“It will hurt you. Remember what you said? This, today, is the nuclear option. House just declared war.”
“I know House hurt you. I will never forgive it for that. But House has never hurt me. Ever. All I need to do is get in there.. . .” The rest of the plan seemed to be still out of his mental reach, and Delilah felt a scream build deep in her belly and fill her entire chest as he thought it through. She clenched her jaw to keep it from erupting and frazzling Gavin even more. “I just need to see. Don’t you understand? I never thought she was there, so I never looked.”
“I don’t like it.”
“It’s not even six in the morning. Go home. Get on the couch. Pretend you’ve been there all night. Pack up a few things when your parents leave for the day, and then head to the bank. I’ll meet you there at eleven, just like we planned. I may even get there in time to go with you, but if not, you need to get into the safe-deposit box.”
“It might have nothing,” she reminded him. “Maybe it has some of her hippie books and crystals.”
He took a deep breath, staring her down. “It might have my birth certificate, with the names of both of my parents. It might have money.”
“I really, really don’t like this.”
“I can’t do this if I’m worrying about you,” he told her. “If House was tricking me, I’ll know right away and I’ll get out. I’ve never broken a window out of respect, but that doesn’t mean I won’t throw a table through one if it means the difference between being with you or not. I have to do this.”
? ? ?
Delilah was beneath the covers on the couch when her father came downstairs to make coffee just after seven. She tried to feign sleep, but her heart was beating so fast it seemed to nearly choke her airway. She felt every minute ticking by, etching like a razor slice into her skin.
Gavin is almost home by now.
Maybe he’s walked inside.
Maybe he’s already trapped.
When her father came in and woke her, she stretched and looked around the room, trying to figure out what she could possibly take with her. There were the clothes that had been in the washer or dryer when the fire happened. There was some cash from her mother’s antique vase on top of the fridge. She would pack a knife. Some food. She would leave her parents a note, telling them she was leaving for college early. In the time it would take them to find her—even if they jumped into action and found her in only two days—she would be eighteen.
They had exactly seventy-three dollars between the two of them. Most of it in fives and ones, rolled into a log and shoved in Delilah’s jacket pocket. She added another two hundred from her mother’s vase. If the house was going to take anything from her now, it would have to light her on fire too.
By eight fifty, Delilah was standing on Mercer and Main, duffel bag slung over her shoulder as she paced, waiting for the bank to open. She felt every shift in the breeze, heard every rustle in the trees overhead. The safe-deposit-box key was clenched so tightly in her fist it might leave an impression in her flesh forever. And if it did, every time she would look at the imprint, it would remind her of this biting, freezing terror: How on earth am I meant to walk in there and open this box without the building crumbling down on me? How does Gavin expect to escape today and meet me out front?
It was the perfect trap. His faith in the house had left him blind.
She couldn’t believe she’d let him go. What if the contents of the box told them nothing? What if instead of money or important papers, it held a few dusty trinkets or old photographs. What then? She was here, wasting time when she could have been with him, fighting.