Trapped, my mind whispered.
We hadn’t seen or heard another living soul since we left Kells’s office. No counselors. No adults. They left us here.
Why?
My mind bent in confusion as Noah pulled me to his room, the one he shared with Jamie. The door was open.
Jamie was not inside.
My legs were string—I couldn’t stand anymore. I sank, but Noah caught me. He pulled me close, so close against him and wrapped himself around me until every point of my body made contact with his. Forehead to forehead, chest to chest, hips to hips. He loosened his arms and pushed the matted, damp hair from my face, from my neck. He tried to hold me together, but I still fell apart.
After my pointless sobs softened into silence, I spoke. “I’m so scared,” I said.
And so ashamed, I didn’t say. I felt so weak.
“I know,” Noah said, his back against the frame of his bed, his arms wrapped around me still. His lips brushed my ear. “But I have to go find Jamie.”
I nodded. I knew. I wanted him to. But I couldn’t seem to let him go.
It wouldn’t have mattered, though. A few seconds later, we heard the scream.
65
IT CUT OFF AS SHARPLY AS IT BEGAN.
“That wasn’t Jamie,” Noah said strongly against my temple. He tucked my head beneath his chin, my cheek against his chest.
He was right. The voice had been female.
We listened, fitted against each other in the dark. The silence was thick, shutting out everything but my heartbeat. Or Noah’s. It was impossible to know.
Another scream issued—from the compound’s center. From the garden? I couldn’t tell from here.
“Stay here,” Noah said to me, his voice firm and clear.
He couldn’t not go. But I couldn’t leave him.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “We’re not splitting up.” My voice sharpened. “We’re not splitting up.”
Noah exhaled slowly. He didn’t answer, but he took my hand and lifted me up.
Our footsteps echoed in the silent halls and I gripped his fingers tightly, wishing we could become one thing. Holding on to him, I noticed, my wrists didn’t even hurt.
The early morning sky was still very dark, the black brightening only to a deep purple. Lightning flickered through the windows that wouldn’t release us and made monsters of our shadows against the wall.
Another scream.
We were corralled by it. Drawn to it. That was the point.
We walked into my nightmare together.
Jude stood in the Zen garden, broad and imposing in the sand. He stood between harmoniously arranged stalks of bamboo and sculptured bonsai trees. Jamie and Stella Adam and Megan were kneeling, arranged in the sand. Heads bowed. Hands bound. Positioned among the rocks.
Another girl—I couldn’t see her face—was lying on her side, unmoving. Her white shirt was soaked in blood, coloring it red.
There was a storm outside. It raged through the skylight. But the garden was quiet. No one struggled. No one said a word. Not even Jamie. The tableau was surreal. Deranged. Utterly terrifying.
Then Jude’s voice polluted the air. “Did you try the doors first?” he asked us, and smiled. “The windows?”
No one spoke.
Jude clucked his tongue. “You did. I can tell.” His gaze wandered over each of the bodies in the sand. When he looked up, it was at Noah. “While I’m glad we’re able to finally meet,” he said, “I did want to avoid this.”
Nothing in Noah’s posture or expression showed that he’d even heard him. He was as still and smooth as one of the stones in the sand. The sight of bound and kneeling teenagers didn’t appear to unsettle him at all.
Which appeared to unsettle Jude. He blinked and swallowed, then met my eyes. “I tried to find you, Mara, but you were hiding. So I had no choice. You made me take them.”
“Why?” My voice shattered the quiet. “What do you want?”
“I want Claire back,” he said simply.
“She’s dead,” I said, my voice quivering. “I killed her and I wish I hadn’t but I did and she’s dead. I’m sorry.”
“He thinks you can bring her back,” Stella said, her husky voice barely above a whisper.
Seven pairs of eyes focused on her with eerie precision.
“What?” I asked her.
Jude crouched down in front of Stella, a coiled snake.
She ignored him, didn’t look. She looked, instead, at me. “He thinks you can bring her back.”
Jude smacked Stella across the face.
Jamie flinched.
Megan started to cry.
Adam watched Jude with keen interest—not fear.
Noah took a step forward, brimming with quiet violence.
But when I saw Jude hit Stella, something inside of me rose up from the dark. I held on to Noah still, but I stopped shaking.
“Bring Claire back,” I said slowly.
Stella nodded. “That’s what he thinks.”
“How do you—” I began to ask. Then stopped, because I knew.
Stella was like us. Different. I looked at her, at the expression on her face, and realized how.