Logan closed her eyes. “Are you gonna kill me?”
“No.”
Paris signaled his way off the main road and pulled into the gravel turnout. His headlights cut through the trees. Deep in the woods, Logan could just see the outline of the cabin. Inside, a single lantern glowed orange against the night.
The ghosts, the deaths, her fathers: it all started here.
Logan let out a shuddering breath. A piece of her had thought the voice she heard in the water was a hallucination. That it was something her mind had created to keep her from dying. But it had told her she needed to go to the place where everything began. And for one reason or another, that place was here. Something told her that the cabin was where it would end, too.
“Why are we here?” Logan asked.
“Because it says I’ve gotta do one more thing, then I’m good.” Paris turned in his seat to face her. His eyes shone like glassy obsidian in the dark night. “Look, I don’t know what it wants with you or the kid from the Bates. Carrillo.”
Elexis. Logan’s eyes widened.
“Anyway, I’m supposed to tell you that, if you want your answers, you gotta head into the cabin. The Carrillo kid’s inside. You think you can do that?”
Logan swallowed. It was probably a trap. It was probably dangerous. But she’d left Nick at this cabin and he’d been killed. She couldn’t leave Elexis, too. They could find a way to signal someone from town. There had to be a way out of this.
“Just go to him?” Logan asked. “You won’t hurt us?”
“I won’t.” Paris unlocked the doors and pushed Logan’s door open. “Now get in there.”
Logan swallowed her fear and nodded. She stepped into the night and waited for her dizziness to pass. Without a flashlight, she only had Paris’s headlights and the light in the cabin to follow. She tripped over roots and stumps, scraping her arms against the rough juniper trunks as she went, but she didn’t stop. Behind her, Paris’s headlights seared yellow against the dusty forest floor.
And then they didn’t.
She turned in time to watch Paris’s cruiser reverse out of the gravel turnout and drive away.
He was gone; he’d left her here.
Something wasn’t adding up. If he wanted to kill her, why would he leave?
Logan made her way onto the cabin’s porch and placed her hand against the front door. Inside, she heard the strangled sound of Elexis’s breathing. Logan sighed in relief. “Elexis. Hey. It’s me.”
“Don’t come—” Elexis started. He choked on the rest of his sentence as if the words were too big for him. “I can’t…”
“It’s okay,” Logan said. She pushed open the front door and stepped into the cabin. The wind followed her inside, gusting against the old wood like a whistle. “I’m not gonna leave you. We’re gonna get out of here.”
Elexis sat against the back wall of the cabin, tied to the piano. Other than the rope, he looked unharmed. Logan scanned the room for some sign of danger, but it was exactly the same as she remembered it. Another wave of wind gusted into the cabin again and snuffed out the lantern.
“Hello?” Logan asked in the darkness.
“Logan, you—”
Something crawled over her skin, and she was frozen. The sensation was the same one she’d had underwater. It was the same creeping blackness, the same cloying, thick tar crawling up her throat. Logan could just see Elexis across the room, and he shook his head. The long shadows of the room crawled over her skin like icy fingers, pressing into the exposed skin of her neck. She willed her legs to move, but they didn’t answer to her anymore.