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“You will,” the woman says. When I turn to look at her, she’s latched on to the man’s side. “You’re a good one, Lena. I knew it the second I saw you. We were in the woods that day when you first arrived, trying to understand who you were. Trying to get a feeling about all of you. And then, I saw you watching us when we were bringing food over for Ethan in the basement. I saw how you looked at me when Nathaniel and I had a disagreement about how much to feed him and how long to give him until he caught on to our message. Until he believed. Though you didn’t know me, though you had no reason to want to help me, it was obvious you did. You cared about me. Just like you cared when you thought I was hurt that night.”
Thought I was hurt.Suddenly, it clicks into place. “You weren’t, though. The blood I saw all over you wasn’t yours that night, was it?”
She sucks her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut. “That night was a mistake. I didn’t mean for you to see me, see any of that. I didn’t realize the curtains were open,” she says. “We weren’t planning to be upstairs. But it was too late. You’d already seen. So, in the heat of the moment, I dropped to the ground to make it seem like I was hurt until we came up with a game plan.” She presses her lips together with a tight smile. “You must always have a plan. That’s our motto.”
“Whose blood was it?” I ask, knowing there can only really be one answer. My throat is dry as I croak his name. “Ethan’s? That was the night you killed him? The screams I heard…it was him?”
She doesn’t deny it as she casts a quick, apologetic glance at Austin and Mara.
I could’ve saved him. I could’ve stopped them. I could’ve done something. Anything.
“Why? Why would you kill him? I don’t understand. What did he ever do to you?” I ask, my voice low. I can hardly breathe. My entire chest feels as if it’s being compressed.
“We didn’t want to hurt him. We never want to hurt anyone. It’s nevereverthe intention. But, like my brother-in-law, he gave us no choice. After Austin recommended he book this house for your vacation, he started asking us a lot of questions. He looked us up and found out about our cause, found our web presence and discovered our beliefs. After that, he tried to get your group out of it. He wanted a refund so you could find a new place to travel. After finding out who we were, he wasn’t going to allow you all to come to a house where we so strongly believe that what you are doing is wrong, but we needed you to come. We had no choice then. I had his address from the contract he’d been required to sign when he booked the house, and we tracked him down before he could tell you the truth. Before he could warn you, fill your head with lies about who we are, and convince you not to hear us out. We weren’t planning to kill him, we just needed to keep him quiet long enough to make him understand. The cause is never about harm. We tried to help him, to save him. But he…” She looks at her husband, then down. “He was beyond saving. The night you saw us through the window, he was trying to escape. When I opened the basement door to collect his dishes from dinner, he’d somehow managed to untie himself and was waiting for me at the top of the stairs. He fought hard in his attempts to warn you all, but the effort was futile. He left us with no choice but to kill him. I’m so sorry you had to witness that, Lena.”
“So, we were right? He’s been dead since yesterday, held captive for longer,” I whisper, looking at Austin. “Who was sending you those messages, then? You were just lying the whole time, weren’t you?”
His cheeks grow pink. “I didn’t know he was dead. I just thought they’d taken his phone while they, um,explainedeverything to him. I would text them when I needed something, and they’d send me a message from his phone. Like when I thought you were going to leave, I had them send a message from Ethan saying he was coming.”
I swallow. “How could you do that?”
“It was all for the cause,” he says, looking at Nathaniel with eyes full of reverence.
“The cause?” Memphis scowls. “What is this? Some fucking cult?”
The man crosses the room with four quick steps and slaps Memphis’s face hard enough the sound reverberates through the space. “This isnota cult.” Spittle forms in the corner of his mouth as he stares at him. Then he huffs a breath, runs a hand through his hair, and smooths his shirt, speaking calmly as he walks away. “We are a cause. A family. A belief system.”
Memphis’s chest rises and falls with heavy, angry breaths as he stares at the man, his lips pinched together.
“What is it you believe?” I ask, looking at Mara and Austin. “What is it you believe enough that it was okay to kill Ethan and Paulette and Logan? Enough that it was okay to kill our friends?”
“Sacrifices have to be made,” Mara says, her chin tucked to her chest.
“What are you talking about?” I beg. “None of this makes any sense.”
“What you’re doing is wrong, Lena,” Mara says, with so much conviction in her voice it almost convinces me.
“What do you mean? What does that mean?”
“The books you read, the things you promote. It’s wrong,” she says.
I jerk my head back as if I’m the one who’s been slapped.
“What?” Memphis and I ask at the same time.
The man steps forward, holding up a hand to keep Mara from saying any more. He sits down on the ground in front of us, his hands steepled in front of his mouth. “Let me explain. My name is Nathaniel. You are Lena and Memphis.” He nods as if telling us something we might not know. “You arebook influencers”—he makes air quotes around the words—“meaning you promote books to the masses.” He puts a hand to his chest. “But do you ever stop to think about what those books do to your heart?”
“What?” I ask, brows drawn down with an intense scowl. Nothing he’s saying is making any sense.
“My heart is just fine,” Memphis says. “You know, free ofliteralmurder and all that.”
“Ah, but it’s not.” Nathaniel wags a finger at him. “You are murderers. All of you. And rapists. And torturers. Thieves. My wife and I, we…we want to help you understand why this is true.” He turns, holding out a hand to his wife, and she comes to join him on the ground. “This is my wife, Vanessa.” He kisses her knuckles. “We used to be just like you. Lost and confused.”
They smile at each other before he goes on. “We used to be readers, too. But then, it stopped feeling safe anymore. When you read terrible things, your brain can’t differentiate between fiction and reality. If you read about a murder from the point of view of the murderer, your brain believes you committed a murder. If you read about a rape, you become the rapist. If you read about any sort of atrocious crime, as far as your body, as far as your nervous system, as far as your heart is concerned, you are a criminal. Don’t you see?”
He pauses, his eyes bouncing back and forth between us. “Once those horrible, dark thoughts are in your head, they’re in your heart, too. You’ll never know they’re there until it’s too late. They hide out, waiting to destroy you. Waiting to suffocate you. To blacken your heart as dark as coal. We don’t want to see any more young people corrupted by the written word. Our bodies were never meant to process such horrors, let alone normalize them and use them as forms of entertainment.”
Suddenly, something Bertie from the bookstore said earlier replays in my mind.You know how things are around here.At the time, I’d thought she was referring to business being slow because it’s such a small town. I’m only now realizing how wrong I’ve been. She meant this. Thiscause.Whatever this is. That’s why her store is closing. Because of them.
