Chapter Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Seven
It’s the dull throb in my skull that drags me out of sleep. It’s the dry tongue and bright, overwhelming light that keep me from slipping back into it.
I groan, rolling over and jamming my face into the pillows. The momentary reprieve from the light is less helpful than I’d hoped, and my stomach twists.
I should have listened to Finn and gone through as much water as I could before I passed out.
The door to my room swings open. Margot stands in the doorway, her hair falling out of its ponytail, her dark eyes wide and frantic.
Instinct has me up and out of bed, panic racing under my skin.
“I can’t find Jasper,” Margot says. Her voice is hollow and strung out. Her skin is flushed.
“What?” I ask. I can’t quite comprehend the words.
A glance at the clock on my bedside table tells me it’s a little after nine in the morning.
Paige and my mom are usually at the Stacks by this time, but Jasper never goes with them.
Mom says he makes whatever tasks they’re doing twice as difficult.
Margot and I are on babysitting duty on weekend mornings.
Margot tucks her hair behind her ears, and it immediately falls back into her face. She ignores it as she shakes her head. “He’s—he’s gone.”
I struggle with every fiber of my being to not freak out and start sobbing or screaming or running around like a headless chicken. None of that will help me right now, and from the looks of it, Margot is on the verge of doing one of those things. We can’t both lose it.
That realization shoves my panic into a cage and locks it—for the moment. Long enough to cross the room and grab Margot by the shoulders.
She shakes her head, tears starting to fall down her cheeks.
“Look at me.”
“Jo, I swear, he was there one second, and then—”
“How long has he been gone?”
“I don’t know, five minutes? No more than ten.”
“Listen to me, Margot,” I snap, as cold as I can. It works. She stills. “You need to get to the Stacks. Find Mom and Paige. Call the police on your way.”
“What about you?” Margot asks.
I take a breath.
“Finn,” I call, and within a second, he’s there. His easy demeanor dissolves as he takes in Margot and me.
“What’s going on?” he asks.
“Jasper is gone.”
He frowns, mouth forming the beginning of a question, but before he can speak, I look at Margot.
“Finn and I will check the property. Get Mom and Paige back here as fast as you can, okay?”
“Jo—” Margot trembles.
“Go, Margot.”
She hesitates another second, then takes off, clambering down the stairs. The old house amplifies her movements all the way to the front door.
I’m going to throw up. My brain knows it before my body does, and to my eternal relief, Finn knows it’s coming, too, because he shoves the small trash can from desk toward me.
I retch into the bin until all that comes out is bile. When I finally rise, wiping my mouth, Finn and I aren’t alone. Aisha and Sloane are near the window with Finn, the three already discussing the search route.
“Aisha, you start at the creek. Sloane, the Holdens’ property. We’ll start here and meet you in the middle. Got it?” Finn instructs.
“We’re going to find him, Jo,” Sloane says to me.
Aisha and Sloane vanish, and then Finn is in front of me. He reaches for my shoulders to steady me, but even if he was corporeal, it’d be no use.
“We don’t know that he didn’t wander off, Jo,” Finn says.
“Yes,” I say. “We do.”
A muscle clicks in his jaw. He doesn’t try to argue the point any further.
That, for some reason, only adds oil to the blazing fire inside me.
Another empty casket. No body to bury, no clear end to bring some semblance of closure. An open-ended sentence for the rest of my life.
“I can’t do this. I can’t do this again,” I say, backing up like escaping this room and conversation will turn back the clock.
“We’re going to find him,” Finn says. He takes a few steps toward me, as if approaching a wild animal. “I swear, we’ll find him.”
“I highly doubt that,” I snap. “No one found you.”
He winces and a tiny flare of guilt runs through me, but it fizzles almost instantly.
Jasper. Little Jasper. With his curious eyes and gap-toothed grin and kind heart.
“He could already be dead,” I say. “He’s going to disappear like you and Aisha and Sloane and the rest of them. He’s going to die, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.” I’m spiraling, but I can’t stop.
“Jo,” he says, voice hard but not harsh.
“What?”
“Your brother is still alive.”
“You don’t know that.”
“He’s alive, and he’s going to stay that way,” Finn says.
“How could you possibly know that?” I ask.
Finn pauses. Indecision wars in his expression, and for a breath, whatever he’s gearing up to say is scarier than the circumstances.
“Because.” He inhales. “Because I think I’m still alive, too.”