Chapter 65 Caro
CARO
THE SCREAMING IS STILL coming from the church, tearing through its porous walls and howling through Caro’s ears.
She races up the steps three at a time and yanks open the splintered wooden door, Ash on her heels.
They almost crash into one another as they stop short at the sight of what’s inside.
Beyond the sparse wooden pews, lying on a surprisingly well-varnished wooden floor, is a body.
It’s not Hope.
It’s the young woman from Sonnet. Page.
If she was the one screaming, she’s not anymore. She’s lying flat on her back and her hands are tied. Is she dead? Unconscious? Somewhere else in the church—below them?—a door slams.
Caro dodges between the pews, slipping on the floor.
The varnish is still wet and smells so strong that Caro’s head instantly begins to ache.
She drops to her knees next to Page. Alive.
Thank goodness. There’s a pulse. But it looks like she’s just been knocked out, a small pool of blood already forming beneath her head.
There’s a backpack near her, Caro notices.
“Did you get the police?” Caro asks Ash. She carefully lifts Page’s head. Page stirs. The wound doesn’t look terrible. Everything might be okay.
If whoever did this to Page doesn’t return.
And where is Hope?
“No,” Ash says. “I can’t get a signal.”
“Try again,” Caro says. “Page?” she says. “Page, can you hear me?”
“Caro,” Ash says. “The floor is covered in something. I think it’s gasoline.”
“Shit,” Caro says. Ash is right. What she took for a scent of varnish is far too strong, and the floor is slippery everywhere with the petrochemical.
This is all very, very wrong. “Okay. I don’t really want to move Page, but we can’t stay in here with these fumes.
” And because it feels like someone might be about to light this place on fire.
She isn’t seeing any obvious signs of a spinal injury in Page, but this is still a risk.
She hesitates. Is she making the wrong call?
She doesn’t know what else to do.
“Can you help me move her?” she asks Ash.
“I’ll take her head and shoulders, and you can take her feet?
” The wavery window glass casts watery light on Ash as she hurries over.
They will have to maneuver Page through the wooden pews, but it should work; there aren’t very many of the benches left.
It looks like people have torn them out over the years.
As souvenirs? Kindling? Caro’s mind is reeling.
They have to get out of here. There is no pulpit, no stained glass, no paintings.
The church is bare-bones and smells of something underneath the gasoline.
Caro coughs. She has always been sensitive to fumes. She slides her hands and forearms under Page’s head and shoulders. “We want to keep her as stable as possible,” she’s saying, when a sudden sound makes her turn.
The door to the church has swung open and ricocheted back off the wall. Standing inside the doorway is Caro’s father.
“Dad?” Caro says.
Page is stirring. Her eyelids flutter.
We have to get her out of here. Caro can’t do it alone. “Ash?” she says. “Ash, can you help me?”
But Ash is still staring at the doorway, where, Caro realizes, Dan has appeared behind Henry. Caro looks at them both, the two men she loves most in the world. Dan, with his kind eyes and his floppy brown hair; Henry with the whole of her childhood tied up in his being.
A sound. Page, clearing her throat. Caro leans down to hear what she’s saying.
“It’s him,” Page says, her voice raspy. “He killed my sister.”