Jude’s eyes narrow to slits. “Do you need me to spell the big words?”
“Why is there blood everywhere?” It’s more scream than question, and it shuts everyone up. Even Emily. She’s got tears smeared down her face and snot running over her upper lip, and she’s looking at me.
“Is that supposed to be me?” I already know. I don’t know why I’m playing stupid.
No one will meet my eyes.
“I’m sorry, Sera,” Emily says. “I’m so sorry.”
She didn’t do anything to be sorry for, but that’s not the point. I know why she’s sorry. It’s what decent people feel when something bad happens to you. Or when something bad is going to happen.
I force myself to look at the dolls again, to make some sort of sense of this. My doll is definitely not sleeping. The eyes are still open. And there’s a section of hair that’s shiny and stuck together. A head wound. So there it is. In this scene, I’m the dead girl.
Another flare of dizziness hits, so I close my eyes and take a breath. Slow and steady, my chest opens wide, but it does nothing to soothe me.
I’m supposed to be dead. Or I’m going to be dead.
The other dolls look alive. Lucas is standing. Emily and Jude are seated. No one else’s doll is stretched out in a pool of blood. None of the other dolls are bloody at all.
Wait.
No, they do have blood. I lean in a little because even the last bits of purpling sky are going black. Even in the low light, I can see the dark stains at the ends of the other dolls’ arms.
“So I’m dead and someone’s cutting off your hands?” I ask. I sound like someone else, someone who is asking about something that does not matter.
Emily wipes her snotty nose on her sleeve. She still won’t look at me.
“I mean, that’s what the blood is about,” I say. “Whoever he is, whoever left this—they want your fingers or hands or whatever. Like Ms. Brighton. But you lucked out because they only want me dead. The Darling.”
Someone laughs. Is that me? I think it is. The Darling is amused. That makes me laugh again because it’s ridiculous. Every last bit of it.
“Sera, this isn’t going to happen,” Lucas says.
Something hot rolls over me. I push back at it, but it curls around my edges. It will swallow me, this feeling. I’ll snap.
“We won’t let that happen,” Lucas says, misreading my quiet.
“How the hell do you think you’ll be able to stop it?” My volume startles me. “I know you want to help, but how can you? We don’t even know what this is. Is it a psychopath? That dead girl’s ghost? A serial killer? You should worry about yourselves. About your hands.”
“I don’t think the hands are cut off,” Jude says. He’s studying the dolls with a strange expression, eyes narrowed and thumb at his chin, his Deceptive lost in shadows.
Lucas scoffs. “Why’s that? Because your special hands play such beautiful music?”
“They do, but that’s not why. Do those dolls look injured to you?”
I don’t know. I can’t look anymore. My ears are ringing, and I can’t beat back the image of that sticky pool underneath the doll with my hair. My face.
Lucas’s boots crunch as he walks closer. “No. They look like they’re worried about Sera. Because she’s the victim.”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to look worried,” Jude says.
Emily sniffs into her arms. “Me either.”
“Holy shit.” Lucas sounds faintly sick. “We’re supposed to look like the killers.”
My face goes numb, but I shake my head. “That’s stupid. There’s no weapon. No motive. The only thing we can see is that I’m dead. Lying in a pool of blood.”
“And that same blood is on our hands,” Jude says. “Think like a director, Sera. Look at the scene. We’re lording over you, looking down at you. Your blood is on our hands.”
My hands ball up. Jude’s right. Whoever put these dolls together didn’t do anything unintentionally. Doll-Jude and Doll-Lucas are looking down on my body. Doll-Emily is watching like it’s a movie. My mind swims with masking tape x’s and a dozen light checks. If this is a scene set, then I’ve been murdered.
All three dolls have my blood on their hands. As if they are my killers.
Chapter 16
An owl calls softly in the distance—deep, hollow hoots that warble into a low trill. It sends goose bumps up on my arms, but I still can’t tear my gaze away from the dolls.
I shake my head because it doesn’t make sense. This makes it look like one of us is responsible for killing me, but what about Ms. Brighton and Madison and Hayley? And what about the words on our arms? If this whole stupid thing is some sort of elaborate warning, who the hell would bother?
Why wouldn’t they just save me?