Chapter 26
It was late afternoon, just before sunset.
Charlie stood on the rock outside the old house, staring up at the porch.
Standing on its worn wooden planks were Lou, Abigail, Mason, Henry, her mom, Bjorn, and Vidar, bodies unnaturally still, eyes distant.
All of them looked like Lou had at homecoming, when Elias had possessed her.
The porch was covered in some sort of liquid, thick and sparkling in the sunshine. At first, Charlie didn’t know what it was. Then, when she looked back up at her friends, she realized each of them was extending one hand, a match clutched between their fingers.
Gasoline, she realized. Gasoline and matches.
Charlie tried to yell, but nothing came out. She tried to run, but her feet wouldn’t lift from the stone. She was completely frozen, unable to lift even an eyebrow. She struggled against whatever cruel force kept her in place, wanting to scream, to cry, wanting to do something, anything …
All at once, white light flashed in the sky. When it faded, Sophie hovered above the ground, her wings flapping slowly to keep her in the air. She didn’t look sad or afraid. Her eyes glowed with yellow light, as if she, too, were possessed but by a different sort of demon entirely.
“You can’t save them,” she said, her mouth seeming to move in slow motion. “It’s too late. They’re already gone.”
Charlie wanted to tell her that she was wrong, that there was still time.
But when she looked at the porch, she realized that her sister was right.
They were dead. All of them. The porch burned up, roof collapsing, seven bodies charred to a crisp, as if, in the split second she had looked away, Charlie had missed the fire entirely.
Only then did the invisible force release its hold on her body.
Only then did she start to scream.
She crumpled over herself, falling to her hands and knees on the stone.
She wailed, grief pressing down on her from all sides, like a steady rise in air pressure that would eventually crush her entirely.
She couldn’t do this again. Not now. Not for so many people that she loved.
Not when they were gone and she was alone, completely and utterly alone …
And then—
And then it lifted.
The grief. The misery. The pain. Everything rose from her body like doves taking flight, leaving her completely weightless, as if she could float up off the ground.
She didn’t know how it was happening. She should be devastated, unable to function.
But she felt—impossibly, inexplicably—like everything was going to be okay.
And when she looked up, she realized why.
The porch was intact. The house was still standing. And gathered on the house’s porch were the seven people she cared for most, talking and laughing and drinking mugs of mead together, as if nothing had happened.
As if it had all been a dream.
Charlie’s eyes flew open to total darkness.
She recognized the dampness on her chest and back, the pervasive chill of the sweat that coated her every single night.
She tried to sit up, but her arms were too tangled up in her sheets.
One hand jerked up, lifting the sheet where Henry was sleeping and launching him across the mattress.
He yelped as he came down, bouncing once before rolling to a halt at the foot of the bed.
It was all a dream.
She exhaled, collapsing back, head flopping onto her pillow. It was only a dream. She was safe. Her loved ones were safe. And when she woke up in the morning, she would get right back to training with Elias to ensure that her loved ones stayed safe.
The dream had been bizarre. Not so much the terror and grief—those emotions made regular appearances in her nightmares—but the calm that came after.
The sudden reversal, of everyone being alive again.
It was as if the dream had changed its mind midway.
As if it had decided it didn’t want to torture her after all.
So odd, she thought as her eyes fluttered closed once more. So very odd.