by Anya Allyn
He raised his bottle of alcohol at Molly. “Everyone’s lookin’ for someone. ‘Cept me. No one’s looking for me. That detective—Kalassi—he’s still lookin’ for ya.”
“Martin Kalassi?” said Molly, shock registering on her face. “I haven’t seen him since—”
“Since before you ran away to the forest when you were thirteen,” finished Henry.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Where is he?”
“Still living somewhere in town with his wife,” said Ben. “I’ve seen him too. He never gave up on the idea that you and the others might still be somewhere here, alive. And damn, he was right.”
“When all this is over,” said Molly, “if it’s ever all over, I’ll look him up.”
I stuck my hands in my pockets. “Okay, we’re going now, Henry. Don’t try anything stupid, or try to follow us, okay? You owe us that much.”
His eyes moistened. “Calliope, I didn’t mean any of that bad stuff I did. I swear I didn’t. I just wanted to be somebody.” Low sobs racked his thin chest.
Sophronia’s dark eyes looked down at Henry with distaste and she silently waved us toward the door.
Henry lifted his head, his eyes widening as he stared at the doorway behind us. There was someone—or something—behind us.
I whirled around, expecting to see Jessamine.
A figure stood in the foyer, a rifle raised.
Relief sped through me as I realized who he was—a man with his police uniform half-concealed by a thick overcoat.
“It’s okay,” I assured Molly and Sophronia. “It’s Lacey’s dad.”
Henry rose to his feet, swaying. “Sergeant Dougherty, what the fack are you doin’ back here again? Stop comin’ around here all the damned time. There’s no coppers, anymore. And I told ya this is mine. I inherited it—I even got papers.”
Sergeant Dougherty didn’t lower his gun. “We didn’t get what you promised us. We’ve come to collect.” His forehead creased in annoyance as he noticed all of us standing in the gloom. “Who are these bloody kids?”
He stared at each of us in turn, his expression growing incredulous. “What the?” His broad shoulders arched as he turned back to Henry. “How did they get out?”
My blood ran cold.
“Don’t know.” Henry waved a drunken hand in the air. “Maybe Jessamine let ’em out for some fresh air.” He frowned. “Oh, wait, that’s right. They escaped over a year ago. Sorry, forgot to tell ya. Or maybe... maybe I was just glad those poor kids finally got away.”
Aisha’s fists clenched. “Sergeant? You knew we were down there in the underground?”
“Sure he did.” Henry’s head wobbled in a nod. “Oh yeah. He knew. Six or so years ago, he was s’posed to be here searching for Molly Parkes. He came across me taking a big load of food through the forest. He got suspicious and found out what was going on. But he said he’d keep it quiet for a big cut of the treasure that I told him was down there in the dollhouse.” His gaze returned to the sergeant. “But guess what, Sarge? All the gold in the world ain’t gonna help you now. The big freeze is gonna kill us all.”
I struggled to breathe. Lacey’s father had known we were down there....
“Should have taken you off the face of this planet back then.” Sergeant Dougherty lifted his rifle.
Every muscle in my body jumped as the sound of a gunshot rang out. A dark hole appeared in Henry Fiveash’s forehead. Henry took three staggering steps before he collapsed to the ground, his blood spurting across the floor.
Without missing a beat, Sergeant Dougherty trained the rifle on us. “Any of you move and you’ll get the same.”
A low cry escaped Aisha’s throat. “How could you? We were your daughter’s friends—me and Cassie and Ethan. You knew we were being kept prisoners in the underground and you stayed quiet in order to get some payoff?”
“Ethan?” He glanced around the room. “Where is the little criminal?”
“He was never a criminal.” My teeth set together. “I know now that you set him and his grandfather up.”
“That’s life,” he told me brusquely. “Some people win and some lose. Now, all of you get outside. I don’t want to come across any more surprises in here. Hands on heads! The first person to move their hands from their head gets what Henry Fiveash got.”
“Not Frances,” Molly cried out. “Let her stay in here.”
“All of you,” the sergeant told her. “No exceptions.”
We were herded out into the snow.
A man wearing black trod the bleak landscape, his coat hunched under his chin, puffing heavily as though he’d been running. “Dougherty, who in the blazes have you got there?” he called.
Molly took in a quick, shallow breath. “God... it’s him....”
17. Blood and Snow
CASSIE
The man in black made his way over. His jaw went slack when he drew close enough to see our faces.
Molly stiffened. “Uncle Devlin.” Her voice fell around her like shattering glass.
I stared in horror at the man. With his thick features, I wouldn’t have guessed he was Molly’s uncle. His sparse hair was a blondish red—not the deep red that Molly had. He was the man Molly had told Aisha and me about that time she’d met with us in the church. She’d lived with him after her mother died. One night, she’d overheard him and his companion talking about an armed robbery they’d just committed. Molly had run to the police station, and been placed with a foster family, on a witness protection program. There’d never been enough evidence to charge Devlin.
Devlin looked at Molly with confusion for a moment, then realization of who she was seemed to dawn on him. “You little bitch,” he spat. “How’d you get out? There’s a freaking metal wall down there.”
Her mouth dropped open. “How did you even know where I was?”
“I’ve known the whole time. Sergeant Dougherty here found out where you kids were, and he told me. It suited me just fine to have someone keep you locked away. I didn’t care why. Henry Fiveash told us that none of you were ever going to get out of there alive, and that’s all I needed to know.” He strode closer, pointing a gun at her. “You look just like your mother—you’re not a kid anymore.”
“It’s been six years, Devlin.”
“Too right.” His face grew ugly. “Six years in which I’ve been watched by that damned detective friend of yours—Kalassi. He dogged my every move. If you didn’t run to the pigs in the first place, everything would have been pretty. Dougherty and me would have been cashed up.”
“You,” Molly accused, turning to Sergeant Dougherty. “You were the man with the white hair in the car with my uncle that night. You were the one who did the bank robbery with him.”
The sergeant cast a cold glance in her direction. “Well, sometimes people have to take matters into their own hands if they want to make real money in this world. God knows I wasn’t going to make that on a police salary.”
My breath twisted painfully in my chest. “All that money isn’t helping you now, is it, Sergeant Dougherty?”
His eyes were ice and steel and knives. “Cassandra Claiborne. Couldn’t leave well enough alone, could you? You had to follow after that Ethan kid and you both ended up in the underground too.”
I stared back at him. “If Lacey had been kept in the underground with us, would you have come and got her—or would you have just left her there, too?”
He frowned. “What are you talking about? Lacey never went anywhere near the underground. She knows nothing about it.”
I tried to think quickly. On this earth, the world hadn’t found out about the dollhouse. Lacey hadn’t had to tell anyone about her part in it. She must have continued to keep it all to herself.
“You’re wrong,” I told him. “Lacey has been going there ever since she was nine years old. Didn’t you know? Henry Fiveash took her and brought her to the underground. She was the very first one. But instead of keeping her there, he made her bring other girls there
.”
“You’re lying,” Sergeant Dougherty scoffed. “Henry Fiveash wouldn’t have double-crossed me like that.”
I met his gaze. “Are you sure about that?”
Devlin raised his eyebrows at Sergeant Dougherty, twisting his mouth to one side. “You know, it wouldn’t surprise me. Your daughter always was a bit bat-shit. And didn’t she end up in a psych ward, just before the big freeze came? Maybe Henry was usin’ her as a gopher.”
Raif stepped forward, breathing in loud, angry gasps. He jabbed a finger in the sergeant’s direction. “I never thought much of you as a copper, and now I know why. Back when my sister went missing, you led bloody search parties to find her, and all along, you knew exactly where she was. You knew! And as far as Henry Fiveash not double-crossing you, didn’t he just say that the treasure they were promising you has all been taken away? You lost out, big time.”
Devlin snapped his head around to the sergeant. “What? The gold and diamonds are gone?” He pulled a gun from his pocket. “I’m going in to sort that bastard out.”
“Too late,” Dougherty told him. “I already put a bullet in him.”
“So that’s the shot that I heard.” Devlin exhaled air hard. “How in the bloody hell did they cut through that wall and get the treasure out?”
“Don’t know,” said Sergeant Dougherty. “But I’m heading down there to find out.” He gazed briefly at us then back to Devlin. “We’d better get this situation handled first.”
Molly’s hand slipped from her head and she reached for the gun in her pocket. The others and I started reaching toward the pockets that held our knives.
Devlin’s gaze flicked over Molly, then focused on her pocket. “Get your hands back on top of your head. All of you. Now!”
We shot uncertain glances at each other as we obeyed. I knew everyone was thinking the same as me. Not all of us could get out of this alive. Should we all rush at the sergeant and Devlin and hope that some of us survived?
Molly’s breaths grew sharp and angry. “This is between you and Devlin and me. It’s nothing to do with them. Let them go.”
Sergeant Dougherty gave a single shake of his head. “Sorry kids. You all know. You all die.”
Gazing down on Frances’ head, Molly’s jaw tightened. “Frances is just a small child. You have to let her go.”
Frances raised her brown eyes to Molly, giving her a small, sad smile. Frances had faced death over and over in her short life.
Desperation bled through me.
Ben stepped forward alongside Raif. “Look around you, Sergeant. The world’s ending. Doesn’t even matter what we know. There’s no one who even cares. There’s no police, no courts, no jails.”
The sergeant tilted his chin at Ben. “You’re that Paisley kid—the one who was always in the forest with his damned bicycle, where he wasn’t supposed to be.”
“I was looking for Aisha and Cassie. And Ethan. I could see how cut up Lacey was about the disappearances, and I wanted to help her. Now I know why you were always warning me away.”
The sergeant’s face darkened. “You should have minded your own business.”
Devlin made a derisive sound in his throat. “Looks like the kid had the hots for your daughter, Dougherty.”
The sergeant raised an eyebrow. “Lacey? No boy has ever had the hots for her. I loved my daughter, but the skinny little thing made a shaved toothpick look like a tree trunk.”
Ben looked upward at the whitish sky. “Loved? So you’ve just written her off as dead? Did you even bother trying to find her after the cannibals raided the camps?” Pain entered his eyes. “There’s been no end of death here. The people eaters, the alien reptiles in our rivers, eating everything and everyone. How can you kill us for a useless pile of gold?”
“Alien reptiles?” scoffed Devlin. “We’re in a war. The other side has made up that stuff about giant alien beings—and they somehow got their hands on a way of changing the weather and took us into a goddamned ice age. Now we all just have to learn to survive in this new world. There’ll be a new system—and the ones with money and gold will be the dogs at the top of the food chain.”
A distant expression fixed itself on Ben’s face. “I’ve seen one of the aliens with my own eyes. No one believes me—not even Raif. I saw it creep in one night through the river. It broke through the ice and raised its head—and just stared at me. I’d just headed down from Thunderbolt’s Way to the Barrington River to go fishing. That’s when I saw it—a thing that doesn’t exist on this earth. I watched it take a man whole in its jaws.”
The sergeant’s face twitched in annoyance. “Paisley, you’re delusional. You’ve been spreading rumors about monsters since you were a kid.”
“We believe you, Ben,” said Molly. “You don’t have to convince us. They’re real.”
Ben’s mouth dropped open, white mist drifting on his breath.
Molly cast a withering stare at Devlin. “Uncle, if we’re in a war, just who do you imagine the other side is?“
Devlin shrugged. “Don’t know. China? Russia? Some country with technology that got outta hand.” His eyes narrowed into slits and he tapped his chin with the gun. “What is it about this damned Fiveash house anyway? Why the shite are you all here? I mean, I know why me and Dougherty are here—we’ve been trying to get the right machinery to drill through that cursed steel wall down there for over a year. But why are you all here, huh? Especially the ones who got away. Why would you come out of your way to come back here? It’s the inheritance, isn’t it? Despite your fancy-pants words to the contrary, you’re trying to get your sticky hands on it.”
Molly pressed her lips together. “You don’t have the brains to figure out anything other than taking money that doesn’t belong to you.”
His lip pulled into an incensed sneer. “You were a little bitch back then and you still are. I should have slapped you around a lot more. You were trouble from the minute you came to live with us.”
“I was a little kid whose mother had just died, Devlin. I was seven. You hit me every damned day of my life from then on.”
The sergeant glanced at Devlin impatiently. “Are we going to stand here and have a family reunion? Let’s just do this and get it over with.”
Sergeant Dougherty raised his rifle. Devlin followed, his rifle pointing straight at Molly.
Something caught the sergeant’s eye and he jerked his head, staring off into the distance.
Devlin squinted. “What? There’s another one of ’em? Shoot her before she gets away.”
A girl stood near the tree line, silently watching us. She began running straight toward us, her long scarf flapping. She wasn’t the teenage girl we’d seen with the group of Eaters before. This girl was smaller, with white hair flying loose from beneath her ski cap.
The sergeant’s eyes grew large. “Hold your fire, Devlin!”
Lacey stepped through the snow, bundled in thick winter clothing. My legs weakened. This was the Lacey I had known before my escape from the Dollhouse.
She made her way over to her father. “Why are you going to shoot my friends, Daddy?” She tilted her head.
His arm grew slack, the rifle dropping down. “Lacey... What are you doing in the forest?”
A small smile flittered across her face. “I like it in the forest. I’m never alone here.”
He glanced over his shoulder nervously. “What do you mean, never alone? Who else is here?”
“Never mind, it’s just me, Daddy. No one else.”
“I didn’t know... you were still alive,” he told her.
“You thought I died just like Mum and my sisters? No, I didn’t die. But I found out something. I found out what you were doing out here all the time. Not looking for food and keeping us safe from the people eaters. Oh no. You were out here trying to dig up buried treasure. You let the people eaters get your family.”
His face crushed. “I didn’t mean for any of you to die. That wasn’t my fault.”
“I
kept Amy and Jacinta safe for years, Daddy. I kept a secret, to save their lives. Do you know what the secret was?” She paused for a moment, her blue eyes widening at her father. “The secret was that Henry Fiveash was keeping missing girls in the dollhouse under that very house that’s behind us. Do you know what he said he’d do if I didn’t keep his secret? He said he’d get my sisters and feed them to the serpent. He made me find girls for him, so he could keep them deep underground.” Her face saddened. “But all those terrible things that I did didn’t save my sisters in the end.”
The sergeant’s face and hands trembled. “You’re telling tales, Lacey. Henry Fiveash did no such thing.”
“Am I?” She wound a lock of hair around her finger. “Don’t you get it, Daddy? He was using you, all along. I found out that you knew about the girls in the dollhouse, a few weeks ago. The Henry that lives inside that house was drunk, as usual, and talking about his miserable life—and about you, Daddy. Henry was stringing you along all those years, promising you a cut of the inheritance, just so that when girls went missing, you’d make sure no one would find the secret place that led down to the dollhouse.” She placed a finger on her lips. “And there’s another secret that Henry was hiding from you. He’s a ghost, Daddy. He hasn’t been alive since 1920. That man inside the house is not the same Henry you’ve been speaking to all those years. You were shortchanged by a ghost.”
Lacey’s father stared at her like he’d never seen her before.
Devlin’s fist curled around his gun. “This is getting ridiculous. She’s spilling even worse crap than the others. Don’t get soft now, Dougherty. You have to do what you have to do. There’s eight of ’em now—that’s four each for us to take out.”
“Not my daughter,” said the sergeant.
“Think of it as a mercy killing,” said Devlin. “Her brain’s as fried as a toad on a hot highway. She’ll only get picked up by the Eaters and you don’t want that.”
Lacey’s father fixed his gaze to the ground and nodded.
A scream fled my lips as Devlin aimed at Lacey and shot her.
