Sleep No More
Page 67

And there’s only one exit.
The background changes and I whirl around, trying to look in all directions at once. His jail cell is gone—and the image of his physical self with it. Now it’s a decrepit old manor house with dozens of shadowy enclaves to hide in. Dusty mirrors to bounce light from and throw me off. There’s even a light wind to keep the ragged bits of curtains blowing—hiding any movement from Smith. It’s a perfect place for hide-and-seek.
He wants me to look for him.
So that must be the wrong answer.
I peer behind me—the exit isn’t small exactly, but it’s guardable. Like a little kid stalking the base in tag, I pace back and forth, my hammer upraised. “I know you’re here!” I shout. “Why are you doing this?” I ask, hoping that I’ll be able to home in on his location.
A laugh from my right, a window shattering on my left. “To break you. And you’re so close,” he adds with triumph in his voice. “Why do you think all the victims have been your friends? Not friends even—potential friends in your otherwise lonely, pathetic existence.”
I refuse to let his words make me sad. I won’t. I have to find him.
“Why end with the boy you’ve been in love with since you were in grade school? To break your mind and your resistance until you’re nothing more than my puppet. Once you let me into your head, I combed your past—found people you cared for, even if you didn’t really know it. This is all about you, Charlotte. All of them died because of you.”
It’s a lie, it’s a lie. Smith killed them. It’s not my fault. “Then why start with Bethany?” I ask, and I’m pretty sure that, despite the echo, his voice is originating from over to my right.
“To get her out of Linden’s way. Did you think he really liked you, Charlotte? Did you believe?”
My heart cracks in two and my arms feel weak, trembling against the weight of the huge sledgehammer. I can’t . . . I can’t . . .
“So stupid. Stupid little girl.”
His words make something flare inside me. He’s made a mistake. Now I’m angry.
“I saw you,” I shout. “The night that Clara was attacked. I saw you in your dumb coat running toward us. How could there be two of you?”
“It wasn’t the physical me,” Smith says, and now I swear it’s coming from the left. I turn subtly in that direction. “I was in your second sight. I snuck in your head and you didn’t even know it. I watched you change the vision. But, I admit, you did better than I expected, so once you started to lose consciousness, I hurried in to warn myself to leave.”
Of course he wasn’t saving Clara—he was saving himself.
“Why now?”
He doesn’t answer right away. The scene wavers and I realize I’ve found a weakness. I remember him saying that he fed off the energy from the visions I couldn’t fight. “I was getting too good, wasn’t I? It was longer and longer stretches between visions. You were getting weak.” And the logic crashes over me like an ocean wave. “So you had to do something big enough that I wouldn’t be able to fight the vision. It was the only way you could survive.”
“I do what I have to, Charlotte. You weren’t ready when I found you. You were too young. That’s the mistake I made with Shelby. With Sierra.”
“So you started killing people to feed yourself,” I say caustically.
His sigh is almost strangled. “I tried other things, but Sierra was a good instructor. I almost missed my perfect window. Old enough to have truly come into your abilities, but not yet sworn to the Sisters who might have warned you about me. About people like me.”
“You need me. You’ve always needed me,” I whisper.
He’s silent again and I know I’m right. He’s nothing without me.
But I have to get him talking again.
“Weren’t you worried I’d have a vision about you? Figure out who you were?”
“Worried? You have no idea how difficult it was,” he snaps, and his voice is less echoing now. He’s losing the energy and concentration to pull his little parlor tricks. He’s angry that he can’t get out. And angry that, at least for the moment, I’m winning. “I wore that mask day and night for weeks! I couldn’t even risk thinking about my killings without the godforsaken mask on. The only times I didn’t wear it were when I was with you. Then, if you had a vision about me, you would just see us working together.”
I step to my right again when I hear something topple over and break.
“I am never going to pretend again,” he shouts. “I will never hide, or run, or starve. Not because of her and not because of you!”
Then, from the opposite side, he’s sprinting toward the edge of the frame. I visualize the hammer in my hand morphing into a long hook. I nab his feet and he sprawls onto the floor. I jump on him in an instant.
His elbow smashes into my nose and pain explodes on my face. This isn’t my physical body, I remind myself, remembering the paralyzing pain of Smith’s blows the night I saved Clara. I can take it. I am stronger than he ever let me believe, I tell myself, trying not to surrender to the excruciating pain.
I tighten my arms around Smith’s neck as his fingernails rake at my skin. He flings his head back, our skulls connecting and, for a second, I see stars and loosen my grip. He darts away, gasping for breath and when he turns there’s a gun in his hand and he fires.