Just like I feared—puberty was so volatile anyway, it was the perfect time to jump in and take over a life. They couldn’t prove that she was or wasn’t a Withered; I needed more information.
“I can see this is getting us nowhere,” I said. “I’m going to gag you now and go take a look at her room. Mrs. Butler will come with me, so you two stay completely still or she will not be coming back. No moving, no talking, no calling for help, no crawling for the door. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” said the father, and the boy echoed him softly. I ripped strips from a throw pillow and gagged the two males, then sliced away the ties from around the mother’s ankles. The blade carved through the shirt with a smooth, delicious, ripping sound, and I had to hold myself back from cutting anything else. One, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen— That only made me think of Brooke, lying unconscious in a bad motel. Focus! I backed away, breathing deeply. When I had myself under control again I gestured with the knife for the mother to stand up. “Lead the way and don’t do anything stupid.” She led me through the kitchen and down the hall; I grabbed the rifle as we walked past it.
“It’s here,” she whispered, stopping at the end of the hallway. “She shares it—shared it—with Jessica.”
“Open it.” I kept my voice quiet as well, just in case she was home already—crawled back through the window after kidnapping and killing Brooke.
If Brooke was already dead, I didn’t even know what I would do.…
Mrs. Butler opened the door softly, pushing it slowly and stepping inside. I followed her closely, keeping the knife by her back and the rifle ready in my other hand, bracing myself for another attack by that towering, inhuman Withered—
And then Mrs. Butler screamed, a long, horrible wail of abject despair. I pushed her forward so I could come in past her, and she dropped to her knees shouting “No no no!” at the top of her lungs. Brielle was sprawled haphazardly on the floor, limbs limp and lifeless. I walked toward her, not believing my own eyes: she was Attina. She had to be. All the clues made sense. And yet here she was, as dead as the others. No ashy sludge anywhere. The window was broken, the sill gouged with claw marks. A Withered had definitely been here, even if it wasn’t Brielle. I saw something white by her lips, and bent down to look. The smell of drain cleaner was so strong it made me gag. Foamy bubbles mixed with blood dribbled from her mouth, eating away at the carpet beneath. Her eyes were open, wide and terrified.
“Call the police,” I said.
“What?”
“It’s a revenge killing,” I said. “Whoever killed her did it the same way Glassman died. I heard someone talking about it at the meeting: ‘Pour some Drano down her throat and see how she likes it.’” I stared at the body, too stunned to move. “Word for word.”
“You tortured my family!” she screamed.
I looked down at the knife and the rifle in my hands, at the makeshift bindings so tight around her wrists they were rubbing her raw. “I’m … sorry.”
“Get out of my house!”
I looked back at Brielle’s body. Someone had filled her with drain cleaner that was eating her away from the inside. Enough to kill her where she stood. Randy was the man’s name—he was in love with Sara and he’d told Agent Mills he wanted someone to hurt Brielle in the same way. And now someone had. Why? That’s the part that never made sense: why? The monster I’d seen had teeth and claws—why did it use drain cleaner? Why did it use chemicals on Brielle and knives on Derek and a truck on Corey? And why avenge a death Brielle hadn’t even caused? What could the Withered possibly gain from killing people other people wanted dead?
Oh.