One Was Lost(70)

“Sera?”

Lucas’s voice sends chills through my spine. I look up, and dread turns my limbs to ice. End of the road. Fifteen feet ahead, the stone drops off, and the trees thin. There is gray sky and the promise of a fall we will not walk away from. We take our chances climbing down a cliff in the rain, or we face the tangle of thorns, hoping to get to the forest on the other side. Or Ms. Brighton.

Ms. Brighton slips too, crying out. She’s already too close again. We have to choose.

The thorns it is. I reach ruthlessly, pushing some of the briar away. Thorns puncture my good palm like needles, and when I tug it loose, three more limbs snake over my back, tangling in my shirt, my hair. I rip myself free with a cry.

Ms. Brighton goes down, but she’ll get back up. She’ll be here in seconds.

“We’re trapped,” Lucas says.

“I know.”

We inch back closer to the cliff. I eye the cliff, the thorns, and then the woman with the braids who wants to end a boy who never hurt me. Ms. Brighton barrels toward us, and I pick up the heavy stick Lucas is kicking my way.

Ms. Brighton raises the knife, and I brace myself. This is how it ends.

“I’ll make this right, Hannah,” she says to me.

She lunges but not at me. It’s at Lucas. I slam the stick at her arm. She dodges until it is only a graze. The momentum spins me around and sends her staggering back. But she’ll come again.

Lucas tries to strike, but he topples sideways. He’s going to fall, and she’s going to kill him. And then I see a plan so bad it is almost no plan. It is the only thing.

Ms. Brighton moves in, and Lucas kicks again, groaning, because it must hurt. Everything must be hurting him now. His balance is off, and he sways heavily to the left. Toward the thorns.

“I’m so sorry,” I whisper. And then I shove him with everything I’ve got.

It doesn’t take as much force as it should. He crashes into the thorns, and I choke on my sob. Lucas the tall. Lucas the mighty. But the bigger you are, the harder you fall, and Lucas goes down like a small building, crashing through the thorns with a symphony of screams that cuts my soul to pieces.





Chapter 33


“No,” Ms. Brighton says, the word choked and almost lost on Lucas’s groans. She says it again, louder, because my bet paid off. It worked. He’s buried in those thorns. It’s like the worst cocoon and the best.

Because she can’t get to him without me getting to her.

Lucas is on the ground, groaning. Everything but his feet is tangled in thorns. My stomach rolls at his pained cries. I did that. But he’s still alive, and she can’t get to him in there.

Ms. Brighton snags one of his boots, and I shove her with everything I’ve got. “Leave him alone!” She recoils, and I kick at his boots, tears streaming. “Pull your feet in! Pull them in!” I yell at Lucas.

Ms. Brighton turns on me. Chills steamroll my insides. It’s my turn now.

“I waited for the one who led you away, darling,” she says, knife raised, her eyes darting so that I’m not sure what she’s aiming for—me or Lucas? “You will be safe from him now.”

She lunges for the thorns, stabs at his leg. I don’t know who screams louder, me or him.

I plow into her with everything I’ve got. She flies backward, and I go down hard on my knees. The rain is sending rivers of mud down the ground beneath me. Ms. Brighton struggles to her feet, but her knife has spun backward. Closer to the cliff.

Ms. Brighton rushes for it. “Let go of your desire for this boy! He is what ruined you!”

My desire for this boy?

Oh God. She thinks he’s guilty because I kissed him? My desire did this. I followed my heart, and it might kill him.

No. Ms. Brighton might kill him.

She has the knife. She’s on the edge of the cliff and rising like the sea.

I run at her like a crazy person. If I keep her away from Lucas, there is a chance. Someone might come. With the flares and the emergency call, someone will come.

Ms. Brighton tries to push past me, but I snag a fistful of her hair and haul her back. We both stumble. I slam into the side wall, and she scrabbles backward. Closer to the cliff.

Everything is slick. I slide down onto one hip, but she skitters back, trying to hold her footing, searching for something to grab. She’s dangerously close to the edge.

Please. Please.

For one second, one breathless instant, I think she’ll go over. Then her good hand catches a tree. Her eyes meet mine, and I can already see the smile spreading on her lips. She’s found an opening in the thorns.

I scramble up, elbows and butt and feet, and nothing works right. I am cold and wet and shaking so badly. She’s four feet away from him. Lifting the knife—

“Help me!” I cry to her, stretching out my hand. Pleading with my eyes. This plan is as crazy as my last, just a random impulse to keep her away. To keep Lucas safe.

I make sure she can see me because my face is my only weapon—the face that reminds her of her long-dead sister and me of my absent mother. Right now, I hope I look like them both. I plead with my eyes and soften my mouth and hope.

She turns to me, so I twist onto my side, clutching a hip that doesn’t hurt at all. “I can’t get up. My leg. It won’t move.”

“Hannah?” Her voice warbles, part cold and part madness.