Page 91 of Petrify

I think about the phone screen lighting up with the name Britt and the picture of her, and I don’t think I can breathe anymore, I can’t even think, my legs wobbling underneath me. Arms outstretched towards the front door—somehow I’m in thefoyer. The chandelier sparkles above me. A thousand little fires ready to rain down on me, shooting stars, fireflies.

The front doors are unlocked. The moment the outside air hits my skin I suck in a deep breath, almost stumbling. The world spins. The earth is moving too quickly. I feel flurries whipping across my skin, even when only a soft dusting falls from the clouds. The ground shakes, threatening to force me to my knees.

I grasp the stone banister at the top of the stairs.

The drive is a white snake winding through the hills, disappearing into the dead forest surrounding the house on all sides. I know there’s a fence somewhere in that wood. Keeping us in. KeepingBazin.

Another sharp pain shoots through my head.

Breathe.

I try. I really do.

I count to ten as I inhale.

One, two, three, one, two, three.

Panic is still weaving between my ribs, through sinew and cartilage, gripping my heart tight.

I always do this.

I squeeze my eyes shut and focus on counting through it. They’re not going to send me away, he said they wouldn’t, he said he wouldn’t let them, but maybe he is done with me, maybe in a week I’ll be back in New York and stuck with nothing again. I can’t go back,I can’t do this.

One, two, three.

My nails claw at the stone, chipping in the brittle air. Anchoring me, like I could float away, and part of me wishes I could, part of me wishes the ground would cleave in two and swallow me whole. The dead of this estate could take me as their sacrifice. Not Arnie. Not him.

Four, five.

It’s fine. I’m being overdramatic, as always. Too intense and too much, this is too much, I can’t keep doing this?—

A sob wracks through my teeth.

“Breathe, Mallary.”

Another catches in my throat. “Ican’t.” I’m talking to no one, speaking to the air, I’ve really lost it, I’ve finally lost my mind.

I want him to touch me. I need him to put his hands on me, I don’t care how, I just need his fingers on me, in me, gentle or rough, I don’t care?—

“Breathe.”

He doesn’t touch me.

My skin is on fire. My brain pulses with every beat of my heart. I can’t move, afraid if I let go of the banister I’ll fall, and I don’t know if he’s there to catch me.

There’s an energy buzzing through me. I’m electrified. That’s why it hurts—there’s too much ofthisinside of me.

Too much, too much, it’stoo much.

I’m tripping down the stairs without another thought. Somehow I make it to the bottom without my knees slamming into the gravel, and then I keep going, sending rocks scattering, gasping each breath, but the movement helps, gives my heart a reason to beat frantically in my chest.

“You feel like you need to run?” He’s still close. “You want to escape it all, don’t you?”

Another sob wrenches free from me.

“You want to escape me? You didn’t get very far the other day. Can you outrun me this time?”

No.