Janet laughs weakly. Her face is so pale, and the carpet is wet and dark, and I know she’s bleeding too much from some place I can’t see.
And I know Theo did it.
“The boy,” she rasps. “The boy they killed. Everyone here… knows the story.” She coughs, blood flecking her lips, and then tries to shove the gun at me. “Kill him,” she slurs. “Someone always kills him. He’ll come back. But not for a long… a long time.”
I let out a wet, choking sob, and somehow, my hands wrap around the barrel of the shotgun, moving like they’re directed by someone else. I keep seeing Theo in my head. Theo glazed in firelight. Theo brushing his lips against mine. Theo smiling down at Oliver.
How could he do this? How could he be the same fucking person?
“Kill him,” Janet says. “You’ve got four shots. Don’t forget to pump it. Aim for the chest. Bigger target.”
I pull the gun against my chest, dizzy with horror and the scent of blood. Janet drops her head back and looks up at the ceiling and smiles. “I’ll be there soon,” she whispers, and I stumble back, knowing she’s not talking to me.
“I’m going to call the police,” I say, backing out of the room.
“Okay,” she breathes.
I turn and run—out of that terrible dark house, away from the scent of blood. I don’t stop running until I’m nearly to the lake, and I only stop when I feel the cold water splash around my ankles.
I didn’t call the police. Why didn’t I call the police?
I would never hurt you. Or Oliver.
Screams erupt into the night, shrill and panicked. I whip around, clutching the gun up against my chest. The Jenkins house is lit up, the windows glowing. It wasn’t like that earlier. Was it?
“Oliver,” I whisper, and then I run again, tearing across the grass with my heart thudding up in my throat, Janet’s voice echoing in the back of my head:Kill him. Kill him. Kill him.
A masculine scream rings out from Oliver’s house, and I surge forward until I land on the front porch. The door is hanging open, letting out a sharp angle of white light. I choke down the tight knots of my fear and lift the gun, holding it clumsily in front of me.
Inside, someone screams again. An adult man.
I step inside, my legs shaking. All the lights are on, flooding the foyer with too much brightness. Something crashes from deeper in the house. Then something thumps heavily against the floor. Another scream.
I don’t run. I’ll give myself that. I keep stalking forward, holding up the gun, and the hallways gets shorter and shorter until I’m in the entranceway, and I see them.
Oliver’s parents.
They’re dead, bodies slack against the couch and drenched in blood. Blaire’s head hangs off the edge of the couch, her eyes staring blankly at me through the too-bright lights of the house. Her husband is face-down, the back of his head a ruin.
Horror slams through me, and for a second, the world spins around and then blinks, like the power is going out.
But then there’s another scream, and I drop back into myself. It sounds like it’s coming from upstairs.
And so I ran again, blindly and furiously and hating myself. Because I let this happen. Despite all of Penelope’s warnings, I let myself trust the monster who left a trail of blood between the houses of my two neighbors. I let myself soften for him and open to him, and this—this is what he did.
I swing around onto the landing. More thumping, coming from one of the bedrooms. I lift the gun again, taking my slow, cautious steps, my breath fast and panting. More thumping, another scream, a terrible wet squelching sound.
I don’t want to, but I step into the doorway.
Owen is sprawled across the floor, clawing his way across the carpet, his face a mask of blood. He lifts his eyes to me, but I don’t think he sees me, not really.
Behind him is Theo.
My Theo, I think numbly as he lifts a massive, blood-soaked axe about his head. His blond hair is loose and streaked withpink and red. His face is splattered with gore, his eyes fixed on Oliver’s brother.
Until they’re not. Until he lifts them to take me in, standing there, shaking like a rabbit with a shotgun pointed at his chest.
His shoulders slump down, a fraction of an inch. I think something passes through his face. Sadness? Resignation?
