Penelope
That furious itch went wild, long fingernails of dread scraping across her scalp, her skull, her mind. The pain almost sounded like it was saying, I told you so.
Now, for the first time in hours, her grandfather spoke, if only to himself. “The hell is that?”
“Get down, Penn,” Stanley said. “We’re still in no-man’s-land.”
She’d seen that silver light before, three years ago, in her old house, in her old room, moments after she’d awoken in the middle of the night and discovered a strange man standing next to her bed with a gun pressed to her temple.
She’d locked eyes with the man. He’d pulled the trigger, and Penelope’s whole world had gone silver.
It was the same exact silver she saw now.
Penelope had no idea what it meant, had no idea why she’d seen it the first time, let alone why she was seeing it now, but she knew this: that itch on the back of her scalp was suddenly more painful than it had ever been before.
Those long fingernails were practically burrowing into her brain.
The pain was so intense, Penelope screwed up her eyes, but even in the darkness, she saw stars.
Brilliant silver stars.
And now, as the nails dug and dug and dug into her brain, Penelope heard a voice, clear as day, whispering from just behind her ear. It was a voice she hadn’t heard in years.
Three years, to be precise.
“It’s four o’clock, Polly,” the voice said. “Time to get busy.”