Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Cassie wasn't sure how she managed to get to sleep after her last encounter with Seth. But she knew why she jolted awake at what had to be the darkest depths of the night. It was the sounds, again. The haunted house kind of sounds, that she still couldn't quite shake off as nothing. A thud on the stairs, she thought it had been.

Then it came again, louder this time. Louder, and clear enough that she knew it wasn't a ghost. Or a demon. Or something from the fifth dimension. There was someone in the goddamn house. There was a whole intruder, clearly—though she tried to tell herself otherwise for a second. You're just inventing new threats now that you've almost gotten over the terror of spooky things , her brain calmly informed her.

But it didn't work.

It couldn't work, because there was the noise again.

And this time, it was loud. It was massively, preposterously loud. As if someone had dragged a massive piece of furniture across the floor. Or maybe not even something as innocuous as a piece of furniture. It could have been a terrible thing, like a dead body. Or a sack full of body parts. Or possibly a big weapon that someone was going to use to turn her into mincemeat. He has an axe , she thought, and it's so gigantic that he can't lift it all the time. He has to just trail it behind himself until he's ready to swing it .

Then all she could think about was it being swung at her head.

While she just sat there in bed. Waiting to be murdered.

Get up , she instructed herself. And somehow she made a start. She slid out from underneath the covers, as stealthily as she could make herself be while also shaking with terror. Then once she dared to put her feet down on the floor—a difficult process at the best of times, considering her constant fear of what was under this giant brass bed—she tiptoed across the room to the door.

And ended up banging into the table that stood there. She had to fling out her hands and catch it before it fell. But even that made a noise. She froze. Breath held. Body tensed. Every inch of her suddenly icy with sweat.

Yet there was no relief when she got nothing.

Now she had to keep going. She had to actually go out into the hall, without so much as a big knife or a baseball bat to protect her. All she could think of was the hatstand in the corner, and it wasn't ideal. It was so heavy she could barely pick it up. It almost toppled her over, as she swung it out in front of herself.

But it was long. And it had prongs at the end.

It would keep anyone who attacked her at a distance.

And that thought kept her going.

She crept along with the thing held out, every bit of her braced to suddenly see the intruder's shadow looming in the endlessly gray and gloomy hall. Then she got to the top of the stairs and braced again. Because now there was moonlight filtering up from the kitchen window. And she was certain moonlight would reveal his hideous visage.

In fact, it took almost everything she had to peep down into the foyer. She held her breath, and tried to keep as much of her body back as possible.

Only to see absolutely nothing.

No axe murderer. No axe. Not even a sign anyone had been there. She even went to breathe out, with relief. Sagged back against the nearest wall, let the hatstand drop a little. Started to gather herself together, to get back to bed.

And that was when she glimpsed it.

Just out of the corner of her eye, barely anything at all. Merely a stretch of floor that looked a little blacker than it should, lying between the archway into the kitchen and the archway into the living room.

But of course she knew what it was. The hatch that led down into the basement. The one whose trapdoor she had definitely closed before she'd gone to bed. But which was now as open as the maw of a starving beast, about three seconds from a long-awaited meal.

Fuck, she thought.

Because, yeah, okay, if the intruder was down there she could probably get to the front door. Maybe even make it to her bike and pedal to the nearest place with a phone signal.

However, she had to maneuver around that hole to do it. And that was terrifying. So terrifying, in fact, that she had to force her foot onto the top stair. Then force the other to follow suit. And even though the next steps came faster, it took her five full minutes to get to the bottom. And another five to start edging around the hole. And all the while she was getting sweatier, and shakier, and oh god now her grip on the hatstand was starting to falter. Another thirty seconds of this and it was going to fall right out of her hands.

Then he'd leap up the stairs, suddenly.

Right when she had nothing to defend herself.

Just run, now, her mind insisted. And it was tempting, it was. The front door was right there. He was definitely down in the depths. It made sense to try. She could even slam the trapdoor closed before she did, and maybe shove the dresser over it too.

But before she could, she took one terrified glance down, beyond the jutting rim that hid the basement beyond. And saw the light on down there, illuminating the very thing she should have guessed. Because of course it wasn't an axe-wielding maniac at all. Or even a garden-variety burglar.

Oh no no no no.

It was Seth Brubaker.

Somehow, it was Seth fucking Brubaker. Just down there, in her grandmother's basement, in the middle of the motherfucking night. Rummaging around, clear as day, as if that was an incredibly normal thing to do. When it was the opposite of normal in every single way. In fact, it was so not normal she couldn't even bring herself to believe it was true.

She had to creep down a few of the rickety basement steps to confirm.

Though all that did was make the situation worse. Now she could see him in the highest-possible definition. Like someone had jammed a telescope between her eyes and his face, entirely against her will. And that only revealed a bunch of other things she wasn't really braced for.

For some reason, he looked sick.

Seriously, horribly sick, in a way that was making him perspire.

In fact, no. It wasn't just something as slight as perspiration.

This dude was sweating . He was leaking buckets of the stuff, from what looked like every pore. She could see it running down the nape of his neck and gleaming all over the space between his nose and his top lip. Hell, she could see it gleaming on weirder places—like the backs of his hands. Even though she felt sure that the backs of hands didn't sweat.

And god, he seemed gray. Actually gray —not simply ashen or pale or whatever else people usually said when someone was sick. Like he'd just stepped out of a black-and-white movie, she thought, and was fairly alarmed at how well that fit.

But she was even more alarmed by his left leg.

It just did not seem to want to stop jiggling.

Massively jiggling, like someone was setting off firecrackers inside of it.

And as she watched, said firecrackers seemed to spread to other parts of his body. Now his right leg was jiggling too—which honestly just made it look like he really badly needed the bathroom. She almost wanted to tell him he could go if he had to.

But she was glad her brain saw sense, and forced her not to. Because (a) it definitely wasn't the need to pee that was causing this to happen, and (b) he had broken into her home, in the middle of the night, and was now doing god only knew what. Really, she should have been whacking him with the hatstand. Not politely inviting him to use the facilities.

And especially after he seemed to clock her standing there, in the middle of that rickety staircase. He actually jerked as if struck. As if she were the wild, unexpected thing here.

Then even more unbelievably, he said this :

"I swear to god, I am not down here looking for drugs."

Instead of anything more reasonable, like an apology. Or an explanation for breaking in. Or even an excuse for something she had actually accused him of. Which of course only made him look more guilty of the very thing he was trying to deny.

"I feel like you totally just confessed to being here looking for drugs," she told him.

But weirdly, he didn't seem chastened by this. He actually sighed in an exasperated way instead. And waved an impatient hand at her. Like he simply didn't have time for her nonsense.

"No, I said the opposite. The opposite. You need to listen better," he said.

And that meant he was going to get it both barrels now.

"I'm honestly trying to, but the thing is you just broke into my house in the middle of the night, scared the absolute shit out of me, made me creep down here with a hatstand for a weapon, and are now talking to me through gritted teeth for some reason I probably don't want to know," she said, and was proud of herself for doing it. She had spelled everything out. And sounded calm as she did so. In fact, the words had almost come out a little dry and deadpan.

Even though she was practically boiling alive inside.

Honestly it was a miracle she hadn't breathed fire on him. Or at the very least hit him with the hatstand she was still clutching. But he didn't seem to care. "Okay, for starters, my teeth are not gritted. I'm just clenching my jaw really hard," he said.

As if that was the part that mattered.

"How does that make any of this any better?"

"I'm not trying to make things any better. I'm trying to tell you the only reasonable things I can. Like the fact that I am just here for my medication, and as soon as I get it I swear to god I will be out of here."

"Yeah, but that does not sound reasonable at all. It sounds like medication is a polite way of describing something completely weird or illegal or possibly terrifying. Like maybe a great big bunch of cocaine."

"You can't possibly believe that your grandmother was a coke dealer."

"Well, I didn't five seconds ago. But I'm sure starting to rethink that now."

Another exasperated sound came out of him. Only there was an edge to it this time. A desperate sort of edge that she didn't like. Especially when it only got keener in his words.

"Cassie, she was eighty-seven years old. Her favorite show was a crafting thing about making macramé toys to give to a dog she doesn't have. The very idea of her doing anything like that is impossible and ridiculous."

"Yeah, but until right now I thought it was ridiculous that Seth Brubaker would know my grandmother's first name and all of her hobbies and then break into her house at three in the morning. And yet here you are. Doing just that. Probably to torture me, again."

"Cassie, I'm not trying to torture you. I have never tried to tor ture you. The torturing just keeps happening, against every bit of my will and sense," he groaned, and god he sounded sincere.

Hell, he looked sincere. His brows had drawn together into a fraught peak over the bridge of his nose. There was actual anguish in his caramel eyes. And the hand he had out—well, it was very convincing. If he'd been any other person, it would have been enough to assure her that his motives were pure.

But he wasn't anybody else.

He was the guy—or at least one of the guys—who made her have to be homeschooled for the remainder of her last high school year. The guy who had proven that wanting anything good in your life—that believing in anything good—was just courting disaster.

And that meant he got this, instead.

"So get ahold of your will and stop. Leave now, before this gets any worse," she said, and oh the terror she got in response. He practically clutched himself.

"I can't do that. Not without what I need."

"Then you had better explain exactly what that needed thing is."

"I swear to you, it's nothing. It's not illegal, it's not horrible, it won't make you want to kill me. It just might improve my… condition."

Condition , her brain moaned despairingly.

Probably because her brain knew this was one more thing that would make her lower her guard. And sure enough, she could feel herself letting the hatstand drop a little. She took two more steps down the stairs. She was almost on the earthen floor now. Plus she was saying things. Things that sounded too sympathetic and helpful. "And what exactly is this something?"

"Just a kind of herbal remedy. Or maybe the recipe book your grandmother used to make it. Though I would need that last one fast, because you know the longer I go without it the more likely it is that I'll get… that things will be… that I might just—"

"You might just what? Do something wilder than sweat through a leather jacket?" she asked, and was pleased at the level of sarcasm in her voice. But less pleased about it when his hands immediately fisted into his hair.

"Oh fuck. Oh Christ. Please tell me I'm not at that stage already."

"Honestly I kind of want to, but your soaked clothes are making it hard."

"Okay cool. Cool cool cool cool. But nothing else is wrong, though. Right?"

He gave her such a hopeful look on that last word. So hopeful, in fact, that it was hard to say yes. Instead, she found herself wincing. And prevaricating.

"Uh. Well. That depends on what you mean by nothing else."

"I mean, like. My face is a normal color."

Fuck , she thought.

Though she went with the truth anyway.

"Hoo wow, no. No, not even slightly."

"Kind of looks like I died five days ago and just don't know it, huh."

"Honestly that would be putting it in a polite way. The more realistic one is death occurred sometime last year. Because you drowned in gray paint," she said, and did it as lightly as she could. But it didn't matter. His face still seemed to collapse into despair on hearing this news. She actually got to see his mouth turn down at the corners, in some cartoon parody of pain and disappointment.

Though he seemed to recover quickly. He shook himself. And clapped his hands together. Like some sixty-year-old dad who was about to tackle a problem with real, practical gusto. Then sure enough: "Great. Okay. Well, here's what we are going to have to do right now. Or more, what you're going to have to do for me right now. Whether you like the idea of doing it—or not."

"I'm gonna guess I'm really not."

"Yeah," he conceded. "I suspect the same thing."

"You should, considering the last time you suggested I do something, it turned out to be a ruse designed to humiliate me in front of the entire graduating class of Hollow Brook High."

"I know, I know. And frankly, I'm panicking really severely about the fact that you can't trust me because of that. Considering that your life kind of depends on you being able to," he said, and though she wanted to immediately scoff, she couldn't.

Because, god, the anguish in his voice. And the way his eyes were almost begging her to listen. It was seriously convincing—to the point where it was starting to unsettle her. Really unsettle her, in ways she wasn't ready for. Her hands were suddenly sweating so much that she had to set the hatstand down.

Then once she had, she kind of wished she hadn't. You might need it soon , some scary part of her whispered. Though she tried to stay calm and cynical when she spoke. "Okay, fine. Let's hear this probable bullshit."

And thankfully, he followed her lead. He kept it light.

"Well, it starts with you going back upstairs."

"Right. I see."

"Then shutting the hatch."

"Honestly, that makes sense to me. I mean, who would leave it open?"

"And once that's done, you drag something heavy over it."

"Okay, that's slightly less understandable. But I guess I could."

"Oh, and did I mention? You do all of that while I stay right here."

She was still almost smirking when he said that last little part. But that dropped pretty quickly once she'd processed it.

Because he meant…

He meant that…

"You want me to trap you in this basement," she said, all in a rush. And in a voice that sounded like a spooky ghost's impression of her. But even more terrible: he was already nodding.

"That's exactly what I want you to do."

"And you're not even gonna explain the reason."

"Honestly, we do not have time to get into it. I have about thirty more seconds here before a lot of things happen that I really do not want you to experience in any way. And to be honest? You're really not gonna want to experience it either."

"Why? Is some weird part of you about to rupture out of another part?" she asked, and was kind of half joking when she did. Or at least she thought she was half joking. However, she could hear the rising panic in her voice.

And his answering expression did absolutely nothing to quell that.

He just stared, and stared. Before finally telling her what her thundering heart and churning stomach already knew. "That is so eerily close to the truth I don't even know how you guessed it," he said, to which she really wanted to reply that she didn't either. But she couldn't, because the truth was—she kind of did. Even though it was weird and impossible and like something out of a horror movie, she could feel it.

Heck, she could see evidence of it.

"I guessed it because you look like you're trying to hold your guts in with your bare hands. Honestly, Seth, if you press your fists any harder into yourself you're gonna push your spine right out of your back."

"Well, about that…"

"Oh dear god. What do you mean ‘well, about that'?"

"You know what I mean. It's why you're backing away."

I'm not , she wanted to say.

But when she looked down, sure enough. She was farther away from him than she had been before. And by the time she looked back, whatever was happening to him was definitely happening more. He had started sort of slowly curling over, until he was practically hunched in a ball on the floor. Like someone who had been stabbed and simply could not stay standing. He needed to hug his wound, even though in this case there wasn't one.

There was just that nightmare thing he'd said.

The one that now seemed a hell of a lot more believable than it had before.

"Oh my god. Is this exploding spine thing seriously that bad?"

"I want to say no, but honestly this is only about one-tenth of it."

It was the way he said the words that made her formulate her next move. It was barely a human language. She wasn't even sure if she'd deciphered what he'd said correctly, in the middle of all the teeth-grinding and growling and drooling.

Really drooling, too. Like animals did when they had rabies.

So she just made the call, without thinking anything further about it.

"Okay, that's it. I'm gonna get an ambulance here right now," she said. And she turned to do it. But the panic in his reply stopped her. Hell, the fact that he managed to reply at all stopped her.

"No, you can't. You can't do that," he choked out, even though his face was starting to turn purple. Almost like he was fighting something, she thought, then tried not to think about what that something might be. Because whatever it was, it looked enormous. And horrible. And he was definitely losing the battle against it.

As she stood there—frozen in fear and dread and complicated feelings about her former friend—he finished curling all the way up. Now he was a tight ball on the floor, face pressed into his knees, arms around the back of his head.

And after a minute, she realized something else: he'd gone really quiet.

Spookily quiet. No more grunts, no more growls. Not even the sound of his breathing. Like he'd died, she thought, then couldn't help taking a step forward. She got a little closer, just so she could find out for sure if he was breathing or not.

And when that still didn't tell her anything, she leaned down. She reached out a hand. A shaking, hesitant hand. In fact, she almost touched him. She got within a hair's breadth of him. She could actually feel the heat of his body.

Then his head suddenly snapped up.

And oh. Fuck. No.

Because holy fuck his face when he did.

She had never seen anything like it. She came close to scream ing over it. Because even though it was impossible, even though it was ridiculous, his face simply was not his face anymore .

Those caramel eyes she'd once known so well—they were suddenly near white. As if they'd somehow been drained of all their color. And the smooth brow that had once sat perfectly normally above them? It was suddenly thicker and heavier, in a way that shouldn't have been possible.

Because, sure, eyes could sometimes shift shades.

But you couldn't spontaneously grow bigger bones. That wasn't a thing, it just wasn't.

Yet it had happened nonetheless. And not just to his brow, either. Every part of his face was bigger—his jaw, his cheekbones, his nose. They all protruded now, in so significant a manner that his skin looked paper thin. Like it had been stretched to tearing point, by whatever this was.

All of which was bananas enough on its own.

But then there were his teeth. Those too-crooked incisors were now no longer crooked. They were perfectly curved, just beneath the rising snarl of his upper lip. And oh, they were bigger. They were bigger, and they were thicker, and they were sharp, god they were so sharp she wanted to call them razors, knives, broken glass. Anything that would slice you in two the second they made contact.

And if that low growl was anything to go on, they were about to, pretty soon.

It was the reason she took a step back. Why she held up her hands and said his name: Seth. Though truthfully, she didn't know why she bothered. He hadn't even been willing to listen to her before whatever this was. There was no way he was going to listen to her now, in this state.

She wasn't even sure if he was capable of listening anymore. That part of him seemed long gone, at this point. And now something else was in its place. Something beast-like. Something that growled louder, at the sound of a name it no longer knew. Then it took one more terrible step toward her, and she did the only thing she could. The only thing that made sense.

She swung the hatstand.

And the second she felt it make contact with something, she ran. She ran faster than she ever had in her life. It barely felt like her feet touched the ground. She all but flung herself up the stairs, and when that didn't seem fast enough, she actually grabbed at individual steps to haul herself up. Splinters bit into her palms; she ripped a nail enough to sting. But she kept going even so.

Yet still, it didn't save her.

Three steps from the top she felt something snag her by the ankle—hard enough that she knew it was only a matter of time before it had the rest. There was no way she could haul herself out of its grip, clearly. Though god knows she tried. She threw herself left, away from that feverish touch. And she yanked her foot toward herself with as much force as she could manage. Then when that didn't do a single goddamn thing, she kicked with the other.

Pathetically, she thought. Like someone trying to blow a truck off themselves after it had run them over. But she made contact with something. And this something didn't like it either, because it grunted and went sideways.

She saw the banister beside her shake. Dust sifted down from it onto the side of her face.

So she kicked again. She kicked, and screamed at the thing. Let me go you motherfucker , she tried. And oh god, oh god, it let go. It let go. She didn't know how or why or what she'd hit with her bare foot. But the iron bar around her ankle was gone, and she was free, and the exit out of this basement hell was right there .

She just had to reach for it.

And she did. She grabbed the edge of the hatch and pulled herself up. All in a mad scramble, desperate and breathless, and even though she immediately wanted to collapse in the blissful cool safety of the hall, she didn't pause. She scrabbled for the trapdoor and slammed it shut.

Then padlocked it, just for good measure.

Only apparently it wasn't good measure enough. Something slammed into the wood from beneath, about ten seconds after she snapped the lock shut. And it did it so hard that she heard the trapdoor splinter. Hell, she heard something screech . Metal on metal, like the padlock was actually giving.

Then she remembered what he'd said.

About the heavy thing over the trapdoor.

She got up off the ground. Even though she was shaking and every muscle was screaming, she forced herself to get up. She staggered to the dresser that stood by the entryway to the living room. And just as wood and metal screamed again, she shoved it. She shoved, and shoved, thinking, oh god I'm not strong enough, oh fuck it's not going to move, he's going to get me he's going to get me I'm going to have to stare up into my former friend's face as I'm brutally murdered.

Then suddenly it gave.

It slid.

And there was nothing but silence.