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Jeremy lets out a strangled sound as we edge forward, skirtingto the very limit of the road. The preacher’s hands aren’t covering his face, I realize, because they’re holding the book. It’s tucked under one arm, and the opposite hand rests on its spine. He stares straight ahead and makes no move to intercept us.
He has no eyes.
They aren’t empty sockets. They aren’t a flat expanse of flesh, or caved-in lids, or simply closed. They are the nothing-void that Isaac’s were for that split second, but the nothingness persists. It belongs. It is impossible to describe the sensation ofnotseeing, of perceiving nonexistence. I want to describe it as gray, I want to remember it as gray, but it is not. It is emptiness, filling him. It is hollowness, made solid.
He stares at me, and I stare back. I don’t know how he can see without eyes, but heseesme. Knows me. The others are edging past. Trina looks away. Mel nearly walks backward, trying to keep her eyes on him. Jeremy gets past him and then stands as if to block any approach, if he decides to lunge. Anthony grabs at my hand.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says.
The man’s mouth opens, his lips cracking like dried mud as they move. “The gate is not a gate of iron. The Liar’s Gate is darkness and deceit. The Sinner’s Gate is guilt, and it is judgment. The toll is blood, Sara Donoghue. The toll is blood, and the wicked among you must pay.”
The crow caws. It flies to him, lands on his shoulder. A stringy gob of gore hangs from its beak. Its feathers ruffle out.
“Sunrise is coming,” he says, but this time he tilts his head toward Miranda.
“Sara, let’s go.” Anthony is pulling at me. I let him drag mealong. The crow calls, and it sounds like it’s laughing. We stumble-run our way out of the town, onto the empty road. As soon as we’re out of sight, we stop. We all know what we’ll find, if we keep going. The same town, over and over again.
—
“There has to be a way to make this stop,” Trina says. We’ve been standing, waiting to be shaken from this terrible inertia, for at least two solid minutes. “A trick or something. A way to make it stop repeating.”
Vanessa shivers, fingertips playing with the ends of her sleeves. “The Sinner’s Gate. That’s what he said. The Sinner’s Gate and—and guilt, and judgment. And the toll is blood, and one of us has to pay.”
“It can’t mean—he can’t mean that one of us has to die. No way. That’s—that’s not fair,” Mel says, shaking her head.
Jeremy snorts. “Fair? You think this place cares aboutfair?”
“He didn’t say one of us. He said the wicked among us.” Trina’s voice is soft, almost vanishing in the dark.
Mel chuckles. “Guess you’re safe, then.” Trina doesn’t look at her, eyes dropping to the ground. “Hey. It was a joke, Miss Valedictorian, Never-Missed-a-Curfew. I’m just saying, if anyone in this group is wicked, it’s got to be me.”
Anthony rolls his eyes. “Yeah, underage drinking is so cutting-edge.”
“I’ve done worse things.”
“Like?”
“I dunno. Old-timey preacher man probably wouldn’t like the whole lesbian thing.”
Trina interrupts, voice sharp and almost angry. “You aren’t wicked, Mel.”
Mel’s eyes spark. An argument’s easier than fear, but if we start sniping at each other, we’ll have to waste our energy patching up self-inflicted wounds. I’m rusty at playing peacemaker. It’s like an atrophied muscle, but I used to know the Wildcats so well I could stop an argument three syllables in.
“We just have to get through,” I say. “Seven times, that’s what the book says. They haven’t done anything to us.”
“Yet,”Vanessa points out. “Yet. They’re going to turn on us, can’t you see that? But he said there was a toll. Maybe we can pay it, and get through without—without whatever’s waiting.”
“Nothing in the town has tried to hurt us,” I remind them. I know how to keep the Wildcats together, but Vanessa I don’t know as well. She’s a classmate, not a friend. “I say we keep going. If something does go wrong, then we can run.”
Vanessa shakes her head. “I’m telling you, it’s not going to be that easy. He said the wicked among us. I think we have to consider who that might be.”
“We should have investigated more,” Kyle says. “Gone in the houses, or—”
“No!” I say, in unison with Trina and Anthony. We all exchange a half-amused, half-horrified look. “We don’t leave the road,” I finish.
Kyle’s cheeks redden. “Right. Dumb idea. But it’s still fourtimes through and all we’ve seen is some graffiti that doesn’t make any sense. Hey, Miranda. When we were all hypnotized, or whatever happened, you saidDahut. How did you know that would snap us out of it?”
I’ve almost forgotten she’s there—I’m half-convinced that shewasn’t, that she’s here now because we’ve remembered she is, but that doesn’t make any sense. “I didn’t,” Miranda says. “It was just the first thing I thought of.”
