No point in turning back now. She brushed aside the branch and stepped onto the path, all the while bracing herself for the excruciating pain . . .
But it never came.
She passed a fallen log that she had seen her first time down this path, remembering that by the time she had gotten to it, she’d been ready to vomit. This time she grinned, and even started walking faster, with a bit of a spring in her step. The forest smelled wonderful, the air so crisp and light.
Driggs had said that after the physical pain came mental pain, but Lex felt nothing. At this point she must have gotten farther than Uncle Mort ever had. It was then that she knew, beyond a doubt, that she was really doing it. She had succeeded where everyone else had failed. One more turn in the path—
And there it was. The cabin.
A shower of goosebumps rippled across her skin. Trembling, she took two more steps toward the structure and stopped.
She’d been expecting something along the lines of a large, dilapidated log cabin, but she couldn’t have been more off. It was small—a single room, no more than ten by ten feet, only about eight feet high, with a sloping roof. The walls were white—not the gleaming, pure white of new-fallen snow, but rather the dirty, speckled mess of week-old snowdrifts—and made of an odd, vaguely familiar material. But not even the walls could distract Lex from the strangest thing of all: the cabin had no door.
Keeping her distance, she circled the cabin, but she still couldn’t find a door. What was the point of having a house with no way to get in?
She had to move closer. Coming back around to the side facing the path, she edged up to the cabin—then jumped back, a shriek catching in her throat.
The walls were made of bone.
Petrified bone, but bone all the same, its unmistakable curves, shapes, and textures all fused together into a solid structure. The darker areas that Lex had earlier mistaken for smudges of dirt were in fact small gaps where the pieces didn’t quite fit together or had broken off.
Lex wiped her sweaty hands on her hoodie and swallowed. Maybe she should leave. This was beyond creepy. She thought for a moment, listening to the eerie silence of the trees, sniffing at the woody smell, watching the vapor from her breath puff out into the air and sink to the ground.
She frowned. That was odd.
She blew out another cloud of vapor, and again it went down, not up, seeping into the bottom left corner of the cabin. Crouching down, Lex moved her fingers along a flat opening that seemed larger than the others, about three inches long. Its edges weren’t raw and jagged like the rest of the gaps, but smooth. Shaped, even, as if it were built specifically to accommodate . . . a key.
Her heart racing, Lex yanked the bone key out of her pocket and stuck it into the slot. She wiggled it around, pushed it in a bit harder, then finally pulled it down like a lever.
A loud click came from within the wall. Lex jumped back and watched in astonishment as a corner of the building opened up, the wall unfolding to reveal a dark hole just large enough to admit one determined, curious, terrified teenage girl.
She wriggled through on her stomach, pulling at the dirt floor. When she stood up, all she saw was darkness. She blinked a few times, her eyes adjusting to the small amounts of light coming in through the gaps in the bone. Soon she could make out a wooden table upon which sat a thick yellowed book bound in black leather.
She couldn’t believe it. The Wrong Book. Just sitting there, waiting for her to pick it up.
So she did. And she was just about to crack it open when she heard the sound of a match being struck. A small lick of flame danced to life, then settled on a candle.
Lex stopped cold.
“It’s you,” she whispered.
“It is.”
“Bone?”
“Not quite.”
“Then who?”
The man in the white tuxedo began to laugh. The cackles grew exponentially louder, bouncing and echoing around the small cabin until they almost seemed to be coming from the walls themselves. He leaned forward until he was inches from Lex’s nose, flashing a hellish, terrifying grin that turned every last drop of blood in her veins to ice.
“I’m Grotton.”
He blew out the candle, and the room went white.
23
Lex pounded across the Sticks River bridge, the twigs crunching beneath her feet just as they had fifteen minutes before. A light snow was falling, but she barely noticed. She felt stoned. Her mind was a nuclear war zone, blasted away by a shock wave of unprecedented What-in-holy-hell-just-happened-to-me?
Minutes later she was standing under the Ghost Gum tree. Its branches reached into the sky, the skeletal fingers cradling the nest that had once concealed the key to the cabin—the key, Lex now realized, to the future. Because what she’d seen in that cabin—
It changed everything.
“There she is!”
As a sign of just how out of it she was, Lex did something she’d never done before: she dropped her scythe. The sound of the voice had sent her into a full panic. She whirled around. Riley and Trumbull were racing toward the tree.
She scanned the snow for her scythe, but couldn’t find it; it had sunk straight through to the ground, taking her Crashing ability with it. She plunged her hands into the whiteness, desperately pawing through the freezing powder but coming up with nothing. And with the Seniors fast approaching, she was out of time.
She broke into a run. The snow made it hard to go quickly, but she trudged through as fast as she could, coughing as she struggled for air. She could hear Riley panting as she closed in, only a few feet away now. Hot tears sprang to Lex’s eyes as she pumped her legs, but it was no use. A strong shove from behind and it was all over.
Lex fell hard. Her knees crashed all the way through the snow to the ground beneath, skidding across mud and grass. Riley grabbed her with a pair of gloved hands and turned her face-up. “Gotcha,” she said with contempt, securing Lex’s wrists with a hard plastic band.
Lex let out a cry. She couldn’t help it. Staring up at their cruel faces, she didn’t feel like the powerful, invincible Lex anymore. She felt like what she really was—a small, scared kid in a shitload of trouble.
“The Juniors,” she stammered as they pulled her to her feet and began dragging her toward the Bank. “Are they okay?”
They ignored her. “Find her scythe,” Riley told Trumbull. “Norwood’ll want it for evidence. After we’re done with her, we can head back up to the office for the body.”
“The body?” Lex was confused for a second, then felt sick. “Snodgrass is dead?”
“Don’t play dumb, kid,” Riley growled, no doubt upset over the fate of her friend. “It won’t help your chances.”
Lex was shaking uncontrollably by the time they reached the Bank. It had been an accident, she wanted to tell them— but they’d never believe her. After all, she was a fugitive. She’d already murdered Corpp, and now she’d killed again.
She thought the Seniors would bring her into the Bank to see Norwood and Heloise, but instead they walked around to the rear and opened the locked cellar door. They escorted her down some steps into a narrow hallway. Several steel doors lined the concrete walls, doors with thin hinged slits toward the bottom, heavy padlocks on top, and no windows. A lump formed in Lex’s throat as she realized what they were.
Prison cells.
Her breathing became shallower. “Since when does the Bank have a jail?”
“Since always, missy,” said Trumbull, opening one of the eight-inch-thick doors. “Norwood’s just the first mayor in years with enough sense to use it.”
Now literally kicking and screaming, Lex clawed at the door with her tethered hands, grabbing the frame and pulling her head back into the hallway—but the Seniors were too strong, overpowering her once again.
But in that one brief moment she saw the Juniors. Guards were pushing them down through the cellar door—Ferbus and Elysia, Pip and Bang, all worse for the wear but gen
erally okay. Then Uncle Mort, his face a bloody mess. Then—then—
Then Riley clubbed her over the head, and everything went dark.
***
Lex lost track of time after that. The buzzing fluorescent bulb in her cell stayed on all the time, a dim, grayish light that made her sleepy. Yet sleep rarely came.
It could have been three days, it could have been ten. It could have been a month. Her head throbbed constantly. The plastic band around her wrists had been cut, but it didn’t really matter; she no longer felt the need to Damn, to discharge. Every once in a while she’d pound on the concrete walls and yell at the top of her lungs, but the thick soundproof walls all but guaranteed that no one heard her. She certainly couldn’t hear anyone else.
Food slid through the narrow slot in the door a couple of times a day, but even that was a joke. A slice of bread, some oatmeal, a thin soup. After a while double portions began to trickle in, but they were still meager at best. Lex tried not to think about that eighty-dollar steak, or how she should have ordered five more to hold her over.
Since there was no bed, she sat on the floor with her head on her knees, picking at the grass-stained hole in her jeans, replaying the last few months in her mind. How many mistakes had she made? She counted dozens. Especially that last part, those precious few seconds she’d spent in the cabin. All she’d had to do was grab that book and run, and things could have turned out very differently.
On the rare occasions when Lex did fall asleep, nightmares woke her right back up again. Terrible, agonizing images of her friends being tortured, of a body falling from a tall building, of Zara stabbing Riqo in the chest again and again and again.
And the bomb. For some reason, the explosion that had devastated Croak was on a loop in her brain. She saw it from different angles, in heightened detail, slow motion, sped up, zooming in on the victims as they died. Lex found this odd; the destruction of that night had been harrowing, to be sure, but Zara’s invasion of DeMyse was more recent, its horrors fresher in her mind. But still she dreamed only of the fountain’s blast, and even after she’d thrashed herself awake, the images wouldn’t go away.
Adding to the growing dread was the knowledge that Zara had never attacked, never followed the Juniors back to Croak. They’d taken her scythe and bought some time, but by now she surely could have hopped on a bus or hitched a ride from Chicago. What was she waiting for?
One day—or night—the slot flicked open. Lex, expecting food, dragged herself to the door to silently accept the tray from whoever shoved it through. She’d given up on talking to them long ago.
But this time a pair of eyes looked back at her, covered by a familiar strand of bleached-blond hair.
“Lazlo?” she rasped, her voice hoarse from yelling.
“Prepare yourself,” he whispered, pushing the tray through.
Lex shoved it aside, spilling a few gray blobs from the two bowls. “Prepare myself? For what?”
He looked her right in the eye. “The trial.”
The slot snapped shut.
***
Lex couldn’t extrapolate a single thought from her mind for the rest of the day—or night. They all jumbled together, tangling themselves into an unsolvable maze, none making sense. She slept fitfully, dreaming again about the bomb and waking with a scream. Then more hours of restless, futile contemplation, until finally the door opened.
Lazlo was standing there. He tossed a pair of gloves into the cell, presumably to keep her from Damning anyone. Once she put them on, he grabbed her elbow. “Let’s go.”
He led her down the hallway and up out of the cellar. The winter air felt electric on her skin. Lex’s eyes reflexively shut tight; she hadn’t seen sunlight in so long, and it was extra bright as it reflected off the snow. She turned her head toward the sun and let it warm her face. It was around noon, from the looks of it. Lazlo said nothing as they crunched over the snow toward the library.
“Why didn’t you handcuff me?” she asked.
“Because I know you’re not going to try anything,” he said, tightening his grip on her arm.
He was right about that. It wasn’t as if she could escape; she wouldn’t get far without her scythe. And what would Damning anyone else accomplish at this point?
“I’m sorry about Snodgrass,” she said.
Lazlo let out a snort. “That makes one of you.”
“Huh?”
“The guy may have been my partner, but he was still a douchebag.”
He said nothing more, but the brief exchange was enough to make Lex wonder. Lazlo hated Snodgrass? Who else did he hate?
She was the last one to arrive. Norwood, Heloise, and several other Seniors sat at a table at the front of the library, with the townspeople sitting in rows facing them. Wicket and Kilda were right up front, but Pandora was nowhere to be seen. Ferbus, Elysia, Pip, and Bang stood lined up on the right side of the room, looking pale and frightened. “We’re okay,” Bang signed to Lex. “Could use a shower, though.”
Uncle Mort stood at the front, next to the table. And to his left—
“Driggs,” Lex breathed. Lazlo placed her between the two of them, then walked to the back of the room, where he stood with his arms crossed like a bouncer.
More than anything, Lex wanted to tackle Driggs to the floor and spend the next decade or so huddled in his arms. But she didn’t want to give Norwood and Heloise the satisfaction of knowing how much they’d tortured her by separating them. Neither did Driggs, from the look of it. So he merely hooked his pinky in hers and glanced at her with darkened, hollow eyes.
“You’re so skinny,” she said quietly, her voice breaking. Everyone was thinner, but Driggs looked as if he’d literally been starved.
His voice was hoarse too. “I told them to give my food to you.”
Lex nearly gagged, thinking of all those double portions. She didn’t know whether to burst into tears or clock him for being such an idiot.
“Let’s begin,” Norwood said. “We’re here today for the sentencing of—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Uncle Mort said. “I thought this was a trial.”
Heloise flashed her trademark nasty smile. “Oh, we already held the trial. You were found guilty.” She feigned surprise. “Did no one tell you?”
A flare of heat shot down through Lex’s hands. She ripped the gloves off and tried to calm herself down, to cool off. Wrong place, wrong time. Wouldn’t accomplish anything.
Uncle Mort glared at Heloise. “Well played,” he said quietly. “From one guilty party to another.”
A strange expression clouded Norwood’s face. “I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, nothing. Forget it.” Uncle Mort looked straight at him. “Wouldn’t want to say anything too explosive.”
Lex’s breath caught. What did he mean by that?
“As I was saying,” Norwood boomed, his confidence returning, “the prisoners’ guilt has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt, due to the overwhelming evidence presented by our eyewitness.” He pointed at Sofi, who was staring straight at the seat in front of her, avoiding the eyes of the Juniors. “These are dangerous, deadly felons who have not only murdered in cold blood but also fled from the authorities, thereby endangering countless innocent lives. Their unspeakable—”
“Wrap it up, Woody,” Uncle Mort interrupted again. “No point in dragging out this farce any longer than it has to be.”
Norwood looked furious at having his thunder stolen, though his sneer soon morphed into a smile. “Very well,” he said, standing up. “I’ll skip straight to the sentence.”
The room went absolutely still. Norwood looked each one of the Juniors in the eye, then Uncle Mort, then finally Lex as he opened his mouth to speak.
“Life in the Hole. For all of you.”
Pandemonium.
The crowd jumped to their feet, cheering—except for Wicket and Kilda, who were doing their best to fake it, and Sofi, who stayed in her seat, staring at the ground. The mayor and his wife
sat down and leaned back in their chairs, taking it all in with unabashed delight. Uncle Mort’s smile was gone, his eyes darting frantically around the room. The Juniors on the other side looked utterly lost, too shocked to even cry. Driggs was staring down at the floor, breathing heavily.
Lex threw up. Vomited right onto a nearby pile of books. She was the one responsible for giving Zara her power, for Corpp’s death, for the Juniors having to flee Croak, for everything. And now her friends were going to rot deep within the earth for the rest of their lives, all because of her.
She couldn’t even hear the shouts of the crowd over the frantic, terrified beating of her own heart. She couldn’t feel her body anymore; she’d gone numb. And she couldn’t see straight—the room was spinning, the lights transforming into a kaleidoscope of color, Lazlo a blur as he grabbed the four Juniors from the other side of the room, shoved them toward the door, and pushed them out onto the street . . .
It took a minute for Lex to realize what he was doing.
“Run!” Lazlo shouted at them. “Go, now!”
She stumbled to a window and watched the Juniors trip over themselves, trying to figure out what was happening. As Lazlo’s words sank in, they took one anguished look back at the library, directly at Lex. She put her hand on the glass, locked eyes with Ferbus, and pointed to the Bank. He gave her a solemn, grateful nod, then grabbed the others and led them to the secret opening underneath the porch. Seconds later, they were gone.
The window disintegrated under Lex’s hand. Uncle Mort had thrown a chair through the glass and was now clambering out onto the sidewalk, reaching for her and Driggs. “Come on!”
Lex stretched her hands toward him, but before they could make contact, a hairy pair of arms grabbed her around the waist. Trumbull.
“Take them back to their cells!” Heloise shouted, furious.
Trumbull and another Senior shoved Lex and Driggs out the door, stomping on Lazlo’s crumpled form as they left. “Thank you,” Lex whispered to the heap, but got no reply.