The walls were dry, splintery wood, and with a lurch in her stomach, she registered she wasn’t battling a house possessed as much as an ancient house on the verge of crumbling beneath her feet.
Chopping through the wall with exhausted, rubbery arms, Delilah began to sob, feeling the leaded weight of insanity pushing in on her. She sucked in giant, gulping breaths, released shrill, hysterical wails. Was there even anyone there? Had she lost her mind? Would she die in this falling-down house after all?
But then she sliced through, creating a hole only inches wide, and her heart stopped beating.
A woman stood inside.
She was tiny. Withered. Her wild, dark hair had gone mostly gray; her back had grown bent and arms turned skinny and weak.
“Delilah.”
Delilah’s mouth opened, and her tear-soaked eyes went wide. “Hilary?”
“I’m awake,” the woman croaked. “Get me out of here.”
There wasn’t time to think about how long she’d been here, how she knew Delilah’s name, or whether she was even real at all. Delilah hacked at the wall savagely, making the hole big enough for Hilary to climb through, and grabbed her hand. She yanked her out, ignoring the sound of fabric ripping, the cry when something sharp stabbed into Hilary’s leg. Delilah fell backward, pulling her out, and then stood, tripping down the hall with Gavin’s mother in tow as the house fell to pieces in their wake: ceilings crumbling into dust, floors disintegrating, walls bursting into fire. They fell down the pile of stairs, and Delilah had to nearly carry the woman down the hall to the kitchen and out the back door as fire chased them and singed the back of Delilah’s shirt, the bottom of her braid.
Delilah fell onto the grass beside Gavin, curling her body over his and sobbing harder as it all seemed to hit her: She could have died in there, and then who would have looked after Gavin?
Hilary collapsed beside them, and Gavin turned, staring in shock. He shook, quaking violently in Delilah’s arms.
“Is that?”
“I think so.”
He reached out with his good arm, taking Hilary’s hand. She was unconscious, a tiny lump of dark clothing on the lawn.
The fire in the kitchen grew, crackling into a thunder, and Delilah knew with absolute certainly now was either when they triumphed or it all ended. Shadows dug into her clothes, cold fingers sliding across skin. Her ears rang with the tortured screeches of the wordless poltergeists, and for tiny flashes she could see their gaping mouths, rank and putrid, so close to her face until they dissolved back into shadow. Pulsing at her, storming around her. Closer and away on an endless loop, their breath smelled like a century of rot and despair; the lash of their shapeless bodies felt like ice slashing her cheeks.
She’d never known such sound, such terror. It was impossible to cover Gavin with her body, but she tried, her shoulders shaking under the strain as she curled over him, arms wrapped around his head as if to shield him.
He’d gone still. Completely motionless in her arms, and if she couldn’t feel the tiny warmth of his exhales on her neck, she would have feared he’d stopped breathing. He could barely take another minute of it—she knew—and she couldn’t begin to comprehend his grief and horror and loss. His cheeks were wet with tears, face pressed into her neck so tight she knew she would feel the imprint forever.
The wind whipped through her hair. A million points of pressure leaned in on her, on them from all sides, trying to peel her away from him. Delilah held on, screaming back at them in the dark-as-night sky.
Dhaval and Vani crawled over to them, wrapping their arms around Gavin and yelling reassurances over the chaotic screams:
“We won’t let you have him.”
“You can’t have him.”