He’s gone.
I have to visit Madelaine.
It’s almost a compulsion. Since there’s no way in hell I could stay at the house with Carolina’s body still in it, I had no choice but to get out. I don’t bother with the backpack because I don’t want it to slow me down. Stuffing Carolina’s cash in one pocket, Nine’s silky scarf-thing in the other, I make sure I’m still wearing my necklace. Then, as I’m careful to avoid looking at the shadows that are creeping in, covering every inch of the place, hiding Carolina as I finish packing, I dash through the house and run out of the back door.
I leave the front door wide open. It’s all I can do. Burning down the house like Rys did… not gonna lie, the thought did run through my mind. It would be so easy, too. Just knock the lantern in the bathroom over and let the enchanted fire take care of this mess for me.
I couldn’t do it, though. I… I couldn’t. Carolina might have been working against me all along, she might’ve been ready to betray me before her fae betrayed her, but she didn’t deserve what happened to her.
She didn’t deserve to die.
Instead, I jerk both windows up as high as they go, then fling the front door open. There. I won’t leave Carolina in the dark, abandoned house forever. Someone will find her—I just need them to find her after I’m gone.
As soon as I’ve gone a few blocks over, I tug my hands. I’m not sure if the shadows lingered after I left. If they did, I just erased them. As soon as someone goes to check out the open door and cracked windows, they’ll find Carolina and, hopefully, get her back to her parents.
It’s the best I could do for her.
After that, I run. I’m not even trying to act natural. I’ve got to get far away from that house and I just don’t care how I do it. If anyone figures out that I was the one hanging around Carolina recently, I know what that will mean.
I go from being Riley Thorne, escaped Black Pine patient, to Riley Thorne, murder suspect.
Not again.
I can’t go through that again.
I almost got manslaughter after Rys killed Madelaine. I only managed to avoid that because the courts decided I needed to be put in a mental health facility. This time?
Can’t risk it.
I’m out of shape. Have I ever been in shape? Probably not. I push myself, though, despite the way each breath is a struggle, the stitch in my side so sharp, it’s like someone is stabbing me repeatedly. I stick to the back roads, the woods, any place that provides cover under the weak moonlight. The ground is uneven. I run into a shadowed bush, the sharp branch tearing through my sock, leaving a trickle of warm blood running down my ankle, staining the once-white fabric.
It’s all worth it, though, when I make it back to the Acorn Falls cemetery. I bitterly regret not taking the time to learn how to shade-walk since I could’ve arrived in seconds instead of hours, but I let it go when I force my trembling body through the tiny gap left between the locked gates.
It scrapes the crap out of my belly, my upper arms, and my thighs, but I squeeze through. I’m actually kind of glad to see that the cemetery is locked up. That means, for the rest of the night at least, I won’t have to worry about the groundskeeper.
Rubbing at the pain in my side, I hobble to the west side of the cemetery, only feeling like I’ve outrun Carolina’s ghost when I see Madelaine’s stone angel looming in front of me.
Up close, the grave looks slightly disturbed. New flowers line the front of the stone angel that marks my sister’s final resting place. I recognize them. They’re daisies. Definitely out of season for this time of year, but they’d been Madelaine’s favorites.
I don’t know what the date is. When I met Carolina outside of the Wilkes House—which was less than a week ago, not counting any time I might have lost since then shade-walking to Faerie—she told me it was October.
As I move closer, getting a better look, I almost trip over something long and skinny that’s been left in the grass that borders the edge of my sister’s plot. It’s… it’s a shovel. Not a huge one, maybe about two feet long with a metal spade attached at the bottom, I’m betting someone brought it to plant Madelaine’s flowers and accidentally left it behind.
Just in case, I leave it where it is. I’ve got no use for it.
Instead, yanking my sleeves over my gloves, trying to preserve any warmth I worked up during my frantic flight, I curl up at the base of Madelaine’s stone angel and let loose the tears I’ve been holding back.
I couldn’t save Madelaine.
Couldn’t save Carolina, either.
According to the Shadow Prophecy, the Shadow is supposed to save Faerie from the cruel Fae Queen.
What kind of fucking terrible savior am I if I can’t even save the people that matter?
17
When I wake up to someone talking to me, my first thought is that it’s the groundskeeper.