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  “Maybe it was just one of those freakish coincidences? Or a copycat? And would it matter if Asher did kill Laden?” She focuses her eyes on me. “He had me pinned down with a knife to my throat. I’m pretty sure he was going to kill me.”

  I speechlessly stutter for words that don’t exist. Thankfully Todd drops down in our booth. He pulls a cigarette out of his jacket pocket and pops it between his lips.

  “Okay, so what’d I miss?” He lights the cigarette and exhales. “Anything good?”

  Raven and I let out a loud breath. “Nope,” we both say.

  ***

  Todd makes Raven go home with him to help clean the house, which gives me a little more time to figure out how much I want to tell her. Someone has painted “Murderer” in bright red across our front door. This happened a few times after my dad disappeared, only it was on my car window and it usually happened in the parking lot of the school.

  I grab a can of paint remover from the garage. “It’s like a freaking witch hunt,” I say as I work to scrub it off. In the end, half the paint comes off the door, but it’s better paint-less than labeled with hate.

  As soon as I make it to my room, I find my cell and dial Asher’s number. It sends me straight to his voicemail, so I text him.

  Me: We need 2 talk.

  Asher: Why? What’s wrong? R U ok?

  Me: I’m fine. I just have some questions.

  Asher: Out with my mom running errands. Can I talk to u tomorrow at the dance?

  Me: Dance???

  Asher: Yeah. The Halloween dance. I thought we could go.

  I complete forgot tomorrow was Halloween and that there was a dance at our school. But I’m not really the dancing type.

  Me: I guess. But can I meet u there?

  Just in case this goes bad, I’ll have my own ride home. I need to know what the Anamotti is, if he knows anything about detective Crammer, and what he knows about Angels and Grim Reapers.

  Asher: Sure… r u ok?

  Me: Yep. I just really need 2 talk to u about something… the thing we talked about the other night. I think I’m ready for the answers. And I have other questions 4 you.

  It takes him a second to text back.

  Asher: I know. I’ll c u at the dance at 7. I’ll b the one dressed as the artist ;)

  I smile at the message, but then quickly erase it. Please, oh please don’t let him be a serial killer. I like him too much. I toss the phone on my bed. It’s early and I start to climb into bed to get some rest.

  “Ian!” My mom’s scream echoes through the house. I trip out of bed and stumble down the hall into her room. Her bed is unmade and her waitress uniform is discarded on the floor. The bathroom door is shut and the knob is covered with blood.

  I pad up to the door and ask tentatively, “Mom? Are you in there?”

  She sobs from other side. “Go away… I want Ian.”

  I jiggle the doorknob. “Mom, unlock the door. Ian’s not here right now, but I am.”

  “No!” She screams. “I don’t want you here. You’re a killer! You’re a killer! You killed your grandma!”

  I bang my fist on the door. “Mom, please just open the door up. You’re scaring me.”

  Something bashes against the other side and glass shatters. I run into my room, grab my phone off the dresser, and call Ian on my way back to her bedroom.

  He picks up after three rings. Music blares in the background. “Yo, yo, yo. What up?” He’s drunk.

  “You need to come home,” I demand. “Now. Mom’s having another one of her meltdowns and she only wants to talk to you.”

  “What?” His voice sobers up.

  “She locked herself in…” I trail off. The bathroom door is open. “Ian, just get here now. And get someone sober to drive you.”

  “Okay,” he says, frazzled. “I’ll be there in ten.”

  I hang up, toss the phone on the bed, and check inside the bathroom. The white tile is obscured with fragments of glass and the sink and mirror are stained with blood. The shower curtain is torn from the rod and pills scatter the inside of the bathtub.

  “Mom.” I step back into the bedroom and glance under the bed. “Ian’s on his way, and he told me to tell you that it was okay to talk to me.” I pad over to the closet door and throw it open. “Mom?”

  “I’m not in there.” Her chillingly numb voice floats over my shoulder.

  I spin around and press my hand against my heart. “You scared me.”

  She’s just outside the doorway with a pair of scissors in her hand. An X on her forehead drips blood into her eyes and the entire front of her shirt is drenched in blood. “It’s not okay to be around you at all.” Her eyes are unemotional, as if she’s detached from reality. Blood trickles from her wrists as she raises the scissors above her head. “You’re a killer! The cops think so! And Grandma knew, even though she wasn’t thinking rationally. But you did it anyway.”

  I surrender my hands in front of me and slowly back up, seeking the bed for my phone. “Mom, how many of those pills did you take?”

  “Enough to numb the pain—he told me I had to.” She skulks into the room, then pauses, slanting back as if someone is whispering in her ear. “Yes, I know, but she’s not… Okay, I will try.” Her soulless gaze locks on me. “Ember, my dear child, why did you ever have to be born? Ian was fine and your father and I were so happy his disorder did not pass along to him. But then you arrived and we could see it in your eyes. The way you talked to the air and whispered secrets to the plants while you drained their life away.”

  “I…” Does she know about me? “Mom, what are you talking about?” I reach over the bed for my phone. “And Dad didn’t have schizophrenia, everyone just thought he did.”

  “I’m not talking about schizophrenia!” She shrieks, her face bright red. “I’m talking about a curse passed along to you.”

  My fingers brush the edge of the phone. “Mom, just calm down—”

  She rages forward with the scissors held out in front of her. I leap on the bed and bolt for the bathroom, but she cuts around the bed and sinks the scissors into my chest.

  “Mom…” I stare at the scissors pierced deeply into my heart. A river of blood streams out and I gasp for air as I fall onto the bed.

  She hovers over me, watching me with expectancy, like she is waiting for something miraculous to happen. “I’m sorry, my sweet baby, but he made me do it. Death is more powerful than the mind.”

  Blood gurgles up my throat as I yank out the scissors. “Mommy…”

  She places her hand over my heart. “Go ahead, take it. I know you can. You did it with your grandma.”

  Blood seeps out the hole in my chest and runs a river over her hand. I look into her eyes, wondering if it’s really her in there or if tonight her mind finally took the final flight.

  Thump, thump, thump, thump. My heart sings a song as it dies.

  “Take it, Ember,” she whispers. “Before it’s too late.”

  My eyes close as my heart sings the last lyric, my veins hollow out, and my lungs shrivel. I sense someone else’s presence in the room. Gradually, I open my eyelids. The Grim Reaper looms behind my mother, concealed under his hood. He whispers something in her ear.

  “It’s time,” she tells me with her hand extended. “Please, Emmy. It’s time. The grains of sand have expired and my hourglass is empty.”

  “Take it, Ember,” the Grim Reaper tempts. “Take her life.”

  I feel the thunder of her heart connect with the silence of mine. Her blood mixes in my veins and fills my lungs back up. I gasp for air and open my eyes, watching in horror as her skin wrinkles to a lady twice her age.

  “Mommy.” I throw her hand off my chest and she collapses to the floor. I hover above her, checking her wrist for a pulse. She looks so old and frail—so gone.

  The Reaper watches me from the corner and I throw a shoe at him. “I hate you! You ruined my life!”

  “What the hell?”

  I glance back at Ian st
anding right behind me. His eyes are opened wide and are filled with helplessness as he stares at our mother lying dead on the floor.

  The Grim Reaper’s laugh echoes through my head as he sinks away through the bedroom wall.

  “Call a damn ambulance!” I yell at Ian and start CPR on my mom.

  He blinks dazedly and takes his phone out of his pocket. Tears pool in my eyes as I pump my mom’s chest and breathe for her. I keep going, refusing to stop until the paramedics arrive and take over. But even when they roll her away in the stretcher, she still isn’t breathing on her own. And she still looks so old.

  They wheel her out into the ambulance and speed off to the hospital with their lights flashing. Ian and I hop in his car and he hands me his jacket. I slip it on and cover up the blood on my shirt. But I can’t hide the blood on my hands.

  That will be there forever.

  Chapter 17

  Ian and I return home later that night after my mom was stabilized and heavily sedated. She had taken a high dosage of her medication, plus there were traces of street drugs and alcohol in her system. By the time the doctors got her breathing again, the sudden aging had subsided. But there were a few extra wrinkles around her eyes.

  She is under observation and we can’t see her until a full mental analysis is ran. We hardly speak and Ian heads straights up to his studio. He doesn’t know what really happened, which is good because he can’t handle what he does know: that my mom overdosed and that she cut up her forehead and wrists.

  “If you need anything,” I call out as he trudges up the stairs. “Please come get me.”

  “Sure,” he mutters, slipping off his shoes at the top of the stairs. “I’m just gonna go paint for a while.”

  I doubt he’s going to paint. He’ll probably lock himself up in his room and smoke himself into a stupor. As soon as he is upstairs, I collapse on the sofa with my feet kicked up over the back. “All I want to do is sleep forever. Please just let me sleep forever.”

  A raven zigzags just outside the window, back and forth, back and forth, and then it lands on the windowsill. It spans it small wings and shakes off a few feathers.

  “Go away.” I throw a couch pillow at the window.

  Tucking its wings in, it spins in a circle. I toss another pillow at it. Parting its beak, it caws. I begrudgingly drag myself off the couch and place my hand on the glass. “Why won’t you just go away?”

  Granting me my wish, it flaps away in the direction of Cameron’s house. It’s late, so most of the houses are dark, but the light in Cameron’s attic is on. I’m possessed by a rage that doesn’t belong to me, scorching uncontrollably like a wildfire. As if my feet no longer belong to me, I march out the front door and across the street. The untied shoelaces of my boots drag behind me and blood still stains my shirt and hands.

  His Jeep is parked out front and the tires are covered with chunks of mud. I cup my hands around my eyes as I peek through the back window, wondering if I’ll find rope and a roll of duct tape, like the kind I saw on Mackenzie in her death omen.

  “Find anything interesting?” Cameron’s amused voice is startling close.

  Slowly, I rotate to face him. He’s standing closer than I expect and the heel of my boot slips off the edge of the curb with the shift of my weight.

  “Easy there.” He catches my arm and balances me onto the curb. He’s wearing faded jeans, no shirt, and his skin almost glows beneath the dim trail of moonlight. There is dust in his blonde hair and on his hands.

  I wrench my arm free and his dusty handprints mark my skin. “Why did you do it?”

  He knows exactly what I’m talking about. “But I didn’t do it.”

  “Yes, you did.” I dust the dirt off my arm. “You were the only one who knew the exact location of my car.”

  “Am I?” He shakes his head and dust flies from his hair. “Because I was under the impression that you didn’t get yourself out of that car the night you crashed.”

  “Who gave you that impression?” I ask. “And why is there dirt in your hair? Have you been digging graves up again, looking for your—” I make air quotes, “‘family jewel’?”

  “Actually, I ended up finding that in the strangest place.” His eyes travel up my body and linger on the hole in my shirt. “And I think I should be the one asking you the questions. Starting with why you look like you just committed murder.”

  “Tell me, Cameron.” I struggle to maintain my composure. “What happen to Mackenzie last night after I left?”

  He reaches above my head and sets his hand on the Jeep. “Why? Are you jealous?”

  “Jealous that I wasn’t the one who got killed?” I back against the door of the Jeep and cross my arms.

  “You know, it seems like I’m the only one you have this spitfire attitude toward.” He leans over me. “Everyone else I’ve seen you with, you’re nicer than can be. And you were like that with me at first, but now… what happened?”

  “You blew me off at the lake,” I admit. “And then told the police where my car was, after Mackenzie disappeared.”

  “I didn’t tell the police where your car was,” he says. “What was one of the first things I ever told you about me? That I don’t lie.”

  “I think that’s the liars’ motto.”

  He bows his head in frustration and his hair tickles my nose. “Ember, Ember, Ember, what am I going to do with you?” He raises his head back up and the sorrow in his eyes is restored. “Is this because I was flirting with Mackenzie, because the only reason I did that was to make you jealous—like how I felt when I showed up at your house and some guy was sleeping in your bed.”

  “You know what?” I duck under his arm. “I don’t even know why I came over here. It must have been a crazy impulse.”

  “Because you wanted to see if I killed her,” he calls out as I storm across the street. I halt and he says, “That’s what you think. That I’m a killer, but you’re wrong and I can prove it.”

  I glance over my shoulder. “I’m calling your bluff.”

  He waves for me to follow him as he strolls backward down the pathway. “Come with me and I’ll prove it to you.” He enters his house and leaves the front door wide open. A light turns on from inside.

  I make my way to the edge of the front path. “Does he really think I’m going to go in there?” I mutter to myself. Then again, it seems I can’t die, so what does it matter.

  Like a shadow, he transpires in the doorway with the light of the house radiating behind. “Are you coming?”

  I shake my head. “Whatever you want to show me, you can show me outside.”

  He sighs and slinks from the doorway back into the house. Minutes later, a blonde girl pokes her head out.

  “Ember, would you please just get your creepy ass in here,” Mackenzie says with a trace of pleading in her tone. “Before someone figures out I’m here.”

  I glance over my shoulder at the silent houses lining the street. I come to the mind-blowing conclusion that I’m probably losing my mind, like certain poets of the past. Or like a Grim Angel. I plod up the path, past Mackenzie and through the entryway. Cameron shuts the door and we go into a living room with red walls and a brick fireplace. The mantle is ornamented with plastic plants and family photos. Above it is a mirror trimmed with a gold frame. The air smells like cinnamon and apples.

  “This isn’t how I pictured your house,” I remark, sitting down on a striped sofa. Across from the coffee table is a matching sofa, and Cameron and Mackenzie sit down on it. Mackenzie looks like she’s wearing Cameron’s clothes: an oversized flannel shirt and a pair of boxers. She has leather bands on her wrists and neck, like she’s suddenly decided to try a semi-gothic look.

  “The cops think I killed you,” I tell her. “They brought me down to the station a couple of nights ago for questioning.”

  “Wow, Killer Girl speaks,” she says snidely. “You were so quiet at school I thought you were a mute.”

  Cameron lays a hand on her bare kne
e. “Easy, remember she knows you’re here now, so play nice.”

  She crosses her arms and says exasperatedly, “Yeah, but only because you made me let her in. Personally, I don’t give a crap if she thinks you’re lying or not.” Cameron tilts his head at her and she recoils. “I’m sorry. And I’m sorry too, Ember. Look, it’s just that… Well, I was having problems at home. And things were just really bad and I was telling this to Cameron at the lake and he suggested I disappear for a while and take a break.”