The Spite House(67)
“You can’t hurt Miss Eunice or Miss Lafonda anymore,” Stacy said. “And you better not hurt my sister if she comes back.”
“I don’t want to hurt anyone, I promise,” Max said. “I just need help.”
Stacy reached out and grasped Max’s hand.
“Hold on,” Lafonda said, but Max was already walking back down the hall toward the stairs with Stacy in tow. “I said hold on! Where are you taking her? I’m going with you.”
Lafonda took a step after them but Max turned to her and did something that made Lafonda stop moving and catch her breath. Stacy could not see what he’d done, as he held her close to his left hip, blocking her view. She imagined it had something to do with the gun in his other hand. She knew enough about guns to know they were dangerous.
“Sorry, you had your chance to be helpful,” Max said. “I’m not taking any chances with you now. You stay here.”
“Where are you taking her?”
“Ask Eunice, if she makes it. I’m sure she can figure—”
The creaking and closing of the house’s front door interrupted him. Stacy heard him catch his breath, felt him shiver, felt a fizzy panic take over her insides. Her sister was back. That was it. Dess was here and now Max would threaten her. Max promised he didn’t want to hurt anyone, but he didn’t promise to never actually do it. And Stacy knew Dess would fight him the moment she understood what was happening. She also knew that fight would end badly one way or another.
It’s too late. It’s my fault.
Max nodded for Lafonda to go to Eunice, who sat on the floor, back to the wall. Eunice breathed deeply and steadily, and fixed Max with a look that Stacy didn’t know a real person could make. She only ever saw that look on villains in cartoons, in the moment right before they try one last time to kill the hero and get themselves killed instead. It transformed her face, her whole personality. She was not Miss Eunice right then. If she could stand up, she would become the Dark Queen of her great-but-haunted castle.
Downstairs, footsteps echoed. They sounded strange to Stacy, and a thought popped into her head. Dess doesn’t walk like that. Dess stepped lightly wherever she went because of the dance classes Mom encouraged her to take. The person who came in downstairs sounded like they wanted to knock holes through the floor.
From downstairs, Miss Dana called out, “Eunice? Lafonda? Are you up there?” Stacy felt a guilty sense of relief. She might still get Max away before her sister came back.
Max motioned for Eunice and Lafonda to enter the bedroom Stacy had been in. Neither said anything, and though they moved slowly they followed his instruction.
“Eunice? Lafonda? Odessa?” Dana sounded like she was coming back to the central stairway. Max looked for a place to hide when he heard Dana on the first step, and he chose the library, bringing Stacy with him. They waited at the edge of the doorway, just out of sight. Stacy did not know if she should shout a warning or stay quiet.
Dana spoke to someone else as she came to the top of the stairs. “Hey, are you okay? Where are you? You’re still with Emily? Do you know where Lafonda is? Did she go with you? Well, they’re not downstairs and nobody’s answering me, but there’s some car parked out front. I can’t find anyone. I’m going to call Eunice’s phone aga—”
She was just beyond the library, likely headed to Eunice’s bedroom, when Max made his move. Still holding on to Stacy with his left hand, he stepped out and threw his right arm around Dana’s head, pinning her phone to her ear for a moment. Dana pushed at his arm, turned and slapped at him. Max cried out in shock, matching Dana’s own cries, then shoved her backward with his shoulder to give himself space to swipe at her face. The back of his hand struck her chin, knocking her into the wall, then onto the floor. She landed just after her phone did, its glass face cracking as it flatly smacked the tile.
When Dana looked up, holding her chin and wincing, she saw a gun pointed at her. She squinted at the gun at first, like she couldn’t tell what it was, then her eyes widened.
“Max? What the hell are you doing here?” she said.
“You. You’re coming with us,” Max said.
“What are you talking about? What are you doing—?”
“Shut up and get up. Do as I say and I won’t have to hurt anyone.”
Dana stood up with her hands raised. “Okay. Okay.”
Max made Dana walk ahead of him at gunpoint while he escorted Stacy downstairs. Stacy felt like she was holding his hand tighter than he held hers. She looked back once as they neared the front door, almost glad when she didn’t see Miss Lafonda or Miss Eunice behind her. If either of them were there, she might have released Max’s hand to run back to safety. Only it wouldn’t have been safety, it would have started everything over again.
As she came closer to the door, the people she couldn’t see got louder.
Wait, please!
Don’t let him take you!
Don’t leave us!
Help us!
You have to tell us—
Please!
How did you get back?
How did you get back?
How are you alive again?
It was hard to ignore them, but she did as well as she could, not by blocking them out, but by opening her ears to them all at once, so that they drowned each other out. She could not have done this for too long. When they made it outside and the voices scattered and flew into the open air, Stacy couldn’t help but be glad to be out of the house, even though she was being taken away by a bad person.