He broke his arm when a parade float nearly crushed him to death, and he cooked his foot when that demon from the deep almost dragged him through the rift after Lainey. For the past week, he’s been grappling with survivor’s guilt, as if a teenage boy with a broken arm should have been able to stop a fallen angel and her psychotic monster squid.
As though sensing my stare, he looks up—hisbrown eyes puddled with relief. Becausesurprise! Lainey isn’t dead after all. He comes out of his seat and joins me as Mrs. Winslow begins to sob and the phone continues to ring.
We shuffle toward the alcove off the waiting room.
“How is this possible?” I ask him in a low voice.
He shoots a quick glance over his shoulder. “Griffin said she showed up at his house earlier this morning. I guess his neighbor spotted her and called the police. They came and got her, and now she’s here with her mom.”
“Intact?”
“Apparently.” Twig sets his hand on the top of his head. “Are you sure you saw what you think you saw on Halloween night?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“It’s just?—”
“Twig.” I gesture toward his boot—protection for his healing burns. Burns that happenedthroughhis shoe, all because his foot got close to the rift. Meanwhile, Lainey and Ivy were dragged through it.
A female officer joins the other. She hands a distraught Mrs. Winslow a glass of water and gently escorts her to a chair. This past week, I couldn’t let myself think about Ivy’s mom, knowingwhat I knew—that while she was distributing flyers, speaking with the media, coordinating with the police, desperately clinging to hope, her daughter was dead. At least, that was my understanding.
But now?
If Lainey is alive, then couldn’t Ivy be, too?
I just don’t understand how.
“We need to speak with Lainey,” I whisper to Twig.
“I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon,” he whispers back.
Behind us, the front doors slide open.
The reporters converge.
The phone lets out a shrill ring.
And Jude Vandenberg sweeps inside, his dark golden hair windswept. The second his gaze finds mine, his brooding, autumn eyes flood with relief. Like he somehow thought I wasinthe hospital when I told him to meet me at the hospital. He joins us in two confident strides, wraps his arm around my waist, and brushes my forehead with a kiss.
I melt into him for a second.
Just a second.
Then I take him and Twig by the arm and pull them deeper into the alcove. “I need to show you something.”
I remove the seed from the pocket of my puffer vest and open my hand.
It’s no longer glowing.
The seed is just a seed.
The three of us stand there in the hospital alcove, bent over my palm.
“Is… that what you wanted to show us?” Twig finally asks, sounding very much like someone who doesn’t understand the punchline of a joke.
Only the joke is on me.
“It was glowing before,” I say. “When I picked it up. It was glowing.” It also gave me an intense, very bizarre vision. But I keep this tidbit to myself for now. “I was at the well when I heard something behind me. I looked into the bushes and there was this creature.”
