The Scarlets (8 page)

“I have no idea,” Roger said gently. “And that’s exactly why you’re a problem.”

Cal saw his father nod. Was that a signal? Behind her gag, Fallon cried out, warning him. Cal spun, seeing the black-robed figure appear right behind him, that spike in her hand. More footsteps echoed down the corridor. They were done with Holliday and coming for him. He would be swarmed, outnumbered.

He didn’t think. Cal lunged, grabbing the spike and twisting it out of the stranger’s hand. Then Roger was on him, trying to yank him down to the floor. With a furious grunt and all of his strength he spun and threw himself at his father. Roger stumbled back against the doorway, too slow. He recovered fast, aiming a punch for Cal’s gut that never connected. Cal swung, arcing his arm over and down, slamming the spike into his father’s eye.

Cal felt the blood hit his face, sudden and warm, and he stumbled back, sickened, maybe blind. Was there blood running in his eyes? He couldn’t tell. . . .

Fallon stopped shouting behind the tape.

Something came down hard on his head, splintering his vision and knocking his legs out from under him. He could hear his father screaming, thrashing, and the blood on Cal’s face grew sticky and thick.

There are always two deaths, the real one and the one people know about.

The world went black and then gray, shifting and breaking apart, streams of particles that he watched bleed together. Like the upside-down buildings. Like his phantom dreams.

His father went on screaming as a shadow fell across him, the last dim image Cal saw before the darkness swallowed everything.

“It’s all right. We’ll get this cleaned up.” It was a soft voice and low. The figure in black. “You’re one of us now, Cal. We’ll take care of you. We’ll take care of everything.”

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

T
hanks, as always, to Kate McKean for her help and support. I’m so relieved Cal was deemed likable enough to warrant his own slice of the story, and it was gleeful fun getting inside his head. The belief in him is in large part due to Andrew Harwell, who seems to like the jerk as much as I do. The HarperCollins team really pulled it out for the design of this one, and I’m always in awe of their hard work and creativity. Thanks to my family and friends for never letting me explode into a supernova of stress and worry. Jean Rhys and Lee Falk were huge inspirations for this novella—
Wide Sargasso Sea
being one of my favorite books and
The Phantom
being a vast and wonderful comic series. With that, I have to also give acknowledgment to Steve Wright, who introduced me to
Wide Sargasso Sea
in the first place, in one of his many influential courses. Finally, a word of thanks to Jeff Kurtenacker for the soundtrack that played for 90 percent of my work time on this—a writer is always indebted to a good soundtrack.

EXCERPT FROM
SANCTUM

T
HE PAST IS BACK TO HAUNT THEM.

Keep reading for a sneak peek at
Sanctum
, the mind-bending sequel to the
New York Times
bestselling
Asylum
.

I
t was a fantasy of lights and sounds and smells, crooked candy-striped tents, and laughter that burst like cannon fire out of the winding paths. Curiosities lurked around every corner. A man belched flames from a podium. The scent of fried cakes and popcorn hung sweet and heavy on the air, tantalizing until it became sickening. And in the very last tent was a man with a long beard—a man who didn’t promise riches or oddities or even a glimpse into the future. No. The man in the last tent promised the one thing the little boy wanted most of all.

Control.

Y
ou
guys are not even going to believe this
, Dan typed, shaking his head at the computer screen.
A “memory manipulation expert”? Is that even a real thing? Anyway, just watch the video, and let me know what you think!

His cursor hovered over that last line—it sounded so desperate. But whatever, Dan was starting to get desperate here. His last three messages had gone unanswered, and he wasn’t even sure if Abby and Jordan were still reading them.

He hit send.

Dan leaned away from his laptop, rolling his neck and listening to the soft pops of his spine adjusting. Then he closed the thing—maybe a little too sharply—and stood up, shoving the computer into his book bag between loose papers and folders. The bell rang just as he finished packing, and he filed out of the library into the hall.

The students in the wide corridor surged forward in one long column. Dan spotted a few kids from his third-period calculus class, and they waved at him as he approached their bank of lockers. Missy, a short brunette with freckles splattered across her nose, had decorated the door of her locker with just about every
Doctor Who
sticker and postcard she could get her hands on. A tall, gangly boy named Tariq was grabbing books from the locker next to hers, and beside him stood the shortest guy in twelfth grade, Beckett.

“Hey, Dan,” Missy greeted him. “We missed you at lunch. Where’d you run off to?”

“Oh, I was in the library,” Dan said. “I just had to finish something for AP Lit.”

“Man, you guys have to do so much work for that class,” Beckett said. “I’m glad I stuck with regular English.”

“So, Dan, we were just talking about
Macbeth
when you walked up. Were you planning on going?”

“Yeah, I heard the set is amazing,” Tariq said, shutting his locker with a clang.

“I didn’t even know we were doing
Macbeth
,” Dan said. “Is it like a drama club thing?”

“Yes, and Annie Si is in it. That’s reason enough to go right there.” Beckett shot the boys a mischievous smile, one Dan only barely returned, and then the group started down the hallway. Dan couldn’t remember what classes the rest of them had next, but even if he hadn’t been doing any work in the library, he really was headed to the second floor for AP Lit. It wasn’t his favorite class, but Abby had read most of the books on the syllabus and had promised to give him a rundown at some point, which made it better.

“We should check it out,” Tariq said. He was wearing a sweater three times too big for him and skinny pants. It made him look a little like a bobblehead. “And, Dan, you should join us. I might be able to get us free tickets. I know the lead techie.”

“I don’t know, I’ve never really liked
Macbeth
. It hits too close to home for OCD people like me,” Dan deadpanned, rubbing furiously at an invisible stain on his sleeve.

Both Missy and Tariq stared back at him blankly.

“You know?” He chuckled weakly. “‘Out, damned spot’?”

“Oh, is that from the play?” Tariq asked.

“Yeah, it’s . . . It’s like one of the most famous lines.” He frowned. Abby and Jordan would’ve gotten it. Didn’t everyone have to read
Macbeth
for school? “Anyway, I’ll see you guys later.”

Dan peeled off from the group and headed upstairs. He pulled out his phone and sent off a quick text to both Jordan and Abby: “Nobody here gets my sense of humor. Help!” Twenty minutes later, when he was sitting bored in class, Jordan still hadn’t texted back and Abby had sent a lukewarm “LOL.”

What was wrong? Where had his friends
gone
? It wasn’t like they were that busy. . . . Just last week, Jordan had been telling him on Facebook chat how insanely tedious his classes were. Nothing was challenging, he’d said, after the classes at the New Hampshire College Prep program. Dan sympathized, but honestly, the classes were the last thing he remembered from their summer in New Hampshire. What he couldn’t stop thinking about was what had happened in their dorm, Brookline—formerly an insane asylum run by a twisted warden, Daniel Crawford.

When he wasn’t thinking about
that
small detail, though, he was thinking about Jordan and Abby. When they’d first returned from the college campus, he’d gotten texts and emails from them constantly, but now they hardly talked. Missy, Tariq, and Beckett were okay, he supposed, but Jordan and Abby were different. Jordan knew how to push his buttons, but it was always good-natured and made the three of them laugh. And if Jordan pushed a little too hard, Abby was there to call him out and restore the balance. Really, she was the linchpin that held their group together—a group that in Dan’s mind seemed worth keeping up.

So why were his friends ignoring him?

Dan glanced at the clock, groaning. Two more hours until the end of the day. Two more hours until he could dash home and get online to see if his friends wanted to chat.

He sighed and scooted down into his seat, reluctantly putting his phone away.

Strange to think that a place as dangerous as Brookline had brought them together, and normal life was pulling them apart.

A half-eaten peanut butter sandwich sat on the plate next to his laptop. At his feet, his AP History textbook collected leaves. The crisp fall air normally helped him focus, but instead of doing homework, like he really ought to, he was busy going through the file he had made about Brookline. After the prep program ended, Dan had made sure to organize the notes he’d made, the research he’d done, and the photographs he’d collected, and turn it into one neat file.

He found himself returning to browse through it more than he should. Even with all these original documents, so much of the warden’s history was still missing. And after learning that he might actually be related to the warden through his birth parents—that this horrible man might be his great-uncle and even his namesake—Dan felt like this was a hole in his personal history, a mystery that he very much needed to solve.

At the moment, though, the file was just a distracting way to pass the time while he waited for Jordan and Abby to log on. What was that phrase his dad always liked to use?
Hurry up and wait. . . .

“Could I be any more pathetic?” Dan muttered, pushing both hands into his dark, messy hair.

“I think you’re just fine, sweetheart.”

Right. Better to keep the gloomy asides silent in the future. Dan looked up to see his mom, Sandy, standing on the porch, smiling at him. She was holding a steaming cup of cocoa, one he hoped was for him.

“Hard at work?” she asked, nodding to the forgotten textbook on the floor at his feet.

“I’m almost done,” he replied with a shrug, taking the cocoa from her with cupped hands, his sweater sleeves pulled over his fingers. “I think I’m allowed a break every once in a while.”

“True,” Sandy said, offering him an apologetic half smile. “It’s just . . . well, a few months ago, you seemed so excited about applying early decision to Penn, but here we are in October and that deadline’s coming up fast.”

“I’ve got plenty of time,” Dan said unconvincingly.

“Maybe for the essay, but don’t you think the admissions people will find it odd that you stopped doing all your extracurriculars your senior year? Couldn’t you get an internship? Even if it was just one day on the weekends, I think it would make a big difference. And maybe you should visit some other campuses, too—you know, early decision isn’t the best choice for everyone.”