Chapter 29

Chase is standing there, hisbackpack slung over his shoulder. "The front door is stuck."

"We have to get out," Mila says, her voice rising in a panic.

"Together," Chase adds.

"Now we're a team?" Kennedy glares at Mila.

Mila returns the expression. "This is still your fault."

I can feel Kennedy snap. She slams the bedroom door against the wall. "You were never invited."

"Yes, I was." Mila stands in the open door, backlit by a half dozen flickering candles.

"Not by me." Kennedy sounds desperate.

"We shouldn't turn against each other." Chase glances over his shoulder nervously. "Please, let's go before something else happens. I don't know if this is just Ryan anymore."

"You think?" Mila snaps.

There's a thundering sound above us, footsteps in the attic, the trapdoor slamming shut. Kennedy's door swings open and the pounding sound of footsteps continues, straight past us—through us—down the stairs and into the living room. Kennedy grips my arm so tightly I go numb. There's an unsettling silence, then the unmistakable creaking of the cellar door.

"Maybe we deserve it," I say. Some more than others. Maybe not. I don't know anymore.

"No!" Mila pounds the wall with her fist. "We don't deserve it." She's staring at Kennedy furiously, but there are tears in her eyes. "All of this is because of her."

"It's not that simple." Kennedy turns to Chase frantically. "Chase, you know it isn't."

"He blames all of us," Chase says grimly. "It may have been an accident, but we all played some little part." That's the story. Isn't it? The lie. None of us are monsters. None of us are killers.

"Then why did Kennedy use the word murder?"

The others stare at me, wide-eyed, and then at Kennedy.

"Because it was murder in Ryan's eyes," Kennedy says. "That's all that counts."

"You can debate this as long as you want, Scooby gang. I'm leaving before he finishes his little revenge game. Or whatever this is." Mila takes a step toward the stairs and then swivels around to face us one last time. "We all know this was never about who's doing this to us. It's about what was done to them. Chelsea, I don't know what those pills did to your brain, but flush them and wake the hell up because your girlfriend is going to get you killed." Chase's jaw drops. Mila turns to Kennedy. "Have fun in court when the Joiners sue you for wrongful death." She turns, flipping her hair over her shoulder, and starts briskly down the hallway.

Kennedy charges after Mila, footsteps echoing through the hall, stomping down the stairs. "This was a group activity, friend. Take a good, long look in the mirror. You came here uninvited. You set all of this in motion because you had to see the stars, and now we have a body count." I reach the bottom of the stairs close behind Chase to find Kennedy advancing toward Mila. The candle on the living room table is down to just a flicker, and it's hard to see. I know the lake house like my own home. But Mila's only been here a handful of times. She can't walk the halls with her eyes closed. Play murder in the dark. Look for spare matches in a power outage.

And she can't see that she's about to back into the open cellar door.

I grasp Chase's arm, choking on my own voice. "Say," I whisper. It's all I can manage for some reason. "Say. Say. Say." Panic swirls up in me like a cyclone. Chase looks down at me, momentarily distracted. "Say, say." I squeeze my eyes shut. God, why isn't my mouth working?

Kennedy stands nose-to-nose with Mila, her expression hardened. "You come into my house and break my rules. Lie to my friends and turn them against me. It's time for you to go."

I part my lips and it's like a bubble bursts. "Cellar," I gasp.

Mila opens her mouth to answer, then swings her arms out. In the darkness, she's backed up all the way to the top of the tall, narrow staircase leading down to the cellar, and just stepped one half step too far. Chase makes a grab for her but comes up short, his hands grasping at air. Kennedy freezes in place. I push her aside and reach for Mila just as her weight shifts and she swings down out of our reach.

Time slows. The function of my eyes is redefined. My eardrums filter out the sounds of clocks and plumbing and blood and chemicals moving in my body, so my heartbeat is replaced by the sound of her body thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Then silence.

Kennedy turns, her mouth unhinged, her face ghostly. She shakes her head wordlessly.

Chase clasps his hands over his face, then slides them down to peek over the top.

Mila lies in a sprawling heap, her hair covering her face, her arm bent underneath her. An oily halo of black surrounds her head in the shadowy darkness. Not blood. Blood is bright and slow and unrealistic. It's a prop. That's all.

"She isn't moving," I whisper.

There's a sudden flare of light behind us, and I whirl around. The candle has finally burned to the bottom, and I watch with horror as the cards from the board game ignite as if made of some hyperflammable substance. A sudden wind blows the door open, and the cards go swirling into the air like leaves lifted from a bonfire. As each card makes contact with a surface, a brilliant blaze blooms, spreading with almost supernatural speed.

"Shit." Kennedy runs to the kitchen. "The extinguisher's missing," she shouts in a panic.

A sickening sensation of déjà vu floods through me. Chase takes a step toward the cellar, but the door slams shut. He grabs the knob and wrenches it, kicks the door, turns to me with terror in his eyes. "It's happening again. The fire. Exactly like before. The doors were stuck."

Before I can speak, a wave of heat rises behind us. Kennedy screams. Chase and I are separated from her and the door by a wall of fire. Chase drops to the floor and I follow.

"Someone did this," he says. "There's no way a fire goes up this quickly without a serious accelerant."

I hear a familiar, horrible, crushing sound.

Hands knocking.

Emily screaming from the attic.

Chase was right.

It's happening again.

Exactly the same way.