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But I don’t want Trap going back inside that house. I don’t want him walking by the study door. I don’t want him thinking about what I asked him to do, what I told him I needed, what I thought would make me whole.
So I put the computer on the edge of the steps and head back inside the house.
“Ursula?” I call from the doorway. My voice shakes more than I want it to.
She doesn’t answer.
I force myself to take a few steps into the foyer. “Ursula? Are you all right?”
Silence.
My heart is pounding. I’ve seen enough horror movies to know that this is when the monster jumps out of the doorway, drops from the ceiling, explodes from the floor to destroy its female prey. I catch my breath, steeling myself to go toward the kitchen.
My throat is coated with the rotten-egg stink of gas.
I manage three steps before the sulfur makes me cough. My eyes are burning; they feel like sandpaper when I blink. My fingers tingle with adrenaline as my brain screams, “Danger, danger, danger!”
I cross the kitchen in five long strides, holding my breath as the hiss of escaping gas grows louder. I don’t know how the leak started; I don’t know how it got this bad so quickly, but if Ursula was groggy when I left her, she must be unconscious now.
The door to her bedroom stands open, just the way I left it. But when I look inside, there’s no Ursula. She’s not by the desk. She isn’t on the bed. She hasn’t fallen to the floor, overwhelmed by the stench of gas.
The alarm in my head is shrieking now. I have to get out. I have to save myself.
I sprint for the front door, grateful that I left it open when I began my mission of mercy. As I stoop to collect the computer, I see lights coming up the driveway. They’re low to the ground, moving fast, and it only takes a moment to hear the healthy purr of the Porsche’s engine.
I run toward freedom.
The car skids to a stop a few yards in front of me. Trap’s feet scrabble on the overgrown driveway. Before I can say anything, his arms are around me, pulling me close, crushing me against his chest with the hard edges of the computer held tight between us.
“Alix,” he says, one hand spread across the back of my head. “Thank God you called.”
“Trap,” I manage, like our names can be some sort of anchor.
I’m shaking. My entire body trembles like it’s trying to fly apart. My feet are bare, and the cold of the driveway’s stone is climbing past my knees. My flimsy blue smock offers no protection against the chilly breeze, and a tiny part of my brain wonders when summer started its fade to fall.
But none of that matters. Trap is here now, and his arms will keep me standing, and he’ll take me to the freeport, and we’ll be safe there together. I let my knees soften. I give my jaw permission to relax. My teeth start to chatter, and my head feels light, but none of it matters because Trap is holding me together.
“What the fuck is that?” he says. And I dig deep for the strength to open my eyes. I look into his face, and I realize he’s staring over my head, at something high up in the house.
I twist my neck, because I have to know. And when I realize what I’m seeing, a sharp cry scrapes the back of my throat.
Ursula stands in the window of Herzog’s bedroom. Despite the glass between us, her face is clear. Her hair is wild, snaking around her head like it’s alive. Her mouth is stretched and twisting. We can’t hear her, but she’s shouting something.
I realize we can see her because she’s framed in flickering light. She’s framed in flickeringfire. In her left hand, she holds one of the heavy brass candlesticks that stood on the mantel in Herzog’s study. A flaming taper has kindled the curtains on either side of the tall window. The sheers have transformed into sheets of fire.
Her left hand holds the candle. Her right hand holds a knife.
It’s a butcher knife from the kitchen. Its blade is as long as her forearm.
She shifts the knife. She raises it to her throat. She screams something we can’t hear, but my heart knows she’s stretching out the only word she lives for:Meistern.
Master.
She slashes the knife across her throat.
For one perfect second, Ursula is suspended in the window. Her arms fling wide in victory or reflex or one last supreme proof of her dedication to the man she worshipped. Blood spatters on the glass between us, black in the golden firelight. I open my mouth to scream, but the sound is sucked away by an explosion that tears the world in two.
Bricks fly. Wood splinters. Glass rains down like diamonds in the night.
