Chapter 16
Ricky paced the length of the living room, dragging his hands through his hair, breath coming fast and shallow, like he was trying to outrun a thought that kept matching his stride.
“We need to get the fuck out of here,” he said.
I shook my head. “Whoever slashed those tires made sure we couldn’t.”
Jake was already at the counter, pouring himself another glass of bourbon. The sound of liquid hitting glass made something inside me recoil. It was calm and practiced, almost ritualistic. I considered telling him to stop, then swallowed it. We had enough fires burning.
Ricky spun toward me. “So, what? This is it? We just sit here and wait?”
“No,” I said. “We think.”
“Think about what?” His voice cracked. “Who would even do something like this?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again. Because that was the problem. I didn’t know who, but I knew how. This wasn’t chaos. It was progression. It was deliberately meant to contain us. Random didn’t slash tires, isolate us, then escalate.
“What about that store?” Ricky said suddenly. “The one down the road.”
“Down the road?” Jake scoffed. “It’s six miles away.”
The suggestion landed like a struck match. The pen.
My pulse spiked. I didn’t explain. I just turned and ran down the hall, feet padding against the floor. I grabbed the pen from the dresser and paused, staring at it. It hadn’t changed.
When I returned to the living room, Ricky was mid-spiral and Jake was mid-sip.
I held it out in my palm. The hockey-stick shape looked innocuous, stupid really, like something you’d win at a carnival. “I don’t think what’s happening is random.”
Jake laughed. “Oh God.”
Ricky frowned. “What are you trying to say?”
“She’s saying we’re cursed, bro.” Jake chuckled to himself. The word cursed dripped with mockery.
I ignored him and focused on Ricky. He was the only one I could still reach. “The sign at the shop. It said All items cursed. Curse lifted at time of sale. One of you put this in my bag. We stole it. And now we’re paying for it.”
Jake snorted. “Didn’t we already establish that curses aren’t real?”
“That was before two of our friends and the owner of this house ended up dead. So no, I think it’s still up for debate.”
Ricky stared at the cheap pen. “You really think that did all of this?”
It sounded insane out loud. A pen made up of plastic and ink, something you’d lose at the bottom of a junk drawer without a second thought.
But it wasn’t about the object. Or what it was worth.
It was about the rule. I looked down at it, suddenly unable to shake the feeling that it had never been harmless.
Whatever we’d disturbed didn’t care about intent or scale, only violation.
“Yes,” I said. “It explains everything.”
Jake laughed again, before taking a long drink. “It explains nothing. It’s just the most melodramatic explanation, the one that lets you pretend bad things don’t just happen. Face it, Blair. You’ve always had a flair for theatrics.”
“Oh, fuck off,” Ricky snapped.
Jake looked at him, surprised. “You’re really entertaining this?”
“You can explain away Maddie,” Ricky said. “And maybe even Noah. But Bill? Someone drove an axe into his chest.”
“We don’t know anything about Bill,” Jake shot back. “Maybe he had enemies. Enemies who are closer than we think.”
“That’s one hell of an enemy,” Ricky said.
Jake shook his head. “Stranger things have happened.”
There it was—that resistance. It was sharp, immediate, like the idea of a curse offended him more than murder.
“Who put this in my bag?” I asked.
I was met with silence. I looked at Ricky, then Jake.
“Who?” I pressed.
Ricky’s jaw tightened. “Jake did. He thought it’d be funny.”
Jake rolled his eyes. “Way to have my back.”
I stepped closer. “Jake, what were you doing in the kitchen the night Maddie died?”
“You mean when she wandered outside and froze to death?” he said flatly.
“What were you doing?”
“Sleepwalking. That’s what you said.”
“I don’t know what you were doing before I came out into the kitchen,” I said.
“And I don’t know what you were doing either,” Jake snapped.
“What about Noah? You were alone with him.”
“He was in the shower. I was on the couch.”
“What about last night?” I said. “You took Maddie and Noah’s room, why?”
“It has a king-size bed, and they certainly weren’t gonna be using it.” He shrugged.
“Did you go outside at all?”
“Nope.”
“And what about the drinking?” I asked.
“I’m on vacation.”
“Does this look like a fucking vacation to you?”
He didn’t answer. He pressed his fingers hard into his temple.
“And that,” I said, gesturing to him. “You keep grabbing your head like you’re in pain.”
Before he could respond, Ricky cut in. “You have been off since we got here, man.”
Jake turned slowly, like he was seeing Ricky for the first time. “Oh,” he said. “You too?” His eyes darted, unfocused. “Now you think I did this?”
“I think you’re hiding something,” I said.
He laughed again, but it came out fragile, like it might shatter if he pushed it any harder. “You’re both out of your goddamn minds.”
His face twisted, anger curdling into something uglier. “You know what this is?” he barked. “This is what you do, Blair. You panic. You spiral. You decide everything’s doomed, and your first instinct is to burn it down rather than to face it.”
“That’s not what’s happening.”
“That’s exactly what’s happening!” he shot back. “Three years, Blair! Three years, and you just woke up one day and decided it wasn’t enough.”
Ricky shook his head. “Man, listen to yourself.”
“Shut the hell up!” Jake yelled. “You weren’t the one she left. You weren’t the one who had their entire life pulled out from under them.”
“That doesn’t mean—” Ricky started.
“It means I’m the only rational one here,” Jake said, his voice cracking. “It means I’m the only one willing to look at reality. But instead, you’re both looking at me like I’m guilty.”
“No one said that,” Ricky argued.
Jake turned to me. “And that?” He pointed at the pen. “That’s your answer?”
I looked down at the pen and then back at him and nodded. His eyes changed color and something in him shattered.
“I hope you both fucking die here,” he said.
Ricky froze. “What the fuck did you just say?”
Jake stared at him, teeth bared as the rage swelled. “You heard me.”
He shoved past us and yanked the door open, and the storm exploded into the room.
“Better yet—” he shouted, backing into the white that had suddenly returned. The words were lost to the wind, being stolen away before they could reach our ears.
The door slammed shut behind him, the sound echoing through the cabin like a gunshot.
For a long moment, neither of us moved. The windows rattled, as if his fury had rippled through them.
Ricky whispered, “Jesus Christ.”
I stared at the door, my heart pounding so hard it hurt. Beneath the fear, beneath the shock, something colder settled in.
The reason Jake didn’t want us to believe in the curse wasn’t because it was ridiculous. He didn’t want us to believe in it because if it was real—this was all his fault.