CHAPTER 40
I fall silent once I’m actually inside.
I don’t want Pine Cottage to know I’m here.
Tina lets me go and gives me a shove. I tumble into the middle of the great room, skidding across the floor and leaving a wide streak of dust. Inside, it’s blessedly dark. The grimy windows block most of the waning light from outside. The open door lets in the yellow glow of the headlights—a rectangle of brightness stretching along the floor. In its center is Tina’s shadow, arms crossed, blocking my escape.
“Remember anything?” she says.
I look around, curiosity mingling with terror. Water stains darken the walls. Or maybe it’s blood. I try not to look at them. There are more stains on the ceiling, circular ones. Definitely water damage. Nests and cobwebs crowd the rafters. Sections of floor are splattered with bird shit. A dead mouse lies in a corner, dried to leather.
The whole place has been emptied, all that rustic furniture carted away and hopefully burned. It makes the room seem bigger, save for the fireplace, which is smaller than I remember. Seeing it brings to mind Craig and Rodney kneeling before it, boys trying to act like men, fumbling with kindling and matches.
Other memories fly at me in short, startling bursts. Like I’m flipping channels, stopping for a second on each, catching flashes of movies I know I’ve seen.
There’s Janelle, dancing barefoot in the middle of the room, singing along to that song we both loved until everyone else started to hate it.
There’s Betz and Amy, preparing the chicken, bickering until they giggle.
There’s Him. Staring at me from across the room. Dirty lenses hiding his eyes. Almost as if he knows what the two of us will be doing later.
“I don’t,” I say, my voice amplified in the empty room. “There’s nothing.”
Tina leaves the doorway and jerks me to my feet. “Let’s take a look around.”
She pulls me toward the open kitchen, now a shell of its former self. The oven’s been removed, leaving a vacant square of leaves, dirt, and gauzy strips of dust. Gone, too, are the cupboard doors. Bare shelves sit exposed, littered with mouse droppings. But the sink is still there, rust holes in four different spots. I latch onto its edge for support. My legs remain unsteady. I barely feel them. It’s as if I’m floating.
“Nothing?” Tina says.
“No.”
So it’s into the hall, Tina leading the way, her merciless grip pinching the flesh of my upper arm. She stomps. I float.
We both stop when we reach the bunk bed room. Betz’s room. Empty except for a single gray rag bunched in the center of the floor. The room holds no memories. Until tonight, I’ve never set foot inside it.
When I say nothing, Tina pulls me to the room I was supposed to share with Janelle. Just like at school. One of the two beds remains, stripped of its mattress. It’s been pushed away from the wall, nothing but a rust-mottled frame.
This room brings back memories. I think of Janelle and me talking about sex while trying on dresses. Things would have turned out differently had I not worn that white dress Janelle let me borrow. If I had insisted on spending the night in here and not the room just down the hall.
Tine shoots me a look. “Anything?”
“No.” I’ve started to cry. Being here again, reliving things again. It’s all too much.
Tina wastes no time in pulling me to the room across the hall. The waterbed is gone, of course. Everything is. The only notable detail in the empty room is a large swath of floor turned dark with rot. It stretches to the doorway and under our feet before crossing the hall to the last bedroom.
My bedroom.
I hesitate at the doorway, unwilling to enter. I don’t want to be reminded of what I did in there. With Him. And what I did after. Marching like a madwoman into the trees. Clutching that knife. Leaving it there once I came to my senses. Practically placing it in His hands.
It’s all my fault.
He and Tina might have killed them, but I’m the one to blame.
Yet even though he had the chance, He didn’t kill me. He made sure I’d live, giving me those nonlethal wounds that made Cole and Freemont so suspicious. I was spared because of what He’d done to me. What I had let Him do.
Having sex with Him was the only thing that saved my life.
I know that now.
I knew it all along.
Tina notices something in my face. A twitch. A flinch. “You remember something new.”
“No.”
It’s a lie.
There is something new. A slice of memory I’ve never had before.
I’m in this room.
On the floor.
Water seeps under the closed door, rolling toward me, then around me. It soaks my hair, my shoulders, my whole body, which convulses with pain and terror. Someone sits next to me. Tears chime inside his ragged breaths.
You’ll be okay. We’ll both be okay.
From the other side of the door comes a terrible slick-swish. Footsteps in the water. Right outside.
More memories. Brief snippets. Pounding on the door. A rattling of the doorknob. A slam. A crunch as the door breaks open, slamming against the wall. The flash of moonlight on the knife, glinting red.
I scream.
Then.
Now.
The two screams collide until I can’t tell which is in the present and which is in the past. When someone grabs me, I start yelling and kicking, fighting them off, not knowing who it is or when it is or what’s happening to me.
“Quincy.” It’s Tina’s voice, cutting the confusion. “Quincy, what’s going on?”
I stare up at her, firmly in the present. The knife remains in her hand, a reminder that I can’t disappoint her.
“I’m starting to remember,” I say.