Twenty-Seven

We all scramble up. Kit has the baseball bat, and Jayla scoops up a knife that must have been on the floor. When Madison takes a knife from the cushions, I feel like I missed a memo.

Kit opens his mouth, arm waving as if he's about to tell me to take Madison into another room, away from that massive window. But then the lurching figure triggers a security light, illuminating the twilight, and it becomes two figures.

Garrett, with Sadie over his arms.

Garrett is at the door, punching at the keypad. We all stand there, frozen. When the lock beeps a negative, he pounds on the glass of the door.

"The code," I say as I run forward. "I changed it."

Madison races in front of me. "No, Laney."

I stop. Behind her, Garrett pounds on the window.

"You changed the fucking code on me?" he bellows.

"Don't open the door," Madison says. "Stop and think about this. Talk about this."

I glance over at Kit and Jayla. Jayla nods, and Kit walks to the window.

"We need to speak to you first, Garrett," Kit says, voice raised to be heard through the triple-pane glass.

"My sister is—"

"We will do what we can for you, but you can't bring her in here."

"What the fuck?"

"Are you sure she's still alive?" Kit asks.

"What the fuck?" Garrett roars.

Madison moves in front of Kit. "The other people are dead. Clearly dead. But they were moving. Like Sadie."

Garrett starts to snarl a reply. Then he seems to remember who he's talking to. A moment's pause, and when he speaks, his voice is almost soft. "I saw the guy, kiddo. There's no way he could be alive, and yeah, he's moving, which is messed up. This is different." He hefts Sadie. "She wasn't just moving her eyes or her mouth or her hand. She was running, right up until she collapsed and passed out. She's alive."

"And what if she doesn't stay that way? What if she dies and comes back and tries to hurt us?"

He stares at Madison. Then his gaze swings my way, and his fist slams the glass so hard Kit yanks Madison back. Garrett doesn't seem to notice. His gaze is fixed on mine, and it boils over with hate. Actual hate.

I've always known how Garrett feels about me. To him, I betrayed a trust. I was supposed to keep quiet, and it wasn't like he'd broken into my bedroom, held me down, and raped me, right?

I was the source of a terrible experience for him. The experience of being made to face his actions and question whether what he'd done was wrong.

I got that. I didn't want to—Jayla would kill me for admitting it—but I understood. Garrett had been raised in a world where you had to trick girls into sex, a world where, sure, sex with a fifteen-year-old was illegal but that doesn't count if you're both teenagers, right? Bringing a girl to a party and getting her drunk enough to have sex with you was a win.

I got that, and I have spent too much of my life wishing Garrett got it, too. Wanting him to realize what he'd done. Acknowledge his mistake and be changed by it.

Now I see the hate blazing from his face, and I know just how wasted those hopes were. This isn't a guy who is secretly ashamed of what he did at nineteen and just doesn't know how to deal with that. When he warned me to keep quiet—before I accused him of anything—he was acknowledging that he knew what he'd done.

Does he still know? Or has he rewritten history to a version that makes him the guy his mother and sister believe him to be? A guy falsely accused by a scared and pregnant girl who didn't dare admit she'd had consensual sex.

"This is your doing!" he says, setting Sadie down and pounding on the glass. "You did this. You put this zombie bullshit in our daughter's head, and now she's scared shitless, thinking her goddamn aunt is going to come back from the fucking dead, and you're just standing there."

"No, Garrett," Kit says. "We're all just standing here, because Madison has a point. We have no idea what's going on. But we know the dead aren't dead, and we know Sadie is very badly injured. So she is not coming in this house. We will give you what you need, and we will help in any way we can—"

"You bitch!" Garrett roars, pounding the glass. "You vindictive little bitch."

"No," Kit says. "Laney is the one who tried to let you in. If Sadie lives, it's because Laney gives a damn. I don't. Jayla doesn't. Sadie wouldn't do the same for any of us."

Jayla steps forward. "And you sure as hell wouldn't."

Garrett stomps across the deck. He disappears for a second and returns with a rock as big as his head. He heaves it back, ready to throw it at the window.

"Your daughter!" I shout.

That makes him pause.

I talk as fast as I can. "You told me to look after our daughter." I stumble on "our" but push the word out. "That's what we're doing. Kit has a breakfast business meeting with his mom. Their parents know where we are. When Kit doesn't show up, they will send help."

"They'll call the cops, who'll wait twenty-four hours."

I shake my head. "You forget who you're talking about. People like you and me call the cops. People like the Hayeses hire a damn SWAT team."

That makes him hesitate.

"Kit is their only son," I say. "Their heir." The Hayeses would never think that way, but it'll make sense in Garrett's world.

Jayla steps forward. "Without Kit, they won't get grandbabies. They won't be able to pass on their legacy. They lose their fucking shit when he goes hiking."

Also not true. Okay, well, yes, our off-the-grid summer house made them nervous, but only in the way it would make any parent nervous. I can see our reasoning penetrating, though.

"They will be here tomorrow," I say. "Like Kit said, we'll do what we can to help with Sadie. If she's resting comfortably and you want to come inside—"

"No. I'm staying with her."

"Then we'll give you whatever you need to stay out there, and we'll take shifts watching for trouble. If something happens, if something comes, we'll decide what to do then. But for now, Sadie is no better off in here than out there. You might not think she'd ever hurt Madison, but she attacked me. She went from pleading for help to attacking in an eyeblink. She's not in her right mind. You can't—"

"Fine."

"Thank—"

"It's for the kid." He lifts a finger. "And don't ever say I don't care about her."

"I never did, Garrett."

"Get the stuff, then. First-aid kit. Hot water. Towels."

"We'll get everything we can find, and we'll talk you through it."