“Dan,” Caro says, not sure if this is the right choice. “Get him. Can you hold him?”
Henry tries to dodge away but now Dan’s got Henry, he’s holding him, and Henry is fighting back. Her eyes meet Dan’s, and she sees so much pain there, but he’s pulling Henry toward the door, bit by bit, making it look like it’s part of the struggle so the man doesn’t notice and turn on them.Yes, she thinks to Dan, as hard as she can.Get out. Get the two of you out.
“You were supposed to disappear,” the man says. “But none of you could. I wouldn’t let you.” Hope looks tiny in his arms. She’s fighting for breath, the knife still pressed to her throat.
Caro doesn’t think anymore. She’s across the room, the gun in her hands, slipping but not falling, bent on one thing only. Ash moves at exactly the same time.
They rush for Hope.
He draws the knife across her neck.
68
THEY DON’T EVEN KNOWI’m here. Except Page. I think she can tell.
Of course she can tell.
And Hope, because she’s close to where I am. But not dead.
Not yet.
Are you a ghost?someone might ask me. I am asking myself.
My little sister wrote me a letter saying the ghost town was “hunted,”
and I am.
Well, not hunted
but hunting.
Him.
He will not have her.
69
CARO SLAMS INTO THEman and the knife, and it slices her hand before they both lose hold of it and it flies across the room. She has so much momentum that she hits the wall of the church behind him. It looked like stone when she first came in, but up close Caro sees that it’s bricks laid over with mud, the strokes used to apply the mud visible even now, hundreds of years later. She leaves bloody handprints on the walls as she pushes away from them. Her mind flashes, thinking of the people who built this place and who lie in the cemetery, of what they might have suffered, of who they might havemadesuffer. The ones who came first. The ones they made leave.This man will not hurt Hope.
He’s strong, but Ash hit him at the knees when Caro went for the knife, and now he’s down. Before he can get up again, Caro presses the flare gun into his groin.“If you move,”she hisses,“I will shoot.”There are some things all men are afraid of, and she is banking on this. He might not care if he dies, he might be the kind of person who would relish going up in flames if he can see them die, too, but she doesn’t think he wants her to dothis. She will, too. His body will absorb the impact of the flare gun, there might be sparks, but she thinks they’ll still have time to run. Probably. “Get himout,” she says to Dan, and he pulls Henry through the door. It slams shut behind them. Ash throws the bolt in the lock. Caro hears Dan hammering against it, calling her name.
Stay out. Stay safe.
Caro’s hands are bleeding all over the man. There are a million reasons they have to hurry.
Hope is breathing again. Ash helps her stand. The trickle of blood across her neck is drying.
Where have you been?No one asks, but Hope knows the question.
“Here,” Hope says. “I’ve been here in the ghost town. I climbed out of the canyon and I hid here. Page has been helping me and bringing me food and sending the texts. Then he found me. I’ll tell you the rest later.” She coughs. “We need to tie him up. There’s rope in that backpack. Not the one on the floor. The one on the middle church pew.”
But before they can do anything, the man shoves himself to his feet, pushing Caro off-center enough that she falls back onto her butt. She lifts the gun, points it at his groin again. “Stay right there,” she says.
“Get Page out of here,” Hope says to Caro. “No matter what happens, we keep her safe. This piece of trash killed her sister.”
“Whoisthis piece of trash anyway?” Ash asks.
“Go ahead and take off the mask,” Hope tells the man. “Try anything else, and she’ll shoot.”
