“No!” I threw my hands against it, pushing with all my strength. The wood vibrated each time the hammer hit a nail. Jared turned around so we were both facing the crisscrossed slices of the room that were still visible.
I couldn’t see the spirits of the other children anymore, only glimpses of the bare bulb and the head of the hammer.
Jared pounded his fists on the slats of wood, but they didn’t give. “The nails shouldn’t be this strong.”
The sledgehammer hit another nail.
The sound reminded me of the bolts hitting the floor of the warehouse when they unscrewed themselves from the window. It had been impossible for Lukas and Jared to hold them in place.
Was the boy’s spirit strengthening these nails the same way?
Another board slapped against the opening, eclipsing the last sliver of light. The hammer hit the wood over and over. I counted every nail.
Twenty-seven.
That was the count when the last one plunged into the wood, trapping us inside.
CHAPTER 26
Within the Walls
He shut us in. He shut us in. He shut us in.
I heard myself screaming, but the only words I could make out were the ones in my head.
I was back inside my mother’s closet again, helpless and terrified—the memories battering me one after another. Darkness pressing in from all sides, heavy and suffocating. My ragged breathing. The smell of mothballs and cedar. Smooth wood under my hands as I ran them over the walls.
Now I was trapped again.
I clawed at the wood, splinters digging underneath my fingernails and shredding my skin. Ignoring the pain, I pounded and prayed for one of the boards to break. Though I could barely see him, I felt Jared’s hands scratching and banging alongside mine.
“How are we going to get out?” My voice echoed back at me.
“The nails are too strong. He must be holding them in place.”
Jared stopped fighting and turned to face me. He wrapped his arms around my neck and pulled me against him. “It’s gonna be okay.” He tried to sound convincing, but our bodies were too close to lie. His heart was pounding even harder than mine.
My head rested against Jared’s chest, and I listened to the sound of his breathing. It was too fast, like his heartbeat.
He leaned down, his mouth on my ear. “I’m not gonna let anything happen to you. I’ll get us out of this. I promise.”
I took a deep breath, my face still buried in his shirt. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”
He took my face in his hands and raised my chin with his thumb. “I want you to know I’d never do that.”
I nodded, too frightened to know anything.
“Give me your radio,” he said. “I dropped mine fighting with the dead kid.”
I dug it out of my pocket and slid it between us. Jared rested his arms around my neck, toying with the dials. He pressed the button over and over, repeating the same thing. “Lukas? Priest? Alara? Anyone there?”
“We’re inside a wall. You won’t get any reception.” I squeezed my eyes shut, trying not to cry.
“It doesn’t matter. When we don’t show up, they’ll look for us.”
I shook my head and tears spilled down my cheeks. “I don’t want them to.”
“Why not?”
If they came down here, they might get hurt. There were so many spirits and no way to predict what could happen if those traumatized children felt threatened. The boy with the sledgehammer had probably been as docile as the rest of them once.
I pressed my face against Jared’s chest and tried to catch my breath.
“Kennedy, are you crying?” He pulled back, trying to look down at me even though there was no way he could see me in the dark.
“No.”
He pulled me tighter, resting his chin on the top of my head. “I’m so sorry. I should’ve let you go with Lukas.”
“There’s no way you could have known.”
Jared took a shuddering breath. “He’s the better half. I’m the screwup. No matter what I do.”
I laid my palms against his chest. “You protect everyone.”
His breath caught and the person who seemed so unbreakable finally broke.
“Is that what you think? If you knew the truth, you’d never say that. I screwed up. Worse than this.” His chest heaved. “Worse than anything.”
I reached up and touched his damp cheeks. “It can’t be that bad—”
Jared caught my wrists in his hands and held them tight. “It is that bad. I’m that bad. If you knew what I did, you wouldn’t want to touch me or be anywhere near me.”
He was coming apart, the way I had so many times. “That’s not true. Whatever it is—”
Jared exploded. “I killed our parents—yours, mine, all of them. It’s my fault they’re dead. Do you want to be close to me now?”