Then maybe a ten-year-old girl could burst out of her room and kill two sleeping adults after all.
“I’m done!” I shout at the sky, hoping maybe it’ll work again, like in the vision I had at Sophie’s.
I have to get back to Sierra.
I have to figure this out.
And honestly, I want to see if Daphne has bruises underneath all that blood. I want so badly for her to simply have been pushed over the edge by abusive parents. I want these deaths to be justified. For Daphne not to be culpable.
For my interference to be validated.
To my chagrin, the vision lingers a while longer—showing me nothing but the dark forest in which the universe has scheduled me to die. But eventually, with a rush of color, I’m back in my physical self—in my car—my fingers gripping the wheel so tightly I can’t feel them anymore. I seem to be uninjured—I wiggle each finger and toe, feel my limbs.
I’m okay.
I’m okay.
But I still have mistakes to fix.
The car is running, but when I try to shift into reverse, the engine doesn’t cooperate. I yank and curse and beat the gear-stick with my fists, but nothing changes the fact that if I’m going anywhere tonight, it’s not going to be in this car.
The door on the driver’s side is jammed against the snow bank so, after killing the engine, I have to wriggle over to the passenger side and get out that way. I click the button on my keys that locks the car, but I know as soon as a cop comes by and sees blood on the passenger seat it won’t matter; they’ll probably just break the windows.
I’m in so deep.
I pull my jean jacket tighter around me, its single layer scant protection from the icy chill of Oklahoma’s harsh February nights. It’s hard to even look at the clothes I’m wearing without seeing them stained with my own blood. As I jog toward my house I remind myself of the other visions I’ve had that I was able to change—one of me killing a classmate, even. This doesn’t have to be the end. I’ve taken charge of my own choices and this is the time to prove it.
But first I have to get back to Sierra and tell her what I’ve learned.
As I stumble along the icy sidewalk I realize I never actually asked Daphne what happened. Both times I found her in that shed she wasn’t speaking, and I didn’t want to further traumatize her by making her relive the experience. I assumed that she somehow got out of her room and found her parents dead. And the blood—what did I think? That she found her parents, grabbed the knife, and rolled around in their puddles of blood? I guess I assumed she had … tried to wake them up. Maybe hugged them or something.
I never even asked her if she’d seen the killer. Some detective I'm turning out to be.
They called Daphne a “difficult child.” Said that she was homeschooled and antisocial. I was so focused on saving her that I assumed it was just another way to cover up the abuse. What if it was because Daphne’s more than simply difficult? Could she be seriously disturbed? I hate to jump to that conclusion, but I’m pretty sure I just had a vision of her stabbing me to death. What reason could a pushed-too-far abuse victim have to kill me?
I start swearing to myself that I will never interfere in circumstances I don’t fully understand—that I will make no assumptions about what is best for other people—that I will find some way to … to …
One thing at a time.
I have to get to Daphne.
To Sierra.
I hurry up the steps on cold-numbed legs, slipping once on the ice but righting myself by grasping onto the railing. I do try to be quiet, but haste is more important than stealth at this point and I sprint down the hallway and burst into Sierra’s room.
It’s empty.
Where did they go?
A sound from behind Sierra’s queen-sized bed catches my ear and when I peer in that direction, I can’t see anything. But then I hear the sound again and recognize Sierra’s voice. I fling myself onto my belly on the mattress, reaching for where she’s wedged between the bed and the wall.
“Sierra!” I scream.
Her face is spattered with blood and there’s a jagged wound along the side of her neck. Even though her hand is pressed to it, blood is oozing out around her fingers in thick, dark streams. Her eyes roll up and meet mine and I’m frozen in place by what I see there.
Acceptance.
“Sierra?” I beg, blinking back tears.
“I tried,” she says. “I tried to change it.” And she attempts to smile, but the effect is ruined by the scarlet shimmer that coats her teeth and trickles out the corner of her mouth.
Change it? She knew!
I grasp at her limp hands, remembering the fear in her eyes when she saw Daphne. Years ago I asked if she’d seen a vision of her own death and, even though she didn’t answer me directly, I got the idea that the answer was yes. I want to smack myself for not seeing it. Not seeing any of this! How must Sierra have felt, opening the door and seeing her own death staring her in the face from the arms of her disobedient niece?
I did this.
“Sierra,” I plead. What for, I don’t know. For her to live? That’s obviously not going to happen. She’ll be lucky if she’s got minutes.
“Maggie,” Sierra breathes, and then her breath rattles and her fingers go slack.
She’s gone.
Maggie.
Margaret.
My mom!
I jump to my feet and run down the hallway.
Her bedroom door’s not open a crack anymore; it’s all the way closed. I grab the knob and turn it, but it’s locked. With a strength I didn’t know I had I scream and lift my foot and kick the space right beside the doorknob as hard as I can. The entire door gives a high-pitched squeal before splintering and swinging open so hard it cracks into the wall.
I’m too late.
“Mom!” The sob rips out of my throat and I crumple to the floor at the sight of my mother lying peacefully in her bed, throat slashed, drowned in a puddle of her own blood.
Chapter Twenty-Six
I’m on my feet and running without knowing where I’m going. But as I clatter down my front steps my feet shoot out from under me and I slam down on my butt on the bottom step, my head cracking against the cement porch.
Stars flash in front of my eyes and blackness encroaches on my vision almost like when I use the focus stone. The base of my skull aches like a beast and I have to just lie there for several minutes before I’m completely sure I’m not going to lose consciousness. I scream at my body to go, but my brain is too slow.
Wait. I almost slipped running into the house, too. But with as many problems as I’ve had with ice lately, Sierra always keeps our porch steps clear. “You don’t have to be able to see the future to know that icy steps are an accident waiting to happen,” she used to joke. As soon as I can move I sit up and look down at the step, my head throbbing so hard I can barely think clearly.
Red.
A dollop of blood has formed a slippery, slushy puddle on the steps. I probably tracked it through the house. Not that there’s anyone left to be angry about it.
My eyes go directly to the next step and I spy half a bloody shoeprint, then another at the bottom of the steps.
Then more prints leading away across the snow that still clings to the lawn.
Daphne.
I push to my feet and stagger forward. The tracks lead across the yard, then veer off toward the wooded acreage behind our house.
Everything in me is screaming to follow her. To … I don’t know, take my revenge. But the rational part of me manages to get one thought through.
If I follow her, I’m going to die.
I recognize the trees now—the same leafless poplars that were in my vision.
This is where I’m supposed to die.
But … I’m a full-grown teenager and she’s a tiny ten-year-old! Plus, I know what’s going to happen; I can change it.
Sierra told me she tried to change it too. She knew Daphne was a monster. She w
ouldn’t have intentionally turned her back on her for even a second. But somehow, despite Sierra’s precautions, Daphne got her anyway.
And then went in and took out my mom.
I remember Daphne asking about my mom, and me telling her that she was in the house but asleep. It all seemed so innocent at the time.
The hole in my heart at the thought of my mom, dead in the house, is so black and bottomless I almost plunge into the forest right at that moment. Surely dying can’t be worse than living with this feeling—this feeling that I’ve failed and I don’t even have a supernatural parasite to blame for it.
Just stupid, stupid me.
I’m alone and it’s all my fault. I don’t want to go on if I’ve lost everything. Everyone. Linden. Sierra. Mom. Who do I have, other than them?
No one.
No one.
No.
Sophie.
I. Have. Sophie.
Sophie, who just about killed herself pulling my ass out of the fire last time I screwed everything up.
Sophie, who still likes me anyway.
I’ve never been much of a runner but I sprint the half-mile to Sophie’s house in what must surely be a world record, at least on snowy streets. Screw being quiet, I ring the bell and bang my fists on the door at the same time.
“Sophie!” I scream when no one comes. I consider trying to kick this door open too, but an outer security door is a very different thing than a cheap, flimsy interior bedroom door.
I’m still considering it though, and just as I raise my shoddily clad foot, the door opens and I’m face-to-face with Sophie’s furious mother.
“What do you think you’re doing here—hey!” she calls as I squeeze by her, shoving her against the doorframe. I’ll apologize later.
“Sophie!” My voice wavers as I call her name again. I fling the door open and Sophie’s sitting straight up in bed, terror dancing in her eyes.
“Charlotte?” she asks, calmer at the sight of me, but clearly confused.
“There’s something seriously wrong with Daphne,” I say, words tumbling out in a jumble, one on top of the other in my rush to speak them before Sophie’s mom catches up with me. “She’s the one who killed her parents. And my aunt and my … my … Sophie, my mom’s dead. I can’t live without her. I need you to take me back.”
“I can’t,” Sophie says, and tears are streaking her face, pooling in wide, frightened eyes. “I don’t think—”
Her voice cuts off as her mom storms into the room. “You,” she says, pointing a long finger at me. “Out!”
I turn back to Sophie, desperation bright in my eyes. “Please. An hour. I can make it work with just an hour. I can’t save her parents but … please, Sophie, for God’s sake, please! If I can’t fix this she’s going to kill me too; I saw it.”
Sophie’s mom’s hand is wrapped around my arm now and she’s pulling me bodily from the room. Tears and snot are pouring down my face and, though I thrash about trying to get away, she’s taller than me. Bigger than me. And even if she weren’t, my strength is gone.
“Please!” I shriek. I can’t give up. I can’t. My life is over if I can’t do anything. Literally. Somehow, Daphne will kill me unless I derail this line of fate. “Sophie, please! I’ll do anything. Anything.”
I’ve been yanked all the way down the hall now and when I continue to fight her, Sophie’s mom shoves me onto the ground. “You have no idea what you’re asking,” she hisses. “Some friend you are. Do you want to kill her?”
But I can’t think anything rational except that I’ve failed and I push my face into the carpet and wail.
Then something happens. I don’t notice anything exactly. But something … something changes. Sophie’s mom lifts her chin almost as if sniffing the air and my tears turn off like a light switch.
My eyes lock with the older woman’s and we know. Both of us. Fear shines out of her eyes but she sets her jaw and jabs a finger at me. “It’s your fault if she dies,” she says, but her voice is shaking and I know it’s a mother’s fear speaking. “Get on your way,” she whispers. Then she’s gone, heading down the hallway, before I can reply. Going to help her daughter.
Did I just trade my best friend’s life for my mother’s?
“Thank you,” I whisper, hoping Sophie is okay, knowing that I can’t waste the gift she’s just given me. Not even to take ten seconds to check on her. I sprint through the front door and back down the icy sidewalks toward my house.
I don’t know how far Sophie has jumped me. It can’t be much. It might come down to moments, and I pump my legs so hard they scream in pain. When I arrive at my house, the car is already gone from the driveway.
I’ve left for the Gas-N-Grub already.
But there might still be time. I hope and pray I’m not too late.
As I skitter onto the front porch a tiny part of my brain notes that the spot of blood that I slipped on—twice—isn’t yet on the second step. A trickle of hope spurs me on. I burst through the door and shout, “Sierra!” I don’t care about waking my mom up anymore. I don’t care what kind of lies—or worse, truths—I’m going to have to tell her, as long as she’s alive to hear them.
Her door is that crack open and relief floods through me. But I’ve got to see her for myself. I throw the door open and squint into the darkness.
“Charlotte?” Panic and fright war in my mother’s voice, but it’s the most beautiful sounds I’ve ever heard. Still, there’s no time to answer her. At the end of the hallway Sierra’s door is ajar and I burst through it—
Daphne whirls around to face me, her eyes wide but calm. That weird expression—devoid of all emotions that I saw when I thought I was rescuing her from the shed—is plastered on her face. Almost like a sinister mask. She’s dressed in one of Sierra’s shirts, but nothing else, and the way it hangs on her boney shoulders makes her look like a sad, small little girl.
I know better.
“Charlotte, be careful!” Sierra warns.
I let my gaze flick to my aunt for a second and she’s got one hand pressed against a wound along her arm, blood trickling through her fingers.
By seconds I’m on time.
God bless Sophie.
Daphne stares at me, and time seems to stop altogether.
Then something enters Daphne’s expression, almost like someone’s taking charge, possessing her, and rage contorts her features as she flies at me, knife first, with a scream like the war cry of a banshee.
Instinct flattens me against the wall and I put out one foot to trip her as she overcompensates and surges by me.
She doesn’t fall.
Small, nimble feet only stumble and, though she staggers before righting herself, she continues down the hall. Fear jumps into my throat when she slows in front of an open doorway and turns her head to where my mother must be able to see her.
“Daphne, don’t you dare!” I shout.
She regards me with eyes of such pure blackness that I take one involuntary step back.
“I will stop you,” I say and even though the words are a scared whisper, they seem to echo through the silent house.
It takes all my strength to meet those evil eyes, but somehow I know that if I show weakness first, my mother is dead. I continue to stare into Daphne’s eyes as the feeling of putrid oil slides into me, filling me with horror and disgust. It can’t take longer than maybe ten seconds, but it seems like as hours as I almost lose myself in the blackness that Daphne has become.
She moves first. She continues to hold my gaze, but her tiny, bare feet slide backward and I take a few steps forward at the same excruciatingly slow pace, following her, but not closing the gap between us.
Not yet.
As soon as I’m closer to my mother’s doorway than Daphne is, I lunge at her, grabbing for the arm that doesn’t have the knife. Daphne whips out of reach and spins toward the front door. Clad in nothing but a T-shirt, she disappears out into the front yard.
I run to Mom’s do
orway and, with my hands braced on each side, I peer in to make sure she’s okay. Her face is white and terrified and she’s only just managed to get herself into her wheelchair.
But she’s alive.
I pause long enough to focus in on her eyes—to feel hers meet mine with that life-affirming gaze—before I say, “I love you, Mom,” and turn to run after Daphne.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
“Lock the door, Sierra!” I shout as I clatter—more carefully this time—down the front steps. I take the barest second to note that the blood puddle is still not on the second step and I take heart that, at the very least, I’ve changed something. “Call the cops!” I add. I’m not afraid of watching the police drag Daphne away anymore—I’ve seen my mother dead in a pool of blood at her hand; they can have her.
But in the meantime, I can’t just let her go. As tempting as it is to let the February cold bring a final end to her rampage, I couldn’t live with myself if she hurt another person. I can already imagine tomorrow’s headlines—“Grisly Murders Haunt Town for Second Time This Winter.” What the news won’t say, but should, is that for the second time this winter, it’s my fault.
But maybe I can keep the body count to two.
And so I follow Daphne’s footprints into the woods, slowing down just long enough to look for a decent branch to wield—knowing I’m going to need it. Daphne’s strong—stronger than a ten-year-old girl has any right to be—and I wonder if something takes over inside her head and drives her body to do more than it ought to be capable of. Everything I’ve seen points to that, and I’m not ashamed to admit it terrifies me. I need to assume it’s possible and be prepared for the worst.
I see a half-broken limb touching the ground just off the path and I step to the side to twist it off of the tree trunk. The frosty bark bites into my palms and already the cold is making me stiff—never mind the fuzziness in my head that hasn’t gone away since I smacked it so hard on the porch. But with the branch lifted over my shoulder like a baseball bat I feel a tiny bit safer.