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“I can check the battery bank,” Kit says, “but there are flashlights in the kitchen cup—”
He stops. I wonder why, and then I hear it. Athump-thump-thumpagainst glass. Not the pound of crow wings but the muffled smack of what sounds like a fist.
I look at the front windows. The sound comes again, and we all turn, until we’re facing the back hall.
Along the hall, we can see the patio doors. A dark shape blocks the moonlight.
Thump-thump-thump.
I look at Madison, still unconscious on the sofa.
“I’ll stay with her.” Jayla starts to hold out her phone, but Kit lifts his, flashlight on.
“Do you want to wait here?” Kit asks me.
I shake my head. Yes, I very much want to wait here with Madison. I wantallof us to wait here and pretend we don’t hear that knocking. Pretend it’s just the wind hitting the door. But we need to see what it is, and I’m not letting Kit check by himself.
There’s a reason Jayla didn’t insist on going with him and letting me stay—whatever is out there blames me. It needs to speak to me.
Kit and I hold hands. Mine is clammy, but he only grips it tight. He tries to pass over his phone. I don’t take it. I’ll get mine later. For now, I just need to keep moving before I lose my nerve.
We reach the back hall. It’s really too narrow for us to walk side by side, but we do it anyway, squeezing in together, hands clasped. We pass the powder room and approach the door to my office.
Thump-thump-thump.
That dark shape moves as it hits the glass. That’s all I see, though. Motion and a huge dark shadow.
“I’m going to lift my flashlight,” Kit says.
I brace and stop walking, my hand clutching his. His cell phone light rises, and I gasp, my free hand flying to my mouth.
The figure at the door is Garrett.
THIRTY-TWO
Garrett stands at the door. Stands there just as he did when he stormed back demanding to know why we were all inside and not out searching for Sadie. For a second, I’m sure it’s a phantom doppelgänger. Then I see the blood. That’s why I couldn’t make out his pale face without the flashlight beam. It’s awash in blood, streaked over his skin and soaking his clothing.
My gaze falls to his feet. I know I’d seen—
My gorge rises. I’d seen the vine sever his foot, and it is still severed. He’s standing on bone, the flesh shredded and filthy with dirt. Intestines bulge from his torn stomach.
He lifts one hand to pound on the window. Where his other arm should be, there’s ragged flesh and bone below the humerus.
His shirt is slashed open, as if vines had cut into his torso. His head cants to one side. His neck has been sliced, and his head tilts, the remaining muscles no longer enough to keep it upright.
Kit lets the flashlight beam fall back to the floor, and he grips my arm tighter as he forces us back a step.
“It’s not him,” he whispers. “Remember that. He’s not alive. He—”
“Let me in,” Garrett says, his voice gravelly and nearly indistinct, like he’s talking from under a mountain of rocks.
Kit steers me back another step.
Garrett pounds the door hard enough to make us jump. “Let me in, you fuckers! You left me out here to die! You let me in this housenow!”
“We didn’t—”
I stop myself. Is this Garrett? Some part of him lingering? Or is it the entity, using his memories and his voice?
