When Devils Sing(105)
Farris flicked her gray eyes to Jonah and then Reid, as if waiting for them to answer first. “Hypothetically,” she began slowly, “what happens if I don’t participate?”
“Fortune favors our family regardless of your individual decision. As long as one of you participates and passes the tradition on, all is well.” Their father sighed, leaning forward across his desk. “However, I don’t need to remind you of how this community perceives you three because of your mother. Wouldn’t it be a relief to silence everyone’s suspicions, once and for all? To no longer live beneath the weight of their judgment?”
They sat in silence for several minutes, in a gridlock, unwilling to give an answer. Reid couldn’t help but think that the questions their father posed were as much for himself as they were for his children.
“Okay.” Reid gathered his courage, reminding himself what was at stake. He cleared his throat. “Sign me up.”
His siblings looked as if they’d seen a ghost, while their father’s eyebrows furrowed in surprise. “Are you sure, son?”
There wasn’t any other option. “You said it yourself: I couldn’t put off doing my duty to this family much longer. I’m sure,” he insisted to Russ.
Reid could feel his siblings’ eyes still on him.
After a long moment, Farris finally said, “I’ll participate.”
And then Jonah. “Me too.”
“It’s settled then,” Russ said, clapping his hands in a gesture of finality. “Tonight, you three will perform your first Rendering.”
CHAPTER 45SAM
2 HOURS
Sam came to with blinding, early evening sunlight in her eyes. It seemed like years since she’d felt sun on her skin. It must’ve been a day—hours? She wasn’t sure of anything, not even her limbs, which felt like deadweights at her side. Her vision was spotted and blurry as she struggled to make sense of the sky above. There was only a blue expanse and dense, crisscrossing tree branches that swayed from a far-off breeze. The way the branches moved almost made them seem alive.
Then she felt the heat. The ground burned beneath her, like bubbling asphalt on the hottest day of the year. Dirt wasn’t supposed to be this hot, especially not after so many days of summer storms. It was unnatural.
Slowly, achingly, she struggled to sit up. The squealing clank of metal blocked her efforts. Her arms and feet were bound by rusted chains. She fought them awkwardly, floundering like a beetle on its shell. Still, she was able to raise her head enough to look around.
Sam turned, finding Dawson just a few feet away, upright but hunched over. Bound just as she was, his skin a mess of bruises and cuts. On the other side of Sam was Kiran, and she too was still.
Guilt stabbed through her at the sight of them both.
There were others beyond them, townsfolk Sam recognized immediately. She knew nearly all their faces, save for a few tourists. There were thirteen in total.
“Dawson?” Sam choked out, her throat dry and metallic. “Dawson, wake up. Please, wake up.”
His bright blue eyes fluttered open.
“I’m sorry,” Sam quickly confessed, hot tears streaming down her cheeks. She didn’t know how much time they had left. There was no telling if he knew of her betrayal, of the car accident, of Ben, but it didn’t matter. She needed him to hear the words. “I’m so, so sorry.”
Dawson watched her for a long, long time, saying nothing. Saying everything with his gaze. “I’m sorry, too.”
Sam finally managed to sit up properly. Scattered among the pine trees were the crumbled remains of old brick buildings, buried beneath twisting vines and kudzu. Several of the buildings were blackened and charred from a long-ago fire. In the evening light, Sam thought she saw what looked like cobblestones peeking out from the dirt. Otherwise, the earth was dry, dusty, barren. Dead. There was no sign of grass or wildflowers or even weeds—no sign of life, aside from the trees and long-forgotten remains of human habitation.
“Where are we?” Sam asked, still struggling against her chains.
After a long, pregnant pause, Dawson said, “Lake Clearwater.”
“What’s gonna happen to us?” Sam asked pitifully, despite every cell in her body sensing the inevitable.
Dawson’s eyebrows knitted together, the sorrow in his gaze telling Sam all she needed to know. “They’re gonna kill us.”
Sam’s eyes kept snagging on the cobblestones in the dirt. The longer she looked, the more she could make out the pattern. It was faint—stones missing, broken, or buried by the passage of time—but the center of the clearing looked like the barest memory of two old roads crossing.
This was the old town center, the original Carrion. Town legend said William Langley had sold his soul at this very crossroads.
And now, they were all going to die.
Despite the fate laid before them, Sam tugged on her chains. The rusty metal chafed at her wrists until they bled. “This isn’t how we’re gonna die, Dawson. This can’t be it.” Despite the bleeding, Sam kept pulling at the chains. She had to get free. For Ben. A sob escaped her throat as dread crept in. “My brother doesn’t know what happened to me. He doesn’t know.”
“Sam,” Dawson breathed her name like a prayer and a warning, his blue eyes pleading for her to stop.