The Safest Lies (19 page)

I pulled her hand down from her face, my fingers linking with hers, and walked through the smoke, ready to arm the system again. But a cold gust of air blew the smoke inward, swirling against the floor.

And in the clearing as the smoke parted, I saw—the front door was slightly ajar.

No.
No.
Did I close that door? Did we lock it? Did Ryan?

No, wait, Cole must’ve— I’d heard the sound.
Did we lock it?
I froze, and Annika froze beside me, like my fear transferred straight to her. Either Ryan and Cole had made a run for it—
please, please, please
—or—

A shadow passed in front of the window, on the
inside,
heading down the hall toward my mother’s room.

Someone else had gotten inside the house.

—

Annika sucked in a breath, and I gripped her hand tighter, willing her silent. We were closer to the basement door. We could make it, in the dark, if we ran. But not before they heard us.

The walkie-talkie was on the counter, and I took it, turning the volume down to silent.
Fight or flight, Kelsey.

Flight.

I pressed my face into Annika’s hair, her coarse waves tickling my cheek, and whispered, “We’re going for the basement. Don’t stop.”

I inched down the hall toward the basement, and heard a creak as someone opened a door down the opposite hall. At least they were at the other side of the house.
Now or never.

I twisted the knob, and in the silence, the gears echoed inside the handle.

The footsteps froze.

So did I.

We were listening for each other across the house.

Silence. Stillness. Shallow breaths. Annika’s fingers were cold and clammy, and I felt my heartbeat vibrating through my skin. I willed myself to move, but my feet wouldn’t obey. I didn’t know what to do. Basement or front door? Hide below, or risk it out in the vastness?

Make a decision, Kelsey.

But it was made for me. A second man entered the front door, directly in front of me—separated only by open space and smoke. His wide eyes stared at me, and I stared back. He was dressed all in black, a hood pulled over his head—taller, bigger, everything about him in shadow, except for his eyes and the down-turned shape of his mouth. “Kel—”

I yanked the handle and flung open the basement door, pulling Annika behind me, slamming it after us. We’d made it halfway down the steps when it reopened, and I yelled, “Go, go, go!” as both of us half tripped down the rest of the staircase.

There was a light in front of us—two people with a flashlight—and I caught Ryan’s eye as he was pushing Cole into the safe room. I barreled into Ryan, taking him with me, skidding on the ground, pushing the door shut behind us all. It latched just as another body collided into it from the other side. We all jumped, and Annika let out a yelp. She was already crying.

The flashlight rolled across the floor, casting its beam across the room. The security monitors up above were the only other source of light.

Ryan leaned against the door, but it wasn’t necessary. We were locked in. And they were locked out. Something harder slammed against the door—something metal, pounding against us. I huddled with Annika against the shelves along the far wall, like that would make a difference. If they were saying anything out there, it didn’t matter, we couldn’t hear—not through the steel and the brick and the wood.

“We’re safe,” I said, like my mother would do—starting with safety, working her way out from there. “They can’t get in,” I said. “They can’t. They can’t. We’re safe.”

Cole let out a grunt, and he pulled his hand away from his side. He stared at me, eyes too wide, face too gaunt.

“It’s okay,” I said.

But then his hand groped for the shelf behind him, and his body stumbled—a streak of blood where he’d grabbed for support.

I stood, my stomach in my throat. Grabbed his hand. Felt the warmth of the blood, and my gaze followed his, to his side.

I sucked in a sharp breath.

“Kelsey?” he said.

He spoke my name like it was laced with some deep, living history. Not like he hadn’t even thought it in the past three years. Not like it could be wiped clean with a shrug, as it had been.

Like our connection was still fresh, somehow.

I reached for him as he stumbled, bracing myself as he fell into me.

“Oh my God,” I said. I eased him to the ground, and I said, “You’re okay, you’re okay,” and my voice echoed off the walls like a vicious taunt.

I
placed my hand over Cole’s, which was pressed to his side, and I felt the quiver of his skin, the warmth of his blood. The whites of his eyes glowed from the monitor screens.

The rest was darkness.

“Cole,” I whispered, though my words still seemed to echo. “You’re
okay.
”

“Is he hurt?” Annika asked. She picked up the flashlight and shined it directly on Cole.

His gaze drifted down again, to the dark liquid coating our hands, the stain spreading through his shirt. I grabbed his chin, jerked his head back to face me. “Don’t look,” I said. “It’s fine.”

White lies. Simple lies.
Careful.

The panic would make it worse. The fear would eat away until there was nothing left.

I looked over my shoulder, trying to get Ryan’s attention, but he already had his button-down shirt off, stripping it into pieces.

“Let me see,” he said, crouching beside me in his white T-shirt and dress pants.

Cole propped himself against the shelves, and I pulled my hand away, lifting one side of his shirt in the process. Ryan’s body tensed, and he quickly covered the wound back up, pressing down with the balled-up fabric in his hand.

“That noise I heard when we were upstairs,” I said. “That wasn’t the front door, was it?”

Ryan shook his head. He handed me a long stretch of fabric with his other hand. “Tie it around,” he said.

“Oh my God,” Annika said. “Is he shot? What the hell is going on?” She looked around the room. “And what the hell is
this
?”

“We don’t know,” I said, leaning Cole forward, keeping my hands busy to calm my nerves. “They showed up a little while ago, and our phones didn’t work, and we were trying to get help. The smoke, that was me. And then you showed up, and you didn’t notice that they were
coming
for you….”

Ryan had his eyes squeezed shut. “You said ‘basement,’ and we ran, and I wasn’t thinking….The door. I panicked. I’m sorry….”

“No, it’s not—it’s not your fault—”

“Yes, it is,” he said, pressing harder at Cole’s side.

I cinched the knot around Cole’s waist, and he sucked in a breath. I placed a hand on his shoulder, squeezed it reassuringly.

There was a crash on the outside of the door, and I imagined all the possible things it could be: a tool, a gun, an explosion. Annika let out a moan.

“It’s okay,” I said. “This is the safe room. Nobody can get in.”

I wiped my hands against my jeans, but I couldn’t get them clean of Cole’s blood. They started trembling, and I balled them into fists. I stood, stepped closer to the monitors, blindly hoping. “Come on,” I mumbled.

Annika stood beside me. “That’s the view outside?”

“Yes,” I said. “Somebody must’ve seen something. Or heard something. We can’t be stuck here all alone.”
We’re not alone; we’re not trapped; we’re not dying.
I tallied off the list, trying to carve out our safety, but we
were
alone, and trapped, and Cole was bleeding on the floor….

I looked back at Cole, and Ryan caught my eye, his face desperate, and I realized he must’ve understood something about Cole’s injury that we didn’t.

“Someone will come,” Ryan said. But he squeezed his eyes shut when he thought no one was looking.

That taste had returned to the back of my mouth, sour, on the verge of sickness. I cleared my throat, swallowed air. The back of my neck broke out in a cold sweat. I was going to be sick, right here, in this safe room, right
now—

Another crash from the outside, and Annika jumped. A noise escaped her throat, and she dropped her head into her hands. “We should’ve run for the car,” she said, her voice cracking. “We’re trapped. Oh God, we’re trapped and they’re…” Her voice trailed off. But the thought lingered:

They’re inches away. Right on the other side of the wall. And there is nowhere else to go.

I took a breath, fought against whatever was rising in the back of my throat. Forced it down, closed my eyes. “I’m sorry, I didn’t know what to do!” I said. I never did. Impossible choices, and I kept making the wrong ones. “Someone had a gun and you were on the wall, and this house is a fortress. I thought it was the safest choice.”

But maybe she could’ve gotten away, gotten help, gotten us all out of here. Instead, I’d pulled her in. How many lives did I hold in my hands, dangling over that precipice?

I’d invited Ryan inside with me, dragged Annika, yelled for Cole….

“What were you doing here, Cole?” I asked.

He winced as Ryan applied more pressure. “What do you think? My mother sent me to check on you. Apparently she’d been trying to call after you sent her some message.” He coughed, and Ryan murmured something to him. Cole continued. “ 
‘Just swing by,’
she says.
‘Get her to call,’
she says.
‘I’m worried,’
she says.” He spoke slowly and deliberately through his clenched teeth.

I heard the bitterness in his voice, but instead I felt a surge of hope. “If she doesn’t hear from you, she’ll send help,” I said, grasping onto the idea.

Cole laughed, and it reminded me of how he used to cry instead, as a kid who’d just fallen backward off the swing set. “I wasn’t going to come,” he said.

I thought that was the end of it. That he was mad at himself for being here. But he continued. “So I sent her a message.” He slid his phone across the floor in my direction.

His text read:
All okay at House of Horrors.

“I told her I did it. I told her before I came here. I lied, because I didn’t feel like coming to help you again when you so obviously didn’t want it.” I flinched, but he continued as if he hadn’t noticed. “But then I felt guilty,
of course,
because if something
did
happen to you, we would be so screwed. So I drove by, for my own peace of mind.” He tried to laugh, cringed. Gestured to his side. “And this is what I get.”

“I’m sorry….”

Something crashed against the door again, and Ryan’s eyes widened.

“Someone will come, right?” Annika asked.

I stared at Ryan. He stared back.

“Of course,” he said.

I pulled out the walkie-talkie, turned it on, depressed the side button, holding it to my mouth. “We’re trapped inside the basement of the house on Blackbird Court in Sterling Cross. There are armed men. Please send help.” Only the static echoed back. I changed stations, found the clearest channel, and repeated the message.

“There are better houses than this one to rob,” Annika said, her voice wavering along with the flashlight in her hand. “I mean, no offense.”

Cole swallowed, tipped his head toward the door. “This isn’t just a break-in. They’re right there.”

They were all watching me, and something crashed into the door once more. Everyone jumped.

Annika looked straight at me. “Did you know that man upstairs?” she asked.

I thought of the man at the front door, the way he’d started to speak. Started to say my name…

“No,” I said. She pursed her lips together, and I repeated, “No, Annika. No.”

“Then why are they
trying to get in
?” She sucked in a breath, held her hand to her mouth. She was going to crack, I could feel it. The whole room tingled with fear, like chemicals waiting for a spark.

Because my mother escaped. Because they’ve come back for us. Because there’s no such thing as safe, not really.

But I grasped for anything else to tell Annika. Any other possible explanation. Like I was falling, and desperately reaching out an arm on the way down.

“There’s money,” I said. I yanked back the carpet, exposing the square tile that could be removed. I lifted the lid and pulled out the envelopes of cash, one in each hand. Cole’s eyes went wide, and Annika took one of the bags from my hand.

She unzipped the pouch and peered inside. “Holy shit. You’re not kidding.”

Ryan shook his head. “You think they’re here for money? Really?” His eyes bored into mine, like he thought I knew better. Of course I did.

Annika took the other bag, ran her fingers over the edges, fanning the money.

Cole stared at the door. No code on this side. Just a lever and a wheel. Just a little bit of muscle.

“I don’t want to die for a couple grand,” he whispered.

“You’re not going to die,” I said. But I looked at Ryan, asking. I looked at the monitors, waiting. The longer nobody came, the less of a chance they would at all. Ryan swapped out the fabric he was holding against Cole’s side for another piece, and I could see it was soaked through. Ryan didn’t meet my eye.