The last time we’d faced off like this had been in Peter’s room, with Ziggy in his hand, leveled at my throat. Now, as then, there was a well of emptiness behind his eyes. His care had died twice—once with his rabbit, once with his son.
The old Jessica hadn’t seen it, because she couldn’t see that well.
“Jessica,” Cyrus said through the glass. “None of this is your fault.”
“You can’t blame Faraday,” I said.
“I’m not talking about her. This is on us—we set you up. But it’s time to come home.”
“Jess,” Sebastian said, holding out his hand. “Let’s go.”
As I backed away from the doors, Cyrus pulled a telescoping baton from his coat pocket. With a flick of his wrist, it was thirty inches long.
I turned and ran.
The sound of shattering glass followed.
Sebastian started laughing as we flew down the front hall, a sound of unrestrained joy. We were cast out of our family, disowned, hunted.
Done with the Mortons at last.
“New wing,” I said, grabbing him and veering right. The library extension had broken ground twenty-five years ago, when Cyrus was a senior. He wouldn’t know the layout.
“All-night study room?”
“No,” I said. Bystanders might keep Cyrus in check, but we’d have to leave eventually. A delay would only give our family time to gather forces.
Our Aunt Charlene lived twenty miles from Helshire. The twins were just over the river.
As we ran, the gray stone of the old library gave way to glass bricks and dull orange carpet. We passed a custodian pushing a vacuum cleaner, who only rolled his eyes at us.
“We can take Cyrus,” Sebastian said. “There’s two of us!”
His eyes were alight—the saviors of our generation, fighting side by side. But Cyrus had been in a dozen life-or-death fights. My cousin and I had been in only one.
“Just run.”
We reached the fire exit at the back of the new wing, halfway around the building from the main entrance. I crashed against the push bar.
The doors sagged open a few inches, then caught.
A chain was wrapped around the handles on the other side, half-inch metal, shut with an Abloy padlock.
“Fuck,” Sebastian said. “Any bolt cutters down in Monsters and Related?”
“No,” I said, wondering how Cyrus had found time to lock up the backside of the building.
Orrin was here too. Or someone faster.
Beside the locked exit was a fire alarm. More witnesses seemed like a good thing.
I pulled it. Silence.
Iris, logging in remotely from the estate. All Mortons on deck.
“Back to the old wing,” I said. “Too many exits to lock up.”
“Why’d they bring chains for Faraday?”
