But he would go tonight. And even if she did hate him, even if she ignored him completely, he wanted her to know that he was there. That he was sorry, too, for what he had said.
Time, for him, was running out.
heather
ONE OF HEATHER’S PROBLEMS—OUT OF ABOUT A HUNDRED big problems—was what to do about Lily. Anne had left them food for the weekend—mac ’n’ cheese, not from a box, but made with real cheese and milk and little spiral pasta, and tomato soup. Just heating it up made Heather feel like a criminal: Anne had invited them into her home, was taking care of them, and Heather was plotting behind her back.
Heather watched Lily polish off three portions. She didn’t know how Lily could eat in this heat. All the fans were going, all the windows were open, but it was still sweltering. She couldn’t have taken even a bite. She was sick with guilt and nerves. It wouldn’t be long before sundown, and game time. Heather wondered what Natalie was doing. She’d been locked in upstairs for the past three hours. Heather had heard the shuddering of pipes, the gush of water in the shower, three times.
After Lily ate, Heather brought her into the den: a big, dark room that still bore the mark of Anne’s late husband—beat-up leather couches and mohair blankets and carpet that smelled a little like wet dog. Here it was a little cooler, although the leather stuck uncomfortably to Heather’s thighs when she sat down.
“I need you to promise me that you won’t come outside,” Heather said. “There will be people. And you might hear noises. But you have to stay right here, where it’s safe. Promise me.”
Lily frowned. “Does Anne know?” she asked.
That guilty feeling rode a wave up into Heather’s throat. She shook her head. “And she won’t,” she said.
Lily picked at a bit of stuffing that had begun to poke out of the couch. She was silent for a second. Heather wished, suddenly, she could take Lily into her arms and squeeze her, tell her everything—how scared she was, how she didn’t know what would happen to either of them.
“This is about Panic, isn’t it?” Lily said. She looked up. Her face was expressionless, her eyes flat. They reminded Heather of the tigers’ eyes: ancient, all-seeing.
Heather knew there was no point in lying. So she said, “It’s almost over.”
Lily didn’t move when Heather kissed her head, which smelled like grass and sweat. The leather released Heather’s skin with a sharp sucking sound. She put on a DVD about a zoo, which Lily had requested—another gift from Anne.
Anne, Heather knew, was a good person. The best person Heather had ever met. So what did that make Heather?
She was at the door when Lily spoke up. “Are you going to win?”
Heather turned around to her. She’d left the lights off, so it would stay cool, and Lily’s face was in shadow.
Heather tried to smile. “I’m already winning,” she lied, and closed the door behind her.
The haze of the sky, milk white and scorched, at last turned to dark; and the trees impaled the sun, and all the light broke apart. Then they came: quietly, tires moving almost soundlessly on the dirt, headlights bouncing like overgrown fireflies through the woods.
There was no thudding music, no shouting. Everyone was on alert for cops.
Heather stood outside, waiting. The dogs were going crazy; she kept feeding them treats, trying to get them to shut up. She knew there were no neighbors around for miles, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone would hear—that Anne would know, somehow, be summoned back to the house by the barking.
Nat had still not come down.
Heather had fed the tigers more than double their normal amount. Now, as the last light drained from the sky, and the stars began to pulse through the liquid haze of heat, they were lying on their sides, seemingly asleep and indifferent to all the cars. Heather prayed they would stay that way—that Nat could do whatever she needed to do, and get out.
Car after car: Diggin, Ray Hanrahan, even some of the players who’d been eliminated, like Cory Walsh and Ellie Hayes; Mindy Kramer and a bunch of her dance team friends, still dressed in bikinis and cutoffs and bare feet, like they’d just come from the beach; Zev Keller, eyes red-rimmed and liquid, obviously drunk, with two friends Heather didn’t recognize; people she hadn’t seen since the challenge at the water tower. Matt Hepley, too, and Delaney. He walked right by Heather, pretending she didn’t exist. She found she didn’t care.
They drifted across the yard and gathered around the tigers’ pen, silent, disbelieving. Flashlights clicked on as it got darker; the floodlights on the barn, motion-detected, came on too, illuminating the tigers, sleeping almost side by side, so still they might have been statues, held in a flat palm of earth.
“I don’t believe it,” someone whispered.
“No fucking way.”