Chapter Penelope
PENELOPE
Something was wrong. Penelope didn’t understand how she knew this—just like she didn’t understand how the heck her sister was speaking in her ear after being literally dead for three years—but whatever the reason, Penelope knew that things weren’t working quite like they were supposed to. Adeline sounded scared. Petrified.
“They’ve ruined it,” Addy said, more than once. “They’ve ruined everything.”
“Ruined what?” Penelope had whispered.
“Just stay here. I need to figure out what to do.”
And where was here? The shower of their room, of course.
Penelope had been standing in the shower for ages, almost from the moment they’d checked in.
It was amazing the water hadn’t gone cold yet, but apparently cold was what Adeline was worried about.
“We have to be sure there’s no water left in the tank. Otherwise you might get hypothermia.”
“Where did you learn about hypothermia?” Penelope said. “What tank?”
“Just be ready to go play The Game. We need to play The Game in room four and take the phone and… and…”
“Are you crying?” Penelope said.
“It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter. They ruined it last night. He knows about the water tank now. It was the only good hiding place, and they ruined it.”
A sensation started on the back of Penelope’s neck.
It was a cold creeping itch, like the scuttle of a hundred little bug legs down her skin.
She’d felt tingles like this before in the last three years, the strange itch that she wasn’t quite alone, but it had never felt like this.
The sensation had never felt this insistent. This painful.
Penelope scratched her skin. The sensation didn’t go away.
“We have to check on them,” Adeline said. “We have to make sure he made it to the room.”
“Who did?”
“Hunter, who do you think? We have to make sure he’s still following the plan. Things will be a million times worse if he doesn’t—a billion times worse.”
“Who’s Hunter?”
“The man who shot us. Who do you think?” Adeline said it casually, like she was describing a classmate at school. “That’s in the past. He’s the only reason everything hasn’t fallen apart a hundred times already.”
Penelope shuddered. The itch on her neck wouldn’t go away. It was climbing to her skull.
“What are you talking about?” she said. “Why are you even here? What is going on?”
She felt a stab of pain in the back of her head. It hurt so bad it made her see stars.
No, not stars: a brilliant silver light. A familiar silver light.
“I’ve always been here. Ever since that night,” Adeline said. “I don’t know why, but we got put together somehow. It was done for a reason. It was done for this, and they’ve ruined it.”
Penelope clawed at the back of her neck. The back of her head. It felt like those little scuttling insect legs were probing her skin. Testing for weak spots.
Penelope said, “You’re scaring me.”
Adeline said, “Do you want to go back to Fort Stockton, Polly?”
“Of course I don’t.”
“And do you want to wake up tomorrow?”
Penelope hesitated. Shower water ran into her eyes. “Of course I want to wake up tomorrow.”
“Then don’t scream. It’ll be easier if Stanley stays asleep.”
“Why would I—”
But then Penelope felt it. All at once, those creeping little feet on her head stopped itching. They stopped for a long, long moment.
And then they started to dig.
There was no word for the sensation. With an awful burning cold, the hundred creeping feet seemed to solidify, forming up into five sharp points, and all at once Penelope had a vision of a hand with long, long nails—nails that had been left to grow and grow in the grave—that were sinking, now, through her skull. Sinking into her brain. Burrowing.
Penelope didn’t care what Adeline said. She screamed. Or at least, she tried to scream and found she couldn’t. She tried to fight. She couldn’t. Penelope stood under the water of the shower, stock-still, as those five long nails sank deeper and deeper into her brain. Into her mind.
The nails found something inside her, something vital. They squeezed.
With a great shudder, Penelope sank to her knees beneath the shower’s jet. She was there for a minute. Maybe more.
When Penelope rose, she wasn’t Penelope anymore.
“It’s safer if I do this part myself,” Adeline whispered. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Polly.”