“Grow up.”
“Never.” Noah’s grin turned devious, and I matched it despite myself. “They’ll relax, you know,” he said then. “They’ll get complacent. As long as you keep improving.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Is that your way of telling me to keep my shit together?”
At this, Noah closed the distance between us. He leaned down until his lips grazed my ear. My pulse raced at the contact and my eyes closed at the feel of his five o’clock shadow on my cheek.
“It’s my way of telling you that I can’t bear to look at my bed without seeing you in it,” he said, and his words made me shiver. “So do try to avoid a lockdown.”
I felt him withdraw, and I opened my eyes. “I’ll get right on that,” I breathed.
One final wicked smile. “You’d better.”
10
AFTER NOAH WENT HOME, MY FATHER CRACKED bad jokes at dinner, Joseph talked at fifty thousand miles a minute, my mother watched me too closely, and Daniel seemed like his lovably pretentious self. It almost felt like I’d never left.
Almost.
When we finished, my mom watched me take the multiple antipsychotics I was now on but didn’t need, and then everyone went to their respective rooms before bed. I passed by the first set of French doors in the hallway but stopped short when I thought I saw a shadow move outside.
The air left my lungs.
The street lamps cast an unusually bright glow on the backyard, which was covered in a thin fog. It didn’t look like there was anything there, but it was hard to see.
My heart was pounding so loudly I could hear it. Just last week, I would have dismissed it as nothing; just my misbehaving mind ruled by fear. I would have hurried into my bedroom and burrowed under the covers and whispered to the dark that it wasn’t real. I was afraid of only myself then; what I might see, what I might do. But now, now there was something real to be frightened of.
Now there was Jude.
But if he wanted to hurt me, why show up at Croyden once and then leave me alone? Why appear at the Cuban restaurant and disappear seconds later? If he did take Joseph, my brother was still unharmed when we found him. And why would he walk into the police station, close enough for me to see, close enough for me to touch, just before walking out?
What was the point? What did he want?
I stood still in the safety of my house, my breath quick as my eyes searched for Jude behind the glass. The darkness revealed nothing, but I was still afraid.
I clenched my jaw as I realized that I would always be afraid. Now that I knew Jude was alive, that he was here, I wouldn’t be able to walk into the bathroom without wanting to throw back the shower curtain to make sure he wasn’t behind it. I wouldn’t be able to walk down a dark hallway without picturing him at the end. Every snap of a twig would turn into his footstep. I would imagine him everywhere, whether he was there or not.
That was what he wanted. That was the point.
So I unlocked the door and stepped outside.
I was enveloped by the dull roar of crickets the moment my foot touched the patio. It was a rare cool night in Miami; the earlier rain became mist and the night sky was completely obscured by clouds. If it weren’t March in Florida, I would have thought it was about to snow.
I breathed in the damp air, one hand still on the door handle as the wind shook a few stubborn raindrops from the trees. Someone might be out there—Jude might be out there, but my parents were inside. There was nothing he could do.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I said to no one. The breeze carried my words away as it raised the hair on my skin. He might be alive but I wouldn’t spend my life in terror of him. I refused. If fear was what he wanted from me, I would make sure he didn’t get it.
A mosquito hummed by my ear. I dodged it, and stepped into something wet.
Something soft.
I backed up toward the house, fumbling for the outdoor lights. They flickered on.
I gagged.
The still body of a gray cat lay inches from where I’d been standing, its flesh torn open, its fur streaked with red. My feet were soaked in blood.
I covered my mouth to trap my rising scream.
Because I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t make a sound. If I did, my parents would come running. They would ask what happened. They would see the cat. They would see me.
They would want to know what I was doing outside.
I heard my mother’s voice in my mind.
“She was paranoid. Suspicious.”
That’s what my parents would think of me if I told them someone was out there. That I was paranoid. Suspicious. Sick. They would be worried, and if I wanted to stay home, stay free, I couldn’t afford that.
So I turned off the lights and ducked back inside. I left a trail of bloody footprints in the hall. I grabbed toilet paper from my brothers’ bathroom and rubbed at the blood staining my feet until I was clean. Then I cleaned up the floor. Checked all of the locks on all of the doors. Just in case.
And then, finally, I escaped to my room.
Only then did I realize I was shaking. I looked down at my feet. I could still feel the soft, wet, dead fur—
I rushed into my bathroom and threw up.
My hair was pasted to the back of my neck and my clothes were damp against my skin. I slid down to the floor and hugged my knees to my chest, the tile cool beneath me. I let my eyes drift closed.
Maybe the cat was killed by an animal. Another cat. A raccoon, maybe.
That was possible. More than possible; it was likely.
So I brushed my teeth. Washed my face. Forced myself to get into bed. Told myself that everything was fine until I actually found myself starting to believe it.
Until I woke up the next morning and looked in the mirror.
Two words were written there, scrawled in blood:
FOR CLAIRE
The room tilted. I heaved into the sink.
And then I cried.
Jude knew what happened that night. That I was the one who brought the asylum down. That I was the one who killed Claire. That was why he was here.
I wanted to scream for my parents. To show them the cat, the message—proof that Jude really was alive and that he was here.
But it wasn’t proof enough. My hands trembled but I steadied myself against the sink and blinked hard. I willed myself to ignore the panic scratching at the surface, threatening to shatter my carefully constructed lies. I forced my feet to move. I checked the windows in my bedroom and checked the rest of the house too. All of the doors were locked.