She reached for the twine and paused there, hand gripping the string, listening. She thought she heard—there, again, a soft hiss.
The sound of her name. Galaxy.
“Fuck this.” She knew how this particular movie ended, and there was no way she was going down there.
She yanked on the twine and heard the pop of the bulb, then felt a hard shove between her shoulder blades.
Alex fell. The knife clattered from her hands. She fought the urge to reach out to break her fall and covered her head instead, letting her shoulder take the brunt of it. She half-slid, half-tumbled to the base of the stairs, and hit the floor hard, her breath flooding out of her like a draft through a window. The door above her slammed. She heard the lock click. She was in the dark.
Her heart was racing now. What was down here with her? Who had locked her in with it? Get up, Stern. Get your shit together. Get ready to fight.
Was it her voice she was hearing? Darlington’s?
Hers, of course. Darlington would never swear.
She pushed herself to her feet, bracing her back against the wall. At least nothing could come at her from that direction. It was hard to breathe. Once bones broke, they learned the habit. Blake Keely had cracked two of her ribs less than a year ago. She thought they might be broken again. Her hands were slippery. The floor was wet from some old leak in the walls, and the air smelled fetid and wrong. She wiped her palms on her jeans and waited, her breath coming in ragged gasps. From somewhere in the dark, she heard what might have been a whimper.
“Who’s there?” she rasped, hating the fear in her voice. “Come at me, you cowardly fuck.” Nothing.
She fumbled for her phone, for light, the blue glow vibrant and startling.
She directed the beam over shelves of old paint thinner, tools, boxes labeled in a jagged hand she knew was Darlington’s, dusty crates emblazoned with a circular logo: Arlington & Co. Rubber Boots. Then the light glinted off two pairs of eyes.
Alex choked on a scream, nearly dropping her phone. Not people, Grays, a man and a woman, clinging to each other, trembling with fear. But it wasn’t Alex they were afraid of.
She’d gotten it wrong. The floor wasn’t wet from a leak or rainwater or some old burst pipe. The floor was slick with blood. Her hands were covered in it. She’d smeared it on her jeans.
Two bodies lay heaped on the old brick. They looked like cast-off clothing, piles of rags. She knew those faces. Heaven, to keep its beauty, cast them out.
There was so much blood. New blood. Fresh.
The Grays hadn’t abandoned their bodies. Even in her panic, she knew that was strange.
“Who did this?” she asked them and the woman moaned.
The man pressed a finger to his lips, eyes full of fear as they darted around the basement. His whisper drifted through the dark.
“We’re not alone.”
1
October, One Month Before
Alex wasn’t far from Tara’s apartment. She’d driven these streets with Darlington at the start of her freshman year, walked them when she was hunting Tara’s killer. It had been winter then, the branches bare, the tiny yards crusted with dirty mounds of snow. This neighborhood looked better in the still-warm days of early October, clouds of green leaves softening the
edges of the rooflines, ivy climbing over the chain-link fences, all of it made gentle and dreamy by the glint of streetlights carving golden circles into the soft hours of dusk.
She was standing in the well of shadow between two row houses, watching the street that fronted the Taurus Cafe, a windowless lump of brick decorated by signs promising keno and lotto and Corona. Alex could hear the thump of music from somewhere inside. Small rings of people smoked and chatted beneath the lights, despite the sign beside the door that read No loitering police take notice. She was glad of the noise, but less happy at the prospect of so many witnesses seeing her come and go. Better to come back in the daytime when the street would be deserted, but she didn’t have that luxury.
She knew the bar would be packed with Grays, drawn by sweat, bodies pressed together, the damp clink of beer bottles; she wanted someone closer to hand.
There—a Gray in a parka and a beanie, hovering by an arguing couple, undisturbed by the heavy heat of a too-long summer. She made eye contact with him, his baby face an uncomfortable jolt. He’d died young.
“Come on along,” she sang under her breath, then gave a disgusted snort.
She had that goofy song in her head. Some a cappella group had been practicing in the courtyard when Alex was getting ready to leave the dorm.
“How are they already starting that shit?” Lauren had complained, sorting through her crates of vinyl, her blond hair even brighter after a summer spent lifeguarding.
“It’s Irving Berlin,” Mercy had noted.
“I don’t care.”
“It’s also racist.”
“That shit is racist!” Lauren had called out of the window and put AC/DC
on her record player, turning the volume all the way up.
Alex loved every minute of it. She’d been surprised at how much she’d missed Lauren and Mercy over the summer, their easy talk and gossip, the shared worry over classes, the arguments about music and clothes, all of it like a tether she could grasp to bring her back to the ordinary world. This is my life, she’d told herself, curled up on the couch in front of a noisy fan,
watching Mercy hang a garland of stars over the fireplace in their new common room, quite a change from their cramped rooms on Old Campus.
The couch and recliner had made it into their new suite, the coffee table they’d all assembled together at the start of freshman year, the toaster and its seemingly inexhaustible supply of Pop-Tarts sent courtesy of Lauren’s mom.
Alex had asked Lethe for a bike and a printer and a new tutor at the end of last year. They’d been happy to agree, and she wished she’d asked for more.
Their freshman dorm on Old Campus had been the most beautiful place Alex had ever lived, but the residential college—JE proper—felt real, solid and elegant, permanent. She liked the stained glass windows, the stonework faces in every corner of the courtyard, the scuffed wood floors, the heavily carved fireplace that didn’t work but that they’d decorated with candles and a vintage globe. She even liked the little Gray in an old-fashioned dress, a child with hair done up in crisp curls who liked to linger in the branches above the tree swing.
