“Oh…hell no.”
“Yes!” I shrieked, tripping over the sheet still tangled around my legs. “Hellyes. She’s just standing there! Not blinking! Look at her!”
Emma turned her head slowly, too slowly, like a doll on a rusted hinge. Her grin widened when her eyes landed on Jace.
“Two boys,” she crooned in that high, singsong tone. “Two loud boys. Rabbits.”
Jace’s jaw dropped. “Did…did she just call us rabbits?”
“Yes!” I snapped, pointing frantically. “Thebadkind of rabbits!”
Jace blinked at me. “There’s a bad kind of rabbit?”
“Not the point!”
Emma rocked forward on her toes, humming. “Scared little rabbits. Hop, hop, hop. Eyes wide. Screams loud.”
“Do something!” Jace hissed, flattening himself against the wall.
“Dowhat?!” I snapped. “Tackle her?!”
“Yes!”
Emma giggled.
“On second thought, don’t do that. Because I think she wants you to do that,” Jace choked out.
Emma swayed toward the bed again, her eyes unblinking. “Matty screams. Matty cries. Matty dies.”
Jace’s face went pale. “Nope. Nope, nope, nope. I think I’ve seen enough.”
He grabbed the first thing within reach—a half-empty bottle of blue Gatorade—and flung it at her chest.
It splashed across her shirt.
She looked down. Then up. Then smiled wider. “Refreshing.”
Jace’s hands shot into his hair. “Okay. Plan B.” He spun, snatched the silver chain off his neck, and brandished it. “Begone, demon!”
That obviously didn’t work, either.
Emma drifted toward my dresser again, stopping at the photo of me and Ophelia. She picked it up, tilting her head at the glass.
“Pretty girl,” she crooned. “But she blinks. She sleeps. She doesn’t watch.”
“Put that down!” I shouted, lunging forward. “Don’t touch her!”
Emma giggled, tracing Ophelia’s face with her fingertip. “I could watch her, too. While she sleeps. Would you like that, Matty?”
“What the fuck?” I bellowed.
Jace threw his hands up. “Okay, I’m out. You’re on your own.”
“Don’t you dare leave me!” I shrieked.
“I already tried Gatorade and demon banishment. What else can I do?”
Before I could move, Riley burst in like a woman on a mission, hair wild, eyes blazing, holding a fire extinguisher that looked way too big for her.
