Rot & Ruin (Rot & Ruin, #1)(88)

starlight glimmered on the canopy of leaves, and the ocean of trees seemed to stretch away forever.

“Have you heard anything?” he whispered as they sat down on the edge of the catwalk, their feet hanging over into the lake of darkness.

“No.”

“Good. I think we’re safe,” he said, then added lamely, “Up here, I mean.”

She nodded. A mockingbird sang its schizophrenic melodies from a nearby tree.

Benny said, “When there’s light we’ll have to try and find our way back to town.”

Nix just shook her head, and the denial had so many possible meanings that Benny left his questions unasked.

“Morgie,” she said. “Is he … ?”

“No, he’s okay. Or will be. They hit him pretty hard in the head, but they say he’s going to make it.”

Benny saw Nix steeling herself for the next question, and he was pretty sure he knew what it was going to be.

“My mom,” she began, and he quietly curled his fingers around the lip of the catwalk’s metal floor. “They said that she was … They said that she’d …” Nix stopped and shook her head,

trying it another way. “They wanted to leave a present for Tom. That’s what they called it. A ‘present.’”

“It wasn’t like that,” Benny said. “We got there pretty quick. Your mom was still … your mom. Tom held her all the way up to the last, and she held onto him. It was … I don’t know. I

’ve never seen anything like it. But then she was … gone. It didn’t look like she was in pain when it happened. She just went to sleep.”

“Sleep,” Nix said in a soft echo. “And … after? Did she … I mean, did they let her … God, Benny, don’t make me say it!”

“No,” he soothed. “No. She never returned. There wasn’t time. Tom did what was necessary.”

“Tom?”

“Yes. With a sliver. He did it fast and quick. She never knew. And he held her afterward.”

Nix made no comment, but he could feel her pain. She sat and stared into the darkness of her own thoughts as the wheel of night turned above them.

“Why did they come after you, Nix?”

She turned to him in the dark. “It was because of that card. The Zombie Card with the girl on it.”

“I don’t get it.”

“Zak Matthias got one too. I ran into him yesterday. He was on his way home from the store with his Zombie Cards, and I asked to see them. He was kind of weird about it, but he showed them

to me. When I saw the card for the Lost Girl, I told him that I’d seen that picture before. He seemed really interested and asked where, and I told him that my mom was friends with Mr.

Sacchetto, the erosion artist. He came over to the house with Tom a few times, and they talked about the Lost Girl.”

“You never told me about that.”

She shrugged. “Why would I? It didn’t seem to involve us. Just my mom and her friends talking. But when I told Zak, he kept asking me about it. What did my mom know about the Lost Girl?

What had Tom and Mr. Sacchetto told her? Did I know where the Lost Girl was?” A tear rolled down her face, and she brushed it away. “I thought he was just interested because of the

picture. The girl’s so pretty, you know? Like something out of a book. A faerie princess or something like that. Zak was smiling the whole time and … I don’t know … He’s good-looking,

and he was being nice to me and …”

“And I’d blown you off?”

Nix shot him a sharp look, but her face softened and she looked away. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“What did you tell him?”

She was a long time answering, and twice her face screwed up as she fought to control the pain in her soul. “I … I told him everything I knew. It wasn’t a lot. I didn’t really pay much

attention when Mom and the others were talking about her. I told Zak that Mom knew a lot about her.” She shook her head in confusion. “I don’t know, Benny. Zak was being so nice. … I don

’t know what I said.”

“It’s okay, Nix.”


She wheeled on him. “Okay? No, it’s not okay! Don’t you get it? I told Zak that my mom knew about the Lost Girl, and I think that’s why Charlie came to the house. It’s because of what I

said!”

She hissed the last words at him in a voice that boiled with pain and self-hatred.

“My mom’s dead because of me!”

“No, she’s not,” Benny said with a growl. He took her by the arms. She was strong. She tried to break away and stand up, but he held her. “Listen to me, Nix! Your mom’s dead, because

Charlie Matthias is a freak and a murderer and a … a …” He couldn’t find a word vile enough to describe that monster’s nature.

Tears streamed down Nix’s face, but her teeth were set and bared. “Charlie knew you had the same card. All the time he was at the house, Charlie kept saying they should have just taken the

card from you. He was furious with you. He said that you sassed him and that if Tom hadn’t come along, he’d have shown you manners. Manners … That’s a word he used at our house. He said