“Are there any tracks down there?” Ever’s voice, angled from the window, echoes through the yard.
I finally snatch the piece of cloth from the grass and push myself up, angling my body to keep the weight from my knee—and freeze.
Hanging out of the window, Ever is as pale as a ghost. But when I look up to them, that isn’t what catches my eye.
Perhaps I should’ve seen it before. Perhaps Carter should’ve. We were so focused on the bloody grass, we didn’t look up. Neither of us did.
Tunnel vision, perhaps—or fear.
There’s a harsh intake of breath from Carter, a few feet behind me. Apparently when Ever called out, he looked up too.
The edge of the abyss roars around us.
The blood on the ground does leave a track. But it doesn’t move away from the cabin. And it’s not simple drops of blood either.
There are bloody handprints, some smudged, but most of them all too clear.
And they’re crawling back up the wall—toward the window.
Thirteen
Ever
The handprints are leading up.
I stare at Maddy and Carter, pale and pointing, and then slowly look down the wall.
The handprints are leading up. Bloody handprints. Leading up.
I crumple the piece of paper Finn has given me. Liar.
Finn tugs at my sleeve. “Ev, we have to get out of here.” I hardly recognize his voice. It’s filled with hurt and fear and something else, rawer than anything I’ve ever heard.
“I…” I don’t know what to say. Blood roars in my ears, and if our group is unraveling, then I’m unraveling too. This was a mistake. The words I texted Damien flash before my eyes: My friends are hurting. It’s my job to protect them. It’s my job to keep them safe.
Finn tugs harder. “We have to get the four of us together and leave.”
Deep down, I understand that rationale. With the tracks leading into the cabin, the only sensible place to go is out. There really isn’t a question about it. We should all convene on the porch on the other side of the building and go from there.
But.
“I’m responsible for her.” I want to try to find her. My voice sounds weird to me too. Slower, and every word I speak feels new and strange. “Something has happened to Liva, and what if she doesn’t get help in time because we ran down the mountain without so much as a second look back?”
“Ever,” Finn says firmly. “If this had been an accident, Liva would still be here. What wouldn’t be are bloody handprints. Or a note. Or a finger. Someone clearly has it out for her. I don’t know if I believe in haunted cabins, but if it isn’t that, then it’s murder or kidnapping or something along those lines. She’s richer than all of us put together. Her family could meet any ransom. But I’m not staying here to find out exactly what happened, and neither are you.”
I nod. And I realize the something else in his voice is anger, as deep and as fresh as the first days after he got beaten up. He’s so angry, he’s trembling.
Just then, the power cuts.
All the lights in the cabin blink out of existence, and we’re covered in a blanket of intense darkness. While my eyes struggle to adjust, panicked shouts filter in from outside. “What’s going on there?”
“Finn? Ever?”
Finn moves his grasp from my sleeve to my elbow and pulls hard. “We’re getting out. Now.”
I let him tug me into the hallway and down the stairs. But once we get to the bottom—and I’m not sure how we manage that without both of us breaking our legs—I pull back, because something tugs at the back of my mind. “Finn, wait.”
“No.”
One word, but it carries such finality. I want to punch him, and I want to reach for all the cracks and hold him together. He was my first best friend. Not just because he and I were the only two out trans kids at school for a while, not just because we flocked together for safety and community, but because he believed in me. And it kills me that he doesn’t believe in us. “Wait.”
“No, we have to get out of here.”
“We have to get our phones.” I swallow hard and try to make my voice more audible. “We’re going to grab our phones. That way, we’ll have flashlights at hand. And maybe that way, we can still do something. And we should call the cops. And Liva’s parents. Though I have no idea what to tell them.”
I start pulling him, now. Toward the kitchen and the pantry where we kept our phones in their chest. Yet another one of the WyvernCon treasures. Maybe we’ll find other helpful stuff in the pantry too.
Quest items.
When I put the phones in there, I noticed the shelves were lined with tin cans and containers of food. But I also saw oil, matches, an AM-FM radio, a collection of batteries, and roughly two dozen rolls of paper towels. Enough to survive the zombie apocalypse.
We make our way to the kitchen, my arm outstretched to make sure I don’t walk into anything—and trying my hardest not to imagine what it would feel like to walk into anyone. But as we get inside and near the pantry, the pantry door creaks on its hinges.
I know, I know I didn’t leave the door open.
“Finn…”
He shakes his head, hard. “We go in. We grab the phones. And then we run out. No dallying, no second guessing. We need our party together, and I’m done with this place.”
I refuse to give in to hesitation. I nudge the door farther open and step in. The floorboards groan, echoing all around me, almost as if I stepped in and someone else stepped back. Or perhaps the floorboards on the
