Praying for Rain (Praying for Rain Trilogy, #1)(36)

Panting, I glance at his face, expecting to see anger or confusion or that look of focused determination he pulls on when he’s trying to hide his feelings from me, but there’s just … nothing.

His features are as expressionless as a wax figure, and his eyes look right through me when he opens his mouth and says, “Time to go home, Rain.”

He slowly raises one arm and points to something behind me. I turn and see that a trail has opened up in the side of our grassy, six-foot-high cell.

I exhale in relief and tug on Wes’s still-outstretched hand, but his feet are rooted to the ground.

“Come on!” I shout, tugging again. “I’m not leaving you here!”

“Everybody leaves.” His voice is monotone as he recites his personal mantra.

I feel like I’m in Oz, and he’s the Scarecrow—familiar but confused as he mindlessly points me away from him.

“Rainboooow!” My mom’s voice sounds farther away.

We have to go.

“Come on!” I tug on Wes’s outstretched hand again, this time yanking hard enough to get his feet moving.

We enter the narrow path, and I have to pull him every single step of the way.

Until it forks.

Shit!

I glance down both trails, noticing that each one appears to end in another fork.

“Give me a boost,” I say, walking behind Wes and putting my hands on his shoulders.

He mechanically does as I asked, giving me his hand as a foothold so that I can climb up onto his back. When I peer over the top of the grass, my stomach sinks. Old Man Crocker’s field has morphed into a giant, intricate maze. I can still see my mother standing on the porch across the street, but it feels like she’s twice as far away now, shielding her eyes from the sun as she looks for me in the field.

“Mom!” I call out, waving my hands above my head. “Mom! Over here!”

Something catches her attention, but it’s not me. The earth rumbles again as I turn to follow the line of her gaze. I watch in amazement as a green stem grows up out of the middle of the field, as thick and tall as a telephone pole. Once it’s reached its full height, it blooms.

I expect to be dazzled by velvety flower petals or palm leaves the size of water slides, but instead, the stem opens and releases a single black-and-red banner that unfurls all the way to the ground.

My heart plummets along with it, landing in the acid bath of my stomach without so much as a splash.

Three more stems spring from the quaking earth. Three more ominous banners bloom, each depicting a different hooded figure on horseback.

And a date, written at the top in bold.

“Wes, what day is it?” I cry, already knowing the answer but praying for a miracle.

His body is as rigid as his voice is emotionless when he replies, “Why, it’s April 23, of course.”

“Go!” I shout, gripping his shoulder and pointing toward my house. “Run, Wes! Run!” I watch as my mother recoils from the evil banners, walking backward into the house and shaking her head in disbelief. “She’s gonna leave, Wes!”

“Everybody leaves,” he recites again, his feet rooted to the spot.

“Shut! Up!” I scream, hitting him as hard as I can. My blow lands on the side of his head. It feels like I punched a pillow, but when I look down, Wes’s head is lying on his shoulder, and straw is sticking out of a huge tear in the side of his neck.

“Oh, Wes,” I sob, trying to stuff the straw back in. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” I lift his head back into place and hold it steady with my hands. I realize that his once-shiny brown hair has turned to brittle hay, his skin beige burlap.

The ground rumbles again.

I’m afraid to look, but my head swivels around anyway. There, at the edge of the field, stand four black horses—eight feet tall at the shoulder, smoke billowing from their flared nostrils—and their faceless, cloaked riders. They don’t appear to be pursuing us though, and for a moment, I allow myself to hope that perhaps the field is somehow off-limits to them. I exhale a sigh of relief, but it leaves my throat as a scream when the horseman on the far right lowers his flaming torch to the top of the grass.

“Run!” The word tears out of me as I urge Wes to move, nudging and pushing and kicking his straw-filled body, but he just stands there like the empty scarecrow he is, staring at a wall of grass.

I climb off of him and tug on his lifeless arm. Smoke and flames climb toward the sky behind him as the sound of my mother’s motorcycle roars behind me.

“She’s leaving! You’re gonna burn! Please, Wes! Please come with me!”

Tears blur my vision and burn my cheeks as I stare into the dead button eyes of a soulless man.

“Everybody leaves,” he repeats mindlessly. His straw-filled brain unable to listen to reason.

Fire consumes the wall of grass behind him, blacking out the sky with smoke as I tug his arm completely off. Straw flies from the severed sleeve as I toss it into the blaze and wrap myself around his burning, hot waist.

“You’re wrong,” I sob into his tattered plaid shirt just before it goes up in flames. “I’m not leaving you.”

The heat sears the flesh from my arms, but I don’t let go.

Not until I wake up.



I open my eyes slowly, waiting for the intense heat to disappear, but it doesn’t. The body that I’m wrapped around is just as hot as the one from my nightmare.