Page 42 of I Hope This Email Finds You in Hell

“What are you doing?” she repeats, voice high-pitched. Instead of sweet, it’s grating. “You’re not stealing, are you?”

My heart hammers as I carefully place the busted side mirror in my hands back on the pile. I force my voice to come out casual. “Of course not. What are you doing?”

“I live here,” she says simply. “You?”

“Passing through town,” I say. “Sorry to trespass on your home. I can leave.”

She frowns. “Not yet. You have to stay for the tea party.”

I do a quick surveillance of my escape options. She’s blocking the direct route back to Luke, but the junkyard is a labyrinth of paths. If I go right or left, surely one will lead back to him.

I hate that I can’t do something as simple as look for helmets on my own. Maybe I am in over my head and should have stayed back in Tarrentown.

Too late now.

“Sadly, I’m more of a coffee girl,” I tell her, backing up. Demonic little girls should have been higher on my list of hell expectations. She blinks innocently up at me, but Luke’s not going to catch me slipping again. I’m onto her.

“Mommy doesn’t let me have coffee,” she murmurs. “Says it’ll stunt my growth.”

“She’s right. You should listen to her.” I can’t back up any farther with the pile of junk behind me, so I work at an angle, rounding it until I’m in line with a clear path between two cars. It might not be a straight shot to Luke, but at least it’s open.

“I can’t listen to her anymore,” the little girl says remorsefully. “Not since I slit her throat.”

There it is. I give the creepy child a smile, hoping enough space is between us to get a decent head start. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

I turn on my heel, sprinting in the opposite direction. Expecting the patter of footsteps to follow me, I glance back after a handful of sharp turns and shimmies between cars, but no one is there. I pause to catch my breath, pressing my back against the front of a decaying semi.

“Why did you run away?”

My neck cracks to the side, where the girl blocks the direction I was running toward. She wasn’t there a second ago. There’s no way—

“Why. Did. You. Run. A. Way,” she repeats, fury simmering beneath her words.

“I—”

My voice is stolen by the roar of an engine. Luke skids past her, stopping in front of me. “Get on!”

Helmets be damned. I scramble on the bike as the girl starts screaming her head off.

“I can’t leave, so you can’t, either! We can never leave! Nobody can leave!”

“Hold on!” Luke commands. I wrap my arms around his waist as the bike lurches forward. Instead of dodging the little girl, he hits her.

“No!” I gasp against his back, squeezing my eyes shut. Because suddenly, it’s not the little girl we’re hitting, but an animal with glowing golden eyes. We’re not in a junkyard, but driving along a forested stretch of road. And Luke’s not steering—I am.

I’m back in the car the night my parents died.

“Stay with me!” Luke’s shout tugs me out of the traumatic flashback, bringing me back to the here and now—speeding through the maze of car corpses and junk.

I tighten my hold around him, trying to look back at the little girl. “We just hit—”

“We went through her,” he shouts back. “That is no normal little girl.”

“Where did she come from? She appeared out of nowhere!”

“You were right,” he says, taking a turn so sharp I’m sure the bike will teeter over. I cling to him, fingers digging into his abdomen, and he somehow rights us.

“I was?”