“Don’t talk like that. We’re not competing.” I took the risk and reached for her, feeling the paper-thin skin of her hand. “You’re my best friend. You always have been.”
Tenderness softened her face. She reached for me, pulling me into her arms. I blinked over her shoulder, my hands still bound behind me, heart pounding. It was like a fog had lifted, and there she was, the real Laurel. The one I remembered.
From the floor above came the unsticking sound of a door opening, then slamming shut. A deep voice boomed through the house: “Laurel.” It was the same voice that haunted me, that had reached inside my brain and my heart, seducing and violating.
It was Don, close enough to touch.
Do it, the dark voice urged. Go back, give in, beg his forgiveness.
Laurel and I wrenched away from each other, wild-eyed. Her nails dug into my skin. In that moment, the past echoed back, and we were twenty-one again, sharing the same look we’d shared a million times before: Don was home, and we were in trouble.
“Where are you?” he called. “I have good news. Everything’s ready.”
The air became electric, desperate, as we stared at each other. A decision hung between us.
Laurel lunged. Too fast for me to do anything but cringe, understanding the worst was happening—but instead of the searing pain of the pugio in my stomach, the rope binding my wrists pulled sharply, then released. The tatters fell to the floor. My wrists were free. I could only blink in shock as she ran to the back door and ripped it open, revealing the garden and forest at dusk. “Run, Shay.”
I darted forward and seized her. “Come with me.”
She shook her head. “I need to distract him. Trust me.”
“Please,” I begged. “We can start over together.”
The basement stairs groaned under the unmistakable weight of footsteps.
“I love you, Laurel.” I forced myself to breathe. “Come with me.”
“Go now,” she whispered, her eyes bright with fear, “or else I swear you’ll never leave.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
I tore across the grass, terror pumping my legs. Past the ornate swimming pool, sculpted out of rock; past the verdant garden, bursting with brilliant autumn flowers, lush from the unnatural soil. I paused only at the edge of the forest to look back, and there she was, standing in the half-cracked door, watching me flee with a look I couldn’t read. It had to be sadness. It had to be.
A shadow appeared over her shoulder.
I plunged into the trees and kept going until dusk dissolved into night. I didn’t know where I was, but I searched for some sign of people, a phone to call Jamie. Eventually I came to a road, softly illuminated. I expected to keep along it until I came to a gas station, or maybe even a town, but to my surprise, after only a few minutes, an old wood-sided sedan pulled to the side of the road. An elderly woman with white hair leaned out the passenger window and called, “Do you need a ride?”
I squinted into the car. A little old man sat in the driver’s seat, trying to puzzle me out. He raised two bottle-brush eyebrows. “We’re on our way home to Woodstock. Saw you and thought you might need a lift. Old habits, you know.”
“I only need to borrow a phone,” I said, wrapping my arms tight around me. “I’d be very grateful.”
They were happy to give me their cell phone, one of those big, clunky models with buttons, and watched me with unmasked curiosity as I dialed Jamie.
“Hello?” His voice was strangled.
“It’s me.”
A noise of relief broke from him. “Thank god. Where are you? What happened? I didn’t know—”