at me. “Do you know that? Like in a vision?”
“Not sure. Think so. She feels … alive. More than ... wishful thinking.”
I closed my eyes and prayed. Then rolled my shoulders back, told myself to get it together, and got back to work. Because right then, those were the only things I could do.
“It might not be Lilith at all,” Eliza said. “Stuart might actually have been referring to Jared’s sister. Maybe she’s the one who’s still alive.”
“You could be right,” I said as I pulled a blanket over Stuart, whose eyes were fluttering shut. “It could be Celia. For that matter, it could be Allie,” I added, because I liked that option better than the alternative.
“Stuart’s vision or prophecy or whatever you call it could be telling us that there’s still time to stop whatever it is that Lilith’s up to.”
“There’s just no way to be certain,” Laura said.
“I know. All we can do is keep looking and hoping that we’re not too late.” I sounded so calm, but I didn’t feel calm. I felt frantic. We had too many possibilities and too few answers.
I knelt beside Stuart and took his hand. “Hey,” I said softly. “You remembered what you said.”
“Barely.” The word is soft, almost inaudible. “Feelings, not words.”
“Do you remember anything else? Any more feelings?”
“No. Nothing. So tired. Sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I said, even as I mentally cursed. Then I stood up. “Okay, here’s what we’re going to do. Write what he said on a white board and that way we can refer to it. Maybe it will seem familiar to someone else.”
“We don’t have a whiteboard,” Mindy said.
“Then write it on the walls in a Sharpie,” I snapped. “We can paint the damn wall later once we buy a stupid whiteboard.”
“Right. Okay. On it.” Mindy sprang to her feet and ran to find a Sharpie. Then, as the others looked on, she started to write Stuart’s cryptic words on the wall in crisp handwriting as Ana recited it back to her.
“Anything sound familiar?” I asked. “Anybody? Ren? Have you figured it out yet?”
