“Go!” she shouts again. “Your sister is in the fruit cellar.”
Parker remains curled on the floor, a heap of heaving breaths and groans.
I rip the napkin from my chest and lurch to my feet. I sprint down the hallway, every nerve shrieking, looking for the fruit cellar.
The house is small enough that I should be able to find it, but panic scrambles my sense of direction. My still-wet shoes slap against the floor as I whirl into the kitchen, and that’s when I see a narrow side hallway. In the center of it sits a weather-warped door with a tarnished brass handle and a padlock dangling uselessly through the latch, unclicked.
I feel relief, then suspicion.
Is this a trick? A ploy to funnel me where they want me, to herd me straight into a cage? If Meredith sent me here instead of out the front door, maybe that was the point.
I spin, half expecting to find them at the end of the hallway, smiling like possessed dummies.
You’re wasting time,I hiss at myself, and yank the padlock free.
A wooden staircase stretches down in front of me, lit from below. I take the steps two at a time.
“Oh my god,” I breathe.
Sitting on the floor is Amelia and another girl. It takes me no time to realize that the other girl is Madison Tory.
“What is happening?” I shout, confused. But there’s no time to explain. Not when Parker could get up and come for us. Or Meredith could change her mind. “We have to go. Now.”
They’re just as surprised to see me as I am them, but they follow my command with haste.
“How did you find us?” Amelia cries, charging up the stairs, pulling Madison with her.
“I’ll explain later,” I whisper, flattening myself against the hallway wall to listen for footsteps. “We have to hurry. His mom’s holding him off.”
From the end of the hallway, Parker’s voice suddenly ruptures the silence. There’s a strangled groan, then an ugly, heavy crash. Parker screams something god-awful, guttural. “Take that, you traitor!”
He’s hurting her. I know he is. But something tells me it’s already too late.
“Go,” I urge. “Go!”
We spill out the front door into the rain. The downpour is so heavy I can barely see their shapes behind me as our feet slap through puddles. The sound is devoured by the storm.
Instead of cutting straight to Mom’s house, I steer us left—toward the Holloways’, their porch light still flowing through the trees. It’s closer, safer. It hasn’t been dark for long, but Rory and Mara may be home.
I turn around to find Madison limping against Amelia, so I grab her other side and she hangs off our shoulders, her weight fully supported between us. Amelia’s car is gone; the street is empty, swallowed by the murky night. It’s almost impossible to see, no streetlamps to guide our way. Even the moon is obstructed in the sky.
When we reach the Holloways’ driveway, exhausted, drenched, my breath hitches. The cars are gone. The house is dark; all the windows are black.
Amelia pounds on the door anyway, frantic, her fists leaving wet crescents. “Rory! Mara! Emmett!”
Nothing. No movement.
“They must still be at the office,” I groan. I lift the mat, plants, anything by the door that could hide a key. But I don’t find one.
Emmett must be out with Harrison, gossiping about our conversations, I’d bet, none the wiser to the terrible danger we’ve found ourselves in.
I crane my neck but can’t see Harrison’s house from the street. Like it matters anyway.
“We can’t stay out here,” Madison rasps. She’s draped over Amelia’s shoulder, barely upright, her feet curling. She’s trembling, too weak to walk on her own. “If he finds us out here, we’re dead.”
I press my shaking hands to my hair, trying to think. None of us have our phones. We could try the other neighbors’ houses, but it all feels like a risk. He could be out here, hunting us, at this moment.
We need helpnow.
