Vengeful (Villains #2)(20)

Eli, who made every hair on her neck stand on end in a way the cold never did.

“It’s okay, kid,” said Dom.

“We’re here,” said Mitch.

“I won’t let him hurt you,” said Victor.

They were all lying in the end.

Not because they meant to, but because they couldn’t make it true.

The lake made a sound like branches breaking in the woods. The ice began to splinter beneath their feet.

“Get back!” she called, and she didn’t know if she was talking to them or to Eli, but it didn’t matter. Nobody listened.

Eli made his way across the lake, coming for them, for her. The ice stayed smooth and solid beneath him, but every time he took a step, someone else disappeared.

Step.

The lake shattered beneath Dominic.

Step.

Mitch sank like a stone.

Step.

Dol crashed and went under.

Step.

Victor plunged down.

Step.

One by one they drowned.

Step.

And then she was alone.

With Eli.

“Hello, Sydney,” he said.

Sometimes he had a knife.

Sometimes he had a gun.

Sometimes he had a length of rope.

But Sydney’s hands were always empty.

She wanted to fight back, wanted to hold her ground, wanted to face the monster, but her body always betrayed her. Her boots always turned toward the shore, slipping and skidding as she ran.

Sometimes she almost made it.

Sometimes she wasn’t even close.

But no matter what she did, the dream always ended the same.





XII





FOUR YEARS AGO


DRESDEN


SYD sat up with a gasp.

She’d woken to the sound of cracking ice, the hiss and snap of a lake giving way. It took her a moment to realize the sounds hadn’t followed her out of her dreams; they were coming from the kitchen.

The sound of cracking eggs.

The hiss and snap of bacon in a pan.

Sydney’s parents had never made breakfast. There was always food—or at least, there was always money for food, in a jar by the sink—but there were no family meals—that would have required them to all be in the house at the same time—and unlike in the movies, no one was ever woken by the smell of breakfast, not on Christmas morning, not on birthdays, and certainly not on a random Tuesday.

Whenever Sydney woke to the sizzle of bacon or the pop of a toaster, she knew that Serena was home. Serena always made breakfast, a veritable banquet of food, way too much for them to eat.

“Hungry, sleepyhead?” Serena would always ask, pouring her a glass of juice.

And for a groggy moment, before the details of the room came into focus, Sydney almost leapt from the bed to ambush her sister in the kitchen.

Sydney’s heart quickened. But then she saw the strange apartment walls, and the red metal tin on the unfamiliar nightstand, containing all that remained of Serena Clarke, and the reality came rushing back.

Dol whined softly from the edge of the bed, obviously torn between his loyalty to Syd and his canine love of food.

“Hungry, sleepyhead?” she asked softly, rubbing him between the ears. He gave a relieved huff and turned, nosing open the door. Sydney followed him out into the apartment. It was a rental, the eleventh one they’d stayed in, the fifth city. It was a nice place—they were always nice places. They’d been on the road—on the run—for nearly six months, and she still walked around holding her breath, half expecting Victor to send her away. After all, he never said Sydney could stay with them, after. He had simply never told her to leave, and she had never asked to go.

Mitch was in the kitchen, cooking breakfast.

“Hey, kid,” he said. Mitch was the only one who got to call her that. “You want food?”

He was already dividing the eggs onto two plates, three for him and one for her (but she always got half the bacon).

She plucked a strip from her plate, split it with Dol, and looked around the rented apartment.

She wasn’t homesick, exactly.

Sydney didn’t miss her parents. She knew she should feel bad about that, but the fact of the matter was, she felt like she’d lost them way before she disappeared—her first memories were of packed suitcases and long-term sitters, her last were of two parent-shaped shadows leaving her behind in the hospital after the accident.

What she had now felt more like a family than her mother and father ever had.

“Where’s Victor?”

“Oh . . .” Mitch had that look on his face, that carefully blank look that adults got when they were trying to convince you everything was fine. They always assumed that if they didn’t tell you a thing, you wouldn’t know it. But that wasn’t true.

Serena used to say that she could tell when someone was lying, because all those unsaid things hung in the air, making it heavy, like the pressure before a storm.

Sydney might not know the full scope of Victor’s lie, but the wrongness was still there, taking up space.

“He just stepped out for a walk,” said Mitch. “I’m sure he’ll be back soon.”

Sydney knew Mitch was lying too.

He pushed his empty plate aside.

“Okay,” he said, producing his deck of cards. “Draw.”