She was quiet for a moment before slipping back into her easy banter. “How much longer do you think this will take? I want to order pizza so it’s there when we get to my house.”
I surveyed the half-packed boxes and piles of clothes scattered around my room. In two days, a driver was coming to pick up the pieces of my life and take them to a school I had only seen in a brochure. “Is it weird if I want to stay here tonight?”
Elle raised an eyebrow. “That would be a yes.”
I stared at my walls, the plaster underneath exposed where I had peeled off bits of tape. “I just want it to be my room a little longer, you know?”
“I get it. But my mom will never go for it.”
I shot her a pathetic look.
She sighed. “I’ll call her and tell her we’re staying at Jen’s.”
“I kind of wanted to stay by myself.”
Elle’s eyes widened. “You can’t be serious.”
I didn’t know how to explain it, but I wasn’t ready to leave. Part of my mom would always be in this house, at least my memories of her. Breaking up chocolate bars in the kitchen to make her extreme brownies. Watching her paint my bedroom walls violet to match my favorite stuffed animal. Those were things I couldn’t pack in boxes.
“My aunt is selling the house. It’ll probably be the last time I get to sleep in my room.”
Elle shook her head, but I knew she was going to give in. “I’ll stay at Jen’s and tell my mom you’re with me.” She walked over to my dresser and picked up the photo of the two of us with our blue tongues, the edges bending beneath the pressure of her fingers. “Don’t forget this one.”
“You keep it.” My voice cracked.
Her eyes welled, and she threw her arms around me. “I’m gonna miss you so much.”
“We still have two more days.” Two days seemed like forever. I would’ve killed for two more hours with my mom.
After Elle left, I peeled the yellowed tape off the edges of Berens’ The Great Escape. I tossed the poster in the trash, wishing I could escape from the cardboard boxes and the bare walls and a life that didn’t feel anything like the one I remembered.
I drifted in and out of sleep, fragments of dreams cutting through my consciousness. My mom’s body lying motionless on the bed. Her empty eyes staring at me. A bitter cold wrapping itself around me like a wet blanket. The sensation of something bearing down on my chest.
I struggled to sit up, but the weight was too heavy.
It felt like someone was holding a pillow over my face. I reached out blindly, trying to push it away. But there was no pillow. Just the air I couldn’t breathe and the weight I couldn’t move.
Blinking hard, I searched for something familiar to pull me out of the dream. There was nothing except a blurry silhouette looming above me.
No. On top of me.
Two eyes glittered in the darkness.
A strangled scream caught in my throat as the pressure on my chest intensified, and the room began to fade….
Sounds brought me back—a crash, banging on the stairs, voices. The hall lights flickered, and I finally saw what was hiding behind those luminous eyes.
Elvis—crouched on my chest, mouth open and eyes locked on mine.
I inhaled sharply, but there was still no air. Elvis’ ears flattened against his head, and his jaw pulled back like a snake about to strike.
The bedroom door banged against the wall, and someone shouted, “Take the shot!”
Elvis whipped around toward the voice, and a rush of air burned through my lungs. A guy stood in the doorway with something black in his hand.
Who—
He raised his arm.
Was that a gun?
A shot rang out, and almost immediately the weight disappeared. I sat up, gasping and choking on the air my body so desperately needed. A sticky mist rained down over everything, stinging my eyes, and I squeezed them shut.
When I opened them again, I was too stunned to make a sound.
At the foot of my bed, a girl floated in the air above Elvis’ body. Pale and gaunt, her face marred with bruises and cuts, her blond hair hanging in tangled curls.
Bare feet dangled beneath her white nightgown.
It was the girl from the graveyard. Her bloodshot eyes found mine, frozen in a moment of pure torment. I noticed the marks around her neck—two purple bruises, perfect imprints of the hands that must have killed her.
A second shot hit the strangled girl’s body, and she exploded. Millions of tiny particles fluttered in the air like dust before vanishing completely.
Hands touched my shoulders. “Are you okay?”
Our faces were only inches apart—a guy about my age, wearing a black nylon flight jacket.
I scrambled backward. “Who are you?”
“My name is Lukas Lockhart, and that’s my brother, Jared.” He looked over at a guy standing by the door in a green army jacket with the name LOCKHART on a patch sewn above the pocket. A pale scar cut across the skin above his eyebrow.
They were both tall and broad-shouldered, with the same messy brown hair and blue eyes.
Identical twins.
The one in the army jacket walked over to the Elvis’ body, a gun wrapped in silver duct tape still in his hand.
The gun that killed my cat.