Chapter 49 Stranger
Stranger
I blink my vision clear with difficulty. Andrew’s on top of Audrey, a hand around her throat. I reach toward them, but my hand claws ineffectually at the air.
Get up.
They’ve never entirely left. The girls before. I always knew they wouldn’t until I was free, and I never was.
Get up.
But I can’t. My limbs are too heavy, and Andrew is too strong.
He’s killing her.
And Melinda is already dead. My savior, my jailer, my sister, my monster. I loved her. I don’t think I realized until this moment how deeply I loved her and hated her and loved her still, and now she’s gone.
Get up.
I push myself up on one elbow, but it’s useless. I was never strong enough. Not strong enough to escape the bunker. Not strong enough to escape the Hills. I surrendered. To the dark and the deal we made and the fresh cage I built myself.
A dark form hurtles out of the edge of my vision, churning up the trail as it runs—-Barry.
His fur glitters, and my addled mind reads the glints as scattered stars until I realize it’s glass.
Safety glass, from the car window he must have broken through.
I have only enough time to register his presence before his massive jaws clamp down on Andrew’s leg.
Andrew screams. The dog gives a sharp yank, once and then twice and a third time, each one heaving Andrew off Audrey’s limp body. He screams again and kicks out at Barry’s muzzle. His boot connects. Barry snarls and whips his head side to side, dragging Andrew along with it.
Andrew flips over, hands scrabbling for purchase, for a weapon. His hand closes on a rock.
Audrey garbles something out, reaching as if to stop him.
Get UP.
Andrew brings the rock down. His aim is sloppy. It strikes Barry’s shoulder. The dog lets out a horrible sound of pain and releases his jaws. Audrey twists, flipping herself over. Her hand scrabbles in the dirt, finds the gun, but she doesn’t have the strength to lift it.
And then Barry bunches his hindquarters under him, launches forward, and closes his teeth around Andrew’s throat. He shakes Andrew like a rag doll, snarling and growling. Andrew’s limbs flail futilely.
Barry’s going to kill him. I look at Audrey, the horror in her eyes. “Barry!” I yell. Barry freezes, sides heaving, Andrew hanging limply from his jaws. “Release!”
Barry drops Andrew instantly, springing back. He stands with his hackles up, a growl in his throat, head down. Blood coats his jaws, his chest. Andrew’s throat and leg are pulped meat, but he’s breathing wetly, one hand lifting, fluttering like a wounded bird.
Audrey is propped on one elbow, gun bobbing as she tries to point it at Andrew. Her eyes are wild, her hair matted with dirt and blood. I touch fingertips to my own temple and hiss with pain.
“Audrey. It’s okay.” I stagger to her, drop down on one knee.
Her face turns toward me, but her gaze can’t find me.
I close my hand around the gun, easing it from her.
There’s no strength in her to stop me, even if she wanted to.
I put an arm around her, pulling her in to plant a kiss on her forehead.
“You’re okay. You’re going to be okay,” I tell her.
I knew when I saw her at the witch tree that a moment like this was coming.
She was never someone who would stop looking.
And isn’t that what I was waiting for? Isn’t that why I confessed to Meghan?
I wanted to be known. I wanted my name remembered, added to the inventory of my ghosts. But it was a mistake.
That girl died in the dark. I am something else now.
I let Audrey go. Still dazed, she remains there as I limp to where Andrew lies and bend down over him. The growl is gone from Barry’s throat. He pants, teeth still ready, but he looks at me without fear.
The damage is mostly to the sides of Andrew’s neck.
His eyes are glazed, but he’s conscious.
Still breathing, still bleeding. I set a palm against the side of his neck.
Blood flows over my skin. My other hand is coated already in the blood of his sister.
The panic in his face gives way for a split moment to hope—-he thinks I’m trying to stop the bleeding.
Emily and Melinda and Liam and Andrew. They’d all have gone on if it weren’t for me. To live their lives and claim their fates, and let my life be the price paid for it. It was always going to be this way. Them or me.
The swing of a hammer.
The ravages of regret.
The path of a bullet.
“I killed you all,” I whisper, and I set the gun against Andrew’s forehead.
When the gunshot fades, all I hear is a sound like the rustling of insect wings.