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I try to wrench loose, but he only tightens his grip and my brain says this is Kit. Really and truly Kit. Then I remember earlier, Jayla shivering and Kit giving her his hoodie.
Jayla. That is what is at the locus of that whirling mass of crows. Jayla. Except…
Except something is wrong, because she is not fighting. Jayla would be fighting like a demon, snarling and thrashing and punching. Grabbing crows and crushing them in her bare hands.
Once, I’d snuck into a courtroom to see Jayla. I’d hidden at the back, and I’d watched her argue her case with such brilliant ferocity that I’d wanted to cry with grief and something like pride.
That’s my Jayla.
My Jayla would be in that maelstrom fighting. But her arms hang down, her shoulders slumped forward, as if she’s given up.
Jayla never gives up. Never, never, never. I’m the one who gives up. I surrender. I am afraid, and I do not fight for what I want. She always fights, and if she is not…
The darkness lifts, just a fraction, my eyes adjusting until I can see more than that hoodie. I see Jayla, and she isn’t standing there, defeated. She is being held aloft in that swirling mass of crows. She is unconscious.
Unconscious or…
I remember that scream. That bloodcurdling scream. Kit must too, because he drives himself forward, only a few feet remaining until we reach Jayla. He’s dragging me, as if no longer aware he’s still holding my hand.
We’re almost there. Almost to those crows. Almost to Jayla.
Except we don’t seem to get any closer. Kit lets out a snarl offrustration. Then I realize what’s happening. The crows are carrying Jayla toward the empty windowpanes.
I try to run faster. So much faster. We need to get to her. Need to stop them.
Through the darkness, I can make out that hoodie but nothing more. The only sound is the relentless flap of wings, moving in eerie syncopation.
They fly through the window, and then they’re swooping her up, Jayla’s figure nearly lost in that swirling mass as I try to track it.
Jayla. Get to Jayla.
How?
It doesn’t matter. We’ll figure it out. We have to. This is Jayla.Jayla.I will let nothing happen to her.
The clouds part and the moon shines. Kit and I are charging toward the broken windows, and the crows are hovering. They stop there, and then the mass begins to separate, crows winging off, leaving Jayla suspended by only a few.
Suspended twenty feet over the rocks.
“No!” I shout, my scream mingling with Kit’s as we run.
Jayla hangs there, bent backward. There is a boom, a crack, a sound that I can’t even understand. Something dark sprays against the night, a nimbus of blood around her. Then her body plummets to the rock.
Kit drops my hand, running as he screams, as we both scream. We finally reach the broken windows. Something hits me, like a tidal wave of air, smacking the oxygen from my lungs and hurling me backward.
I hit the floor. My hands slapping down on broken glass. Kit is beside me, scrambling up and running for the windows before I can even start to rise. The force hits him again, and he hurtles past me, hitting the recliner and knocking it over. When he doesn’t spring up, I race over.
Kit lies on his back, arms sprawled, eyes closed.
I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. For a moment, it is as if the flooropens, darkness spewing up to swallow me whole. Then I drop to my knees and shake him so hard his head lolls to one side. But his chest is rising and falling.
He’s okay. Unconscious but alive.
I turn back toward the window. In my mind, I see Jayla again. See the explosion of blood. See her plummeting to the rock. Then I hear a voice, rising from the past. Jayla’s voice with the pitch of childhood.
“So you’re Laney.”
“Your new study buddy,” I say brightly. “I—”
