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But Kit doesn’t hear me, and she doesn’t either. She only hears him.
When I grab for Kit, Madison’s hand flicks up, almost casually, and that force throws me back.
“Don’t you dare!” I scream. “Kill either of them, and I will leave you and I won’t care who dies.”
“You will care… if one of them still lives. If I hold their lives in my hand. But I only need one.”
“Take me,” Kit says.
I scream with everything I have. Scream to drown him out as I fight the force that holds me from him. That force slams intomy mouth, stealing my air, making me choke, unable to speak, to scream, to shout.
“Take me,” Kit says. “I’ll pay the rest of the price.”
There is a pause. One terrible heartbeat of a pause, the room utterly silent, as I fight so hard I black out and surge back. And then the entity says, “Done.”
Kit turns to look at me. His face is twisted with sadness as he struggles for something like a smile. “I love—”
The entity doesn’t let him finish. She hits him with that force, and he sails across the room, slamming into the wall, his head snapping back. He crumples to the floor as I inwardly scream, still unable to make a sound, to move a muscle. Then a figure appears, hobbling down the hall.
Sadie.
She bends before Kit’s unconscious form, wraps her fingers in his short curls, and heaves. I try to scream again, and the world goes black with my trying. The last thing I see is Sadie dragging Kit through the broken window, dragging him away into the darkness.
THIRTY-FOUR
The moment Kit and Sadie disappear into the night, whatever force holds me down evaporates. I shoot to my feet and race to the window, expecting at any moment that the force will shove me back. It doesn’t. The entity is focused on Kit. On her prize. She has him, and nothing I can do will change it.
Oh, we will see about that. He is alive, and I am going to—
“Laney?”
I stop, skidding on the broken glass. I turn slowly, almost reluctantly, because I know what I will see. The one thing that could stop me.
Madison is on her feet, wobbling, her hand to the bandages over her throat.
“Get in the crawlspace,” I say as I race back to her. “I’ll lock you in there.”
“No.”
“Yes! That thing has Kit, and—”
“I know, and I am going with you.” She takes my arm, her grip weak but firm, and starts for the door.
We are outside, and I struggle to focus, feeling as if I’m being wrenched apart by two colossuses booming in my head.
What the hell are you doing taking Madison out here?
Move faster! That thing took Kit! IthasKit.
The second one wins out. It should be an easier fight. Not only does Madison insist on coming with me, but she’s hardly safe in the house. Still, every instinct I’ve tried so hard to bury—constantly reminding myself I’m not her mother—has sprung to life, screaming at me to get my child back in the damn house.
Back in a house with no windows? Without me? With Garrett lying on the floor, still alive in some way, still conscious enough that he might attack Madison in his final fury?
No. She is with me, and she will stay with me.
She is where she wants to be, and that is enough.
As we run across the deck, I catch sight of blood below, of blood spatter on the rocks. I remember Jayla, and I almost body-slam Madison in another direction, so she won’t see her.
