He thought about dosing her again, but there was no time. Besides, he’d given the rest of his stash to Kisha right before hiding her in the attic.
Better, he’d told her, if they split up. Abercrombie and the girl were looking for him and Colton’s girl, not for her. He’d told her to stay there, no matter what happened, no matter what she heard, until she was sure it was safe to come out again. She could stay quiet as long as she wasn’t dope sick.
Colton’s girl whipped her head to the side, but was still unaware of anything around her. She’d passed out halfway up the stairs.
He heard their voices. And even farther away, much farther, he heard sirens.
And then she moaned.
Damn! Damn, damn, damn! He dropped to his knees and covered her mouth with his hand but it was already too late. He could hear their footsteps now too, and it was only a matter of seconds before they busted down the door. Before they found their way inside.
Before they caught him.
He bent forward, pressing a gentle kiss on the girl’s cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said almost sadly as he released the blade on the knife in his hand.
And then plunged it into her gut.
CHAPTER 21
WHEN JAY HIT THE DOOR WITH HIS SHOULDER, it didn’t splinter beneath his weight or anything quite so dramatic. The handle, which was probably old and in disrepair anyway, fell apart on impact, and the door shot open, banging against the wall on the other side. The crashing noise filled the house, echoing off the walls.
The sound of rushing water was stronger in here, as was the urine smell. Violet recoiled, again covering her face. She could see fragments of the space around her, tiny pieces of the room: an old bureau with a cracked mirror, its jagged shards catching bits of light from outside and reflecting it around them; a window with dingy-looking curtains billowing in on either side of it; a mound in the center of the floor that could only be one thing.
“Chelsea,” Violet whimpered, falling to her knees at the same time she caught a glimpse of another person—the killer—emerging from the darkened corner. Above his head there was something glowing, a blur of light that Violet couldn’t make out . . . he was moving far too quickly now.
“Jay,” she tried to warn, but it wasn’t necessary.
Whoever he was, he was already launching himself toward the open window, throwing himself over the sill just as Jay was about to reach him. And with him went both the trickling of water and the stench of old urine.
Two of his imprints.
“We did it,” Violet breathed. “We found her.” Outside, the shrill sound of sirens came closer, and she no longer cared about anything except that she’d found Chelsea.
And then, before she could stop him, before she could even shout his name, she watched as Jay, too, hurled himself over the window’s ledge.
She started to get up, to go to the window to see if he was okay. To see if he’d landed safely, but a hand stopped her. Chelsea’s hand.
Relief rippled within her and spread outward.
“It’s okay, Chels, I’m here now. I’m here.”
She heard it then, a wheezing sound, and she felt frantically for Chelsea’s face, her hands stroking her friend’s cheeks. “It’s okay,” she repeated, but this time she was no longer sure. Something was wrong.
She kept going, her hands searching the girl beneath her as the sirens outside grew nearer and nearer. When her hands reached Chelsea’s belly, she felt something warm and sticky and wet.
Her first instinct was to draw away. She didn’t want to touch it. Not this. Not Chelsea’s blood.
But that moment passed quickly, and then Violet was screaming as she heard the commotion below her, just outside the window. “Help! We need help in here!”
She pressed her hands as hard as she could to the wound, it was all she could remember from the abbreviated first aid course they’d had in PE. She thought that maybe she should do something more, but she wasn’t sure what that something might be.
And then Chelsea went still beneath her.
Not the kind of still that happens when someone falls asleep, when you continue to feel their breaths, when you know their blood is coursing within them.
No, this was a different kind of still. The kind that Violet had only seen in death.
She heard footsteps that seemed too far away. Voices that were disjointed and sounded nonsensical to her ears.
Nothing made sense. Nothing was real.
Hands pulled her off Chelsea and she struggled against them, fighting to stay with her, fighting to remain at her friend’s side so she could save her. So she could protect her. To stop whatever was happening.
But when she first saw the smoke coming up from Chelsea, from her hair, her skin, her mouth, as insubstantial and wraithlike as the air itself, she realized . . . she knew . . .
She was too late.
Heat . . . smoke . . .
This was Chelsea’s echo she was witnessing.
“No!” She heard someone screaming. “No, no, no, no . . .” It went on and on and on . . .
She didn’t realize it was her until they were dragging her from the room so the paramedics could work in peace. Behind her she heard the sound of the electrical paddles charging, and then voices and scuffling, followed by more machines. She heard all of those things repeated more than once. More times than she could count.
She huddled on the floor in the hallway unable to catch her breath, unable to do anything but pray, and she wasn’t even sure she was doing that right. After either a minute or forever, she had no idea which, a man’s face appeared in front of her. She had no idea who he was, and frankly, she didn’t care. He asked her question after question, none of which she could answer:
Did she know what her friend had taken?
Did she know how to reach Chelsea’s parents?
Was she injured? Had she taken anything?
She couldn’t talk, she couldn’t think.
Was there anyone else in the house besides the two girls?
Somewhere, in the back of Violet’s mind, something clicked, as if a switch had been flipped. That one—that question—meant something to her.
It took her a minute to work through it, to make the words make sense, but when they did, Violet stared back at him and nodded.
“Someone’s in here? Who?” the man asked, signaling to someone behind him, and she saw his uniform then and realized she was talking to a cop. “Where? Can you tell me where?”
She nodded again, reaching up to wipe her eyes and realizing that’s what was bothering her. There was still another imprint in the house. The colors were still swirling and spinning and blurring her eyesight.
She pointed up.
Another officer joined the first one, and they exchanged a glance. “Upstairs? But we’re on the second floor,” he told her, and she nodded once more.
“He wasn’t alone,” she said at last, her voice rasping as she hoped she made sense. She tried to look past them, to see through the slits in her vision. “An attic, maybe? There.” She pointed now, finding it in the ceiling. “The opening.”
“Someone get her out of here,” one of them called, and then she was being pulled down the stairs. She tried to see into the room, where they were still working on Chelsea, but all she could see were bodies swarming, and all she could hear were the sounds of chaos.
She watched as the officers converged on the attic door, weapons drawn, and she rejoiced in the fact that, as she was pulled away, her vision began to clear.
Outside, she hugged herself as she was ushered toward one of the big red ambulances. She’d been in them before, she knew the drill.
There were so many lights flashing it was nearly as blinding out there as it had been inside the house, where the imprint had been. She had to shield her eyes just to see where she was going.
She felt numb. Cold and numb.
Hysteria began to creep in, and she wondered if this was what it felt like to go mad. This sense
of nothingness.
She saw Rafe, already giving his statement. He started to say something to her as she passed, but she ducked her head, not wanting to have to say anything in return.
It was too soon to talk.
She let them lead her into the back of the van and she dazedly accepted the blanket, although she just let it fall from her shoulders, not caring whether she was cold or hot, or anything really. She waved away the water, not even able to say no thanks.
She closed her eyes when she saw Rafe approaching. “That boyfriend of yours is way more badass than I thought. He’s got one helluva right hook.”
“Jay?” she gasped. She hadn’t thought about him since she’d watched him jump out the window.
Rafe nodded. “I saw that guy come flying out that window, and I thought what a dumb mother . . . Well, you know . . .” He shrugged. “And then I saw that dumbass boyfriend of yours come right out after him. When he hit the ground I thought for sure he must’ve busted both his ankles.” He shook his head as he recounted the story for Violet. She struggled to focus on his words. “But then he jumped up and started beatin’ the hell outta that guy. I swear if the police hadn’t gotten there when they did, dude would’a been on his way to the hospital instead’a jail.”
Violet nodded, trying to keep up. “They got him? He didn’t get away?”
Rafe indicated one of the police cars, and Violet looked, seeing that there was a guy sitting in back. He had black hair and a straight nose and skin too smooth to be considered a man just yet. If it wasn’t for the brimstone cross running down the entire length of his neck, Violet would never have realized it was him.
Except that now that Rafe had pointed him out, she could sense those other things too. The water. And the scent.
And one more thing, something she hadn’t been able to make out in the room.
He had a halo. A ring of light around his head that almost . . . almost made him look angelic.
But Violet knew better.
This boy was no angel.
“Where is he? Where’s Jay?” she whimpered, wanting to see him now. Wanting to touch him and hold him.
She heard him then, and realized he must’ve been near her the entire time. “I’m right here.” Leaning forward, she glanced into the back of the ambulance parked beside the one she was in. Jay was there, holding a thick piece of gauze to his cheek.
He nodded at her. “I would’ve come find you, but I was told if I try to leave the back of this rig again, they’d tell the doc to sew my stitches in the shape of a heart.”
“Stitches?” Violet asked, jumping down and going to him.
He hooked his arm around her waist, drawing her close. His breath was warm and comforting against her cheek, and his voice was soft. “It’s nothing. I’ll be fine.”
She would’ve asked more, but just then she heard the commotion behind her, and there was a stretcher coming out. One of the paramedics was calling out orders and she heard something about a girl who’d OD’d. But somewhere in there, in all that chatter, she heard the words: Vitals are stable.
Her heart sped up, hope filling her to overflowing. She left Jay and went closer, wanting to see for herself. Needing to know if it was true, that Chelsea had survived.
But then her vision clouded, and she realized it wasn’t Chelsea at all. It was another girl.
One who must’ve been hiding in the attic. A killer.
Jumping out of the way, she let them pass as her hope faded. And then she saw the second stretcher. Paramedics were flanking all sides, making it impossible to see past them, and Violet scrambled to get closer, knowing it could only be one person on there.
“Is she . . . ?” she tried to ask as they passed. But the question hadn’t been necessary, because she could see now.
And she almost fell to her knees again.
The imprint . . . the smoke . . . it was gone.
One of the paramedics nodded at Violet as they walked by. “She’s stable,” he said, and then they disappeared into the back of an awaiting ambulance and drove away.
CHAPTER 22
VIOLET SAT BACK IN HER CHAIR, STARING UP AT the ceiling tiles. She knew that it was daytime, and that Chelsea was out of surgery and was now in recovery, but other than that she had no idea what time it was . . . or even what day.
Time seemed to bend and sway and warp around her, distorting her every thought and making her head split.
It felt like weeks had passed since that night at the abandoned house.
Yet only hours had gone by since her best friend had died.
She’d opted against waiting with Chelsea’s family—her parents and her little brother and older sister—and with Jules and Claire, and the rest of the people who’d gathered in the family waiting lounge. Instead, she’d found this quiet stretch of hallway, too brightly lit, but entirely private from the stares of well-meaning friends and family.
Her own parents had come and gone, at Violet’s insistence, giving her the space she’d claimed she needed. They were good like that. Patient.
“There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere.”
Startled, Violet stopped humming, not even realizing she’d slipped into the old habit, as she glanced up at the familiar voice. She shrugged, not sure how she could explain her need to be alone at a time like this, when she should be clinging to others for support. “I’ve been here.”
Sara sat down next to her, and the temperature dropped at least five degrees, at least in Violet’s estimation. She drew in on herself, wrapping her arms around her as she turned to face her fearless leader.
“The girl came to, the one from the attic. Couple of hours ago. She was dazed but she told the officers who escorted her that they needed to find someone named Colton. She said he was hurt and needed help. Most of what she said didn’t make much sense, but they were able to get a location from her.” Violet watched Sara’s blue lips, wondering at the sheer beauty of them. The frost that coated them sparkled beneath the glare of the too bright lights. “When they got there, they arrested a boy and a girl, and found another boy severely beaten, barely clinging to life.” She winced as breath gusted from her mouth on a sigh. “They’d been treating him with heroin. He may never regain consciousness.”
“One of their victims?” Violet asked.
Sara shook her head. “One of their own. As far as we can tell, Evan Schulte, the boy who hurt your friend . . .” Her expression was grave. Sad. “Evan Schulte, the boy we have in custody for hurting Chelsea, was using his friends for home invasions, where they would steal enough to pay for drugs. Apparently, the Bowmans weren’t their first victims, just the first situation that got out of hand and turned deadly. Evan hasn’t said a word, so unless we get the other kid, or one of the girls, talking again, we won’t know much more until forensics start coming back.”
“Unless one of us can help sort things out,” Violet said, smiling a little now. Glad the killing spree was finally over.
“Yeah, you should be able to sort out who killed who at least,” Sara agreed. “With this many suspects it’ll be hard to know for sure who’s to blame. As far as the why and the how, well, I’m hoping to get my hands on some of their things so I can let the rest of the team start working on it.”
There was a long quiet moment, and Violet felt time slipping once more. She couldn’t tell if it was too long, the silence, or if just enough time had passed.
“How’s Jay?” Sara asked at last.
As if conjured by her words, Jay appeared, carrying a Styrofoam cup. There was a bandage on his face, covering the stitches he’d gotten in the emergency room.
“It’s not Starbucks,” he said, handing the cup to Violet. “But it was the best I could find.” He looked ruefully at Sara. “I’d’ve gotten you one, but I didn’t know you were here.”
Violet sipped the bitter liquid, tasting the powdered creamer and wishing he’d have been a little more generous with the sugar.
“Here,” Jay said, reading her t
houghts. He unloaded his pocket, which was stuffed full of sugar packets. “I had no idea how much you’d need.”
She smiled at him, as she tore into three of the packets, dumping them into her coffee.
Sara was watching Jay, watching both of them, when she told him, “I’m really sorry you got dragged into this. Both you and Chelsea.”
Jay sat down on the other side of Violet and leaned forward, so he could look Sara in the eye. “I didn’t get dragged into anything. I’d do anything—go anywhere—for Violet. I’m glad I was there, glad I could help stop that creep.”
Violet was glad too. She’d already wondered what might have happened if Chelsea hadn’t told Rafe where they’d been planning to go. Things might’ve ended very differently.
But Jay was still talking. “And as far as Chelsea, I gotta be honest. That girl doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to do. No one dragged her into this mess. She went willingly. She wanted to be part of Violet’s life. I think she was just glad the secret was finally out in the open.”
Apprehension wrenched her gut as Violet watched Sara’s reaction. Sara didn’t know Violet had confided in Chelsea. Or at least Violet hadn’t told her. And she was learning that Rafe didn’t tell Sara everything.
He hadn’t told Sara about Dr. Lee. Or about their mother being part of the Circle.
Sara didn’t flinch from the news, didn’t respond at all. Still, Violet was grateful when a nurse wearing pale pink scrubs came toward them, interrupting the tense silence.
“You can see your friend now,” she told Violet. They were the sweetest words Violet had ever heard.
“Hey there . . . how ya doin’?” Violet asked, easing her way inside the hospital room. The antiseptic smell stung her nose, and she winced when she heard the incessant beeping of machines all around her.
She stopped short when she saw Rafe there too, standing by Chelsea’s bedside.
“Oh . . . I, um, I’m sorry . . . is this a bad time?” Violet took a half step backward, hating the surge of resentment that rose up her throat like bile.
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