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They separated, Cybil to the kitchen, Quinn to the bathroom. Layla stepped into the bedroom, and froze with a knife point at her throat.
"Don't scream. It'll go right through you, right through, and that's not the way it has to be. "
"I won't scream. " Her gaze latched on to the bed-and the rope, the roll of duct tape on it. On the can of gasoline. Cybil's vision, she thought. Cybil and Gage had seen her bound and gagged, on the floor with fire crawling toward her.
"You don't want to do this. Not really. It's not you. "
He eased the door shut. "It needs to burn. It all needs to burn. To purify. "
She looked up at his face. She knew that face. Kaz. He delivered pizza for Gino's. He was only seventeen. But now his eyes gleamed with a kind of jittery madness she thought was ancient. And his grin was wild as he backed her toward the bed. "Take off your clothes," he said.
In the kitchen Cybil pulled milk, eggs, fruit out of the refrigerator, set them on the counter. When she turned toward a broom closet, hoping for a box or bag, she saw the broken pane in the back door. Instantly she pulled her. 22 from her purse and reached for a knife in the block.
One missing, she thought, fighting panic. A knife already out of the block. Gripping hers, she spun back toward the living room just as Quinn opened the bathroom door. Cybil put her finger to her lips, pushed the knife into Quinn's hand. She gestured toward the bedroom door.
"Go get help," Cybil whispered.
"Not leaving you. Not leaving either one of you. " Instead, Quinn pulled out her phone.
Inside, Layla stared at the boy who delivered the pizza, who liked to talk with Fox about sports. Keep his eyes on yours, she told herself while her heart made odd piping sounds in her chest. Talk. Keep talking to him. "Kaz, something's happened to you. It's not your fault. "
"Blood and fire," he said, still grinning.
She took another backward step as he jabbed out with the knife, nicked her arm. And the hand fumbling in her purse behind her back finally clamped on its target. She did scream now, and so did he, as she spewed the pepper spray in his eyes.
At the screams, both Quinn and Cybil rushed the bedroom door. They saw Layla scrambling for a knife on the floor, and the boy they all recognized howling with his hands over his face. Whether it was instinct, panic, or simply rage, Cybil followed through. She kicked the boy in the groin, and when he doubled over, his hands leaving his streaming eyes for his crotch, shoved him into the closet. "Quick, quick, help me push the dresser in front of the door," she ordered when she slammed the closet door.
He screamed, he wept, he battered the door.
Though her hand trembled, Quinn retrieved her phone.
Within fifteen minutes, Chief Hawbaker pulled the weeping boy out of the bedroom closet.
"What's going on?" Kaz demanded. "My eyes! I can't see. Where am I? What's going on?"
"He doesn't know," Cybil said as she stood clutching Quinn's hand. He was nothing but a hurt and confused teenage boy now. "It let him go. "
After cuffing Kaz, Hawbaker nodded to the can on the floor. "That what you used on him?"
"Pepper spray. " Layla sat on the side of the bed, clinging to Fox. Cybil wasn't sure if she held him to stop him from leaping at the pitiful boy, or to ground herself. "I lived in New York. "
"I'm going to take him in, deal with his eyes. You need to come in, all of you, make your statements. "
"We'll be in later. " Fox leveled his gaze on Kaz. "I want him locked up until we get there, sort this out. "
Hawbaker studied the rope, the knives, the can of gas. "He will be. "
"My eyes are burning. I don't understand," Kaz wept as Hawbaker guided him out. "Fox, hey, Fox, what's up with this?"
"It wasn't him. " Layla pressed her face to Fox's shoulder. "It wasn't really him. "
"I'm going to get you some water. " Cybil started out, stopped as Cal and Gage rushed through the apartment door. "We're all right. Everyone's all right. "
"Don't touch anything," Fox warned. "Come on, Layla, let's get you out of here. "
"It wasn't him," she repeated, and took Fox's face in her hands. "You know it wasn't his fault. "
"Yeah, I know. Doesn't mean I don't want to beat him into a bloody pulp right at the moment, but I know. "
"Somebody want to fill us in?" Cal demanded.
"He was going to kill Layla," Gage said tightly. "The kid. What Cybil and I saw. Strip her down, tie her up, light the place up. "
"But we stopped it. The way Fox stopped Napper. It didn't happen. That's twice now. " Layla let out a breath. "That's two we've changed. "
"Three. " Cybil gestured toward Fox's fron
t door. "That's it, isn't it?" She turned to Gage. "That's the door we saw Quinn trying to get out of when a knife was stabbing down at her. The knife Kaz had. The one from out of the block in the kitchen. Neither of those things happened because we were prepared. We changed the potential. "
"More weight on our side of the scale. " Cal drew Quinn to him.
"We need to go down to the police station, deal with this. Press charges. "
"Fox. "
"Unless," he continued over Layla's distress, "he gets out of town. Out to the farm, or just out, until after the Seven. We'll talk to him, and his parents. He can't stay in the Hollow. We can't risk it. "
Layla let out another breath. "If the rest of you could go ahead? I want a few minutes to talk to Fox. "
LATER, BECAUSE IT SEEMED LIKE THE THING TO do, Cybil dragged Gage back to Fox's apartment to load up the food.
"What's the big fucking deal about a quart of milk and some eggs?"
"It's more than that, and besides, I don't approve of waste. And it saves Layla from even thinking about coming back up here until she's steadier. And why are you so irritable?"
"Oh, I don't know, maybe it has something to do with having a woman I like quite a lot being held at knifepoint by some infected pizza delivery boy. "
"You could always tip that and be happy Layla was carrying pepper spray and between her quick reflexes and Quinn and me, we managed to handle it. " As a tension headache turned her shoulders into throbbing knots of concrete, Cybil bagged the milk. "And the pizza delivery boy, who was being used, is on his way to stay with his grandparents in Virginia along with the rest of his family. That's five people out of harm's way. "
"I could look at it that way. "
His tone made her lips twitch. "But you'd rather be irritable. "
"Maybe. And we can factor in that now we've got two pregnant women instead of one to worry about. "
"Both of whom have proven themselves completely capable, particularly today. Pregnant Layla managed to keep her head, to reach into her very stylish handbag and yank out a can of pepper spray. Then to blast same in that poor kid's eyes. Saving herself, potentially saving both Quinn and me from any harm. Certainly saving that boy. I would have shot him, Gage. "
She sighed as she packed up food. The tension, she realized, wasn't simply about what had happened, but what might have happened. "I would have shot that boy without an instant's hesitation. I know this. She saved me from having to live with that. "
"With that toy you carry, you'd have just pissed him off. "
Because her lips twitched again, she turned to him. "If that's an attempt to make me feel better, it's not bad. But Jesus, I could use some aspirin. "
When he walked away, she continued bagging food. He returned with a bottle of pills, poured her a glass of water. "Medicine cabinet in the bathroom," he told her.
She downed the pills. "Back to our latest adventure, both Layla and Quinn came out of this with barely a scratch-unlike the potential outcome we saw. That's a big. "
"No argument. " He went behind her, put his hands on her shoulders and began to push at the knots.
"Oh God. " Her eyes closed in relief. "Thanks. "
"So not everything we see will happen, and things we don't see will. We didn't see pregnant Layla. "
"Yes, we did. " She gave his hands more credit than the aspirin for knocking back the leading edge of the headache. "You didn't recognize what you saw. We saw her and Fox in her boutique, this coming September. She was pregnant. "
"How do you-never mind. Woman thing," Gage decided. "Why didn't you mention it at the time?"
"I'm not really sure. But what it tells me is that some things are meant, and some things can be changed. " She turned now so they were eye-to-eye. "You don't have to die, Gage. "
"I'd rather not, all in all. But I won't back off from it. "
"I understand that. But the things we've seen played some part in helping our friends stay alive. I have to believe they'll help you do the same. I don't want to lose you. " Afraid she might fall apart, she pushed the first of two grocery bags into his arms and spoke lightly. "You come in handy. "
"As a pack mule. "
She shoved the second bag at him. "Among other things. " Because his arms were full, she toed up, brushed her lips over his. "We'd better get going. We'll need to stop by the bakery. "
"For?"
"Another Glad You're Not Dead cake. It's a nice tradition. " She opened the door, let him pass through ahead of her. "I'll tell you what, for your birthday-when you're still alive-I'll bake you one. "
"You'll bake me a cake if I live. "
"A spectacular cake. " She closed Fox's door firmly, glanced at the plywood Gage had put up where the glass pane was broken. "Six layers, one for each of us. " When her eyes stung and welled inexplicably, she pulled her sunglasses out of her bag, put them on.
"Seven," Gage corrected. "Seven's the magic number, right? It should be seven. "
"July seventh, a seven-layer cake. " She waited for him to put the bags in the trunk of his car. "That's a deal. "
"When's your birthday?"
"November. " She slid into the car. "The second of November. "
"I'll tell you what. If I get to eat a piece of your famous seven-layer cake, I'll take you anywhere you want to go on your birthday. "
Despite the ache in her belly, she sent him an easy smile. "Careful. There are a lot of places I want to go. "
"Good. Same here. "
THAT WAS JUST ONE OF THE THINGS ABOUT HER, Gage thought, that kept pushing at his mind. There were a lot of places they wanted to go. When had it stopped being he and she in his mind, and become they? He couldn't pinpoint it, but he knew that he wanted to go to all of those places with her.
He wanted to show her his favorite spots, to see hers. And he wanted to go to places neither of them had ever been, and experience them together for the first time.
He didn't want just to follow the game any longer. To simply go wherever and whenever alone. He wanted to go, to see, to do, and God knew he wanted to play, but the idea of alone didn't have the appeal it once had.
Irritable, she'd called him. Maybe that was part of the reason why. It was, in his opinion, a damn good reason for being irritable. It was ludicrous, he decided, and started to pace the guest room instead of checking his e-mail as he'd intended. It was absolutely insane to start thinking about long-term, about commitment, about being part of a couple instead of going solo.
But he was thinking about it. That was the kicker. And he could imagine it, could see how it might be-the potential of it-with Cybil. He could imagine the two of them exploring the world together without the weight of it on their shoulders. He could even imagine having a base with her somewhere. New York, Vegas, Paris-wherever.
A home with her, somewhere to come back to.
The only place he'd ever had to come back to was Hawkins Hollow. And not by choice, not really by choice.
But this could be, if he took the bet.
It might be fun talking her into it.
There was time left, he thought, enough time left for him to work out a game plan. Have to be cagey about it, he mused as he sat down at his laptop. He'd have to find just the right way to tie her up in those strings they'd both agreed they didn't want. Then once he had, he could just tie a knot here, tie a knot there. She was a smart one, but then so was he. He'd lay odds he could have her wrapped up before she realized he'd changed the game-and the rules.
Pleased with the idea, he opened an e-mail from Professor Linz. And as he read, his belly tightened; his eyes chilled.
So much, he thought, fatalistically, for planning futures. His was already set-and it had less than two weeks to run.
