All the Inside Howling (Hollow Folk #2)(58)

The last time I had confronted Mr. Big Empty, he had tried this same trick, but I had found a way to stop him. Inside myself, I visualized a room. A space. And at the edge of this space was a door that swung both ways. For most of my life, I had piled as much debris as I could in front of this door, but lately, more and more, I’d been trying to clear a path. Now I reached out and firmly pushed it shut. That feeling of being rifled vanished.

Mr. Big Empty laughed. “Knock, knock, Vie. Is anyone home?” And for a moment, a terrible force pressed against that inner doorway. I pushed back, as hard as I could, but it was only going to be a matter of time. That inner door buckled and warped. That inner place trembled. Then the door gave an inch, and then another, and then—

Then, with another laugh from Mr. Big Empty, the pressure vanished. “Keep your secrets, Vie. It’s always the same: the self-loathing, the mixture of need and pride that make you lead on Austin while you secretly pine for Emmett, and your insistence on sabotaging every good thing that presents itself.”

My throat was dry, but I managed to say, “You’re not really one to talk, Luke. You tortured your Homecoming date to death. Samantha didn’t deserve that, not at all, but you know what? The more I think about it, the more I think that maybe it was a good thing. Maybe it was a small mercy. I mean, you spared her having to go to the dance with you, you conceited, miserable fuck.”

The sound Luke made wasn’t a scream, but in this dream, it was the equivalent. Here, it was entropy: the sound of the colors leeching out of Salerno’s body, the sound of the buildings grinding against each other and dissolving, like plaster of Paris left in the rain; the sound of the sky crashing against the horizon.

“All of them,” Mr. Big Empty said, when he could speak again. “They all deserve it, they all deserve to pay, they all have to be taught a lesson. But you.” The dream shivered, and some of the cohesion returned, although the buildings still looked like melted lumps and Salerno’s body might have been a charcoal etching. “You, oh Vie. I can’t believe I ever offered to help you. I want to do so much more. I will take everything from you. Everyone you care about. Everyone you want to protect. And when they’re gone and you’re alone, I will come and I will make your death last a thousand years, and you will know—”

“For fuck’s sake, you arrogant, blathering piece of shit. You already made all these threats. At least try to think of something fresh.”

And then, I did what I had done the last time Mr. Big Empy had confronted me in a dream: I sent him away. I wasn’t sure how I’d done it, but it felt like I had wrenched a part of myself, like twisting my ankle or dislocating my shoulder. There was pain, but then the dream was gone.

I woke up with a jerk, covered in sweat that had soaked the blanket and left a film on the vinyl sofa. It was daylight, and outside the horizon was a band of pink with a fluffy trim of clouds. I heaved a great breath, and then another, and then I froze.

Running along the top of the vinyl sofa were five parallel slashes. Five parallel slashes, I knew, that had come from the same claws that had killed Salerno.





I showered and changed into my last clean clothes. I had no money, and we had no food, but it didn’t matter because I couldn’t eat. The door to Dad’s room was closed, which meant he had come home during the night, and that was just one more reason for me to leave as soon as I could. I couldn’t stay in the house, not with those five gouges on the sofa spilling cotton batting and reminding me that Mr. Big Empty had been here last night, he had been close enough to kill me, and there was nothing I could have done to stop him. If what he said was true, he could kill me anywhere, just as he’d killed Salerno, but it was worse, somehow, seeing those slashes and knowing how close he’d come to killing me.

It was barely seven o’clock, and the October morning was freezing. For a moment, I hesitated, and then the cold made the decision for me: I darted back inside, tugged on River’s denim jacket, still stained with blood along the hem, and left. I chuffed towards the highway, rubbing my arms and deciding, for what felt like the hundredth time, that I had to save enough money to buy a coat. Today, the cold was deeply unpleasant. In a month, no coat would be a death sentence.

The walk into town helped me warm up, although my breath was still steaming as I arrived in Bighorn Burger’s parking lot. A pair of cars idled in the drive-through, and a few people moved behind the big windows, but for the most part Bighorn Burger looked almost as sleepy as the rest of Vehpese on a Sunday morning. When I passed through the door, a bell tinkled, and Sara looked up from her position behind the counter.

Gathering her apron, she scrubbed her hands and said, “Angel, you’re on register.” Then, nodding at me, she motioned for me to follow her back to the office.

I closed the door behind me. “Sara, I’m really sorry about yesterday. It completely slipped my mind.”

She nodded. The silence dragged on for a minute.

“It won’t happen again, I promise. There were—something happened, and I just, I forgot.”

Again, she nodded. Silence spilled off her like a flood cresting a dam.

“I guess—if you need to dock my pay, or something . . .”

“Vie, I have a fast-food business. The people who work here tend to fall into fairly predictable categories: teenagers, burn-outs, and the ones who can’t hold down anything better. Right now, we’ve got a fairly good crop, but employees who don’t show up to work aren’t exactly unusual. You, however, are unusual.”