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“Is that why...” I cleared my throat and gestured generally at his wrist, suddenly embarrassed. “You didn’t seem to care about hiding it, so...”
“This?” He laughed, pulling his sleeve up to bare the bandage.“I didn’t do this to myself. Well, I did, but it was stupidity, not intent.”
“I see.” My cheeks flamed. “I thought—”
“Oh, I’m horrifically depressed,” he assured me cheerfully. “And intensely medicated. I’m all right just now,” he added, seeing my look of alarm. “I have good days and bad ones and a lot of mediocre ones. And I overcompensate with a cheerful demeanor, or so my therapist says. It’s under control, promise. I just... had a bad patch, recently, and got into a bit of trouble.”
“Trouble that left your arm cut up?” I asked.
He winced. “Wounds inflicted by a prisoner I was retrieving from confinement.”
“You staged a jailbreak?”
“I stole a falcon,” he answered. “She was being used as the mascot for an amateur football team and wasn’t being cared for properly, so I arranged a rescue. She did not appreciate my chivalry, however, and this was the result.”
Abby chuckled. I jumped a little—I’d almost forgotten that she was there. Judging by the look Liam gave her, so had he. “You gotta ask the damsels if theywantto be rescued,” she called over her shoulder.
“Right, so when you’re kidnapped I’ll go ahead and wait for a signed consent form before I rescue you, then?” he called back. He sounded jokey, but there was a definite barb under the words.
“I can rescue myself, thanks,” she shot back.
“Glad that’s settled,” I declared beforejust jokingturned intoactually arguing. Abby shook her head ruefully and ducked inside one of the buildings—the biggest one still standing.
“Sorry to pry,” I added, somewhat belatedly.
“I don’t mind talking about it with you. Oddly,” Liam said, a little quirk in the corner of his mouth. Like I was a puzzle, but he was patient enough to hold off on solving me. It should have irritated me, but the truth was I didn’t entirely hate the idea of being solved by Liam Kapoor.
“Hey, guys?” Abby called. She leaned out the door. Her eyes were wide. “You should come see this.”
The building Abby beckoned us toward was larger than the others, and when I stepped past the rotting front stoop and inside, I realized why. It was a church. Small and cramped, but with vaulted ceilings, the bare rafters gave it the acoustics of a larger building. Once, eight pews had stood in two orderly rows. Now two remained in place, the others overturned and rotted apart, cast up near the door like someone had dragged them there. At the front of the room was a small wooden altar. On it was a triple-paneled wood painting, hints of paint still flecked here and there, but whatever figures had graced it were obscured completely by age.
“I didn’t think Landontown would have a church,” I said, looking around.
“It’s older than Landontown,” Liam told me. “There’s never been any known Native settlement, probably because it’s so inhospitable. But a group of Russian fur trappers and fishermen, plus a few Native Alaskans who’d intermarried, tried to make a go of it in the nineteenth century. Unsuccessfully, I might add. Turns out ‘any source of food at all’ is kind of important. Mrs. Popova’s actually descended from one of those intermarriedfamilies. Landon’s people restored the church for the history, but they didn’t use it.”
“Not for worship, at least,” Abby said. I gave her a quizzical look, and she pointed past me. I turned.
It took me a moment to realize what I was looking at. Broken boards were nailed to either side of the door. Almost as if...
“Someone boarded up the doors,” I said.
“The last transmission from Landontown said some of them had taken shelter in the church,” Abby said.
Liam touched one of the pieces of splintered wood, his face troubled. “They meant shelter from a storm,” he said.
“You don’t board up doors just to keep out the rain.” She gave him a level look.
He gave a little shake—and then snorted. I watched him push his unease away, but he didn’t have a void to cast it into. It lingered, a sour note in his expression even as he dismissed her. “So which is your favorite conspiracy theory? I’m partial to ‘little green men ate all the hippies,’ myself,” he said. She glared at him. “What do you think, Sophia? I mean, I’m not saying it was aliens...”
I didn’t respond. There was something else by the door. Something scratched into the sill beneath the window. I trailed my fingers over the faded letters.WE ARE NOT ALONE. A declaration of faith? Or a warning? I’d listened to the supposed recording of the last transmission out of Landontown.We thought we were alone, the man had said.
I could hear Abby and Liam arguing behind me—Abby pointing out all the inconsistencies with the idea that a stormhad obliterated Landontown to the last man, Liam responding by coming up with increasingly absurd explanations. Outside, a few wisps of mist had begun to gather low to the ground, between the buildings. A single pane of the window was still intact, speckled with dust and grit. I found myself checking my reflection instinctively.
At first, I didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. No wild hair, wearing the same clothes I was, facing the proper way. And then I realized—the girl in the reflection was standing in an empty room. Liam and Abby, arguing away behind me, were nowhere to be seen.
The girl’s lips moved, forming a single word:Run.
In the darkness behind her, a shadowed figure emerged, spreading its wings.
