Bitter Falls (Stillhouse Lake)(14)

Lanny’s gone down the hall. So I lower my voice and say, “Sam—this town. I don’t know what to do. They’re shutting us out, closing ranks. You’ve felt it. So have I.”

“I know. I also know you swore you weren’t going to run anymore.”

“Maybe that’s just blind, stubborn pride,” I tell him. “I picked this place because we were anonymous. But we’re not anymore, and maybe I just need to accept that we never will be again.” I take a deep breath, and I look around. This house . . . it means something to me. We bought it as a half-ruined shell, and Lanny and Connor and I made it a home. We put in the new floor. New drywall. Paint and sweat and love. We chose this place, and it’s ours.

But the truth is, it’s just a house. We can find another place to make home. And . . . and I think we should. Moving to Knoxville would be expensive, but Sam would have a chance to fly again, and I—I already have a job, and the move would put me closer to my boss, and the resources of her offices.

I take a deep breath and say, “I think we need to move.”

Sam’s been carefully expressionless but now he looks relieved, and it makes me feel a real wave of guilt. He’s been worried more than he’s told me. He puts his hands on my face and leans forward and kisses me gently on the forehead. “I think that’s good,” he says. “But I know you put a lot into this place. I don’t want you to feel like I’m pushing you.”

“You’re not,” I tell him, and smile. “But maybe you should. You’re part of this too.”

“Okay. Consider this a push.” For a second, his smile is so genuine that it makes me forget everything else. “Oh, by the way . . . hope this doesn’t make you uncomfortable, but since you’re talking about homeschooling, I’ve got the details on Tennessee Virtual Academy. It could take us a while to get settled somewhere else, and I’m not sure you want to have them out of school that long.” When I pull back, surprised, he shrugs. “I figured it might come to this. You can enroll them in the online academy, but you have to withdraw them formally from the Norton schools first.”

“Wow,” I say. “Thank you.”

He shrugs. “I was worried. I thought it’d be good to know what to do if things went wrong. Backup plan.”

I kiss him. It’s impulsive, and it surprises him, but he doesn’t pull away. We’re still healing a very large rift that opened between the two of us in the rough, creepy town of Wolfhunter. Things came out about his past that I hadn’t known, had never suspected, and . . . it had hurt. A lot. Now we’re slowly rebuilding a bridge that will hold the enormous weight of both our pasts.

Something in this kiss ignites fires deep inside me, melts me like butter, and sends warmth coiling deeper in my body. We’re both a little unsteady. A little frantic. Sam’s thumb traces my lips, sealing the kiss, and the look in his eyes makes me think he’s feeling the same urgency I am.

But we don’t get a chance to indulge it, because Lanny comes around the corner and says, “Hey, do you want me to make a salad or—” She catches the mood right away because we react like startled teens, taking a step back from each other even though there’s no reason in the world for that to happen. “Really? Wow.”

“Lanny.” I try to make my voice sound firm and adult. I probably fail. “Why don’t you decide?”

“Sure,” she says, with a load of meaning in it that I don’t really feel like unpacking at the moment. “I’ll, uh, take my time.”

I take Sam’s hand.

“Bedroom?” he asks me.

“Bedroom,” I say.

I pretend I don’t hear my daughter’s muttered ugh as we pass.





5

LANNY

I suppose I should feel weird about the prospect of not going to school tomorrow morning, but I just feel great. Like a huge weight rolled off me, and now I can actually breathe again. School’s an armed camp, and I was always an outnumbered enemy soldier. Girls don’t fight the same ways—normally—so it’s more snark and bitchy cuts and exclusion than straight-up fights. Though I’ve put a beatdown on a couple of guys—and girls—who came at me that way when I first got here. Nobody’s tried it recently. But I’ve never really felt included; I’m still the new girl, at best. At worst, I’m the serial killer’s daughter. The polite ones don’t say it, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t thinking it.

It’s an early night. Connor feels like shit, and not even a rewatch of his favorite superhero movie cheers him up, so afterward I run away to my room. I’m in bed listening to a playlist and luxuriating in the fact that even though Mom’s probably going to roust me up at some horrible hour, I can just do online studies and take some quizzes and get on with my life.

It sounds amazing.

Rain clouds have been moving in, and by the time I finish watching a movie on my laptop and checking out a few makeup tutorials on YouTube, I hear thunder rumbling. It’s low and far away, but the rain’s already here. It’s a nice, steady drum on the roof and the windows.

It’s nearly two in the morning, and I’m almost asleep when I hear something tapping at my window. At first I think it’s a branch.

Then all my sleepiness flies away and I sit straight up in bed, because there’s a shadow out there.