We’re shrouded by darkness, nearly all light sources have gone extinct. I tap the bare bulb as I pass underneath, and the light swings back and forth. As I near Blakely, her face illuminates and then fades into shadow. Light, dark. Light, dark.
The still quiet of the room is eerie, the constant ticking has gone silent, all except the faint tick tick tick of her clock in the background.
When the light swings away, leaving her in the pitch-black of the room, I hear her scramble off the wall. She makes for the door, and I circle my arm around her waist to halt her escape.
“This is what you wanted,” I tell her. “No more lies. Just the harsh, candid truth between us.”
I thrust her back against the wall and grip her shoulder, my forearm pressed to her chest to prevent her from moving. Breaths ragged, she stares down at the rock in my hand before meeting my eyes with a spark of defiance.
“That’s my rock,” she says, needing me to confirm it.
Arm braced across her chest, I bring the stone up so she can see it.
“What time is it, Alex?” Her throat dips with a forced swallow. “What time do I get before you eliminate me?”
I keep the rock held aloft. “Since I broke my watch, time no longer has meaning here.”
Her eyes flare, and I wonder what my confession means to her. That I’ve lost all rational sense, that this really is the end…for the both of us?
I lower the stone and watch as her eyes seal closed in anticipation for the strike. I allow myself one greedy moment where I inhale her addictive scent, memorize her beautiful features, before I place the rock in her delicate palm. “There’s only one timekeeper left.”
I feel her chest collapse as she releases a pent-up breath. Her confused gaze shifts to the lone clock hung on the black wall and then tracks to me.
A tight smile rims my mouth. “You know what you have to do.”
Understanding alights in her eyes, her features strained with a mocking imitation of sentiment. “Alex…you’re insane.”
“That’s been established.”
“I can’t—”
“I’m not like you,” I confess. “The moment the secondhand stops, I’ll be forced to confront what I’ve done, and the guilt will destroy me. I’m not sure what I’ll do then…what I’ll be capable of. You have no choice.”
She shakes her head. “I’m not a killer.”
Her teeth catch her bottom lip, and the sight sets my blood on fire. An act I once deemed she did to assert control over the opposite sex, I now realize, with sullen remorse, is an impulse of her uncertainty.
She’s not committed to her words.
Instinct is impulse, and I reach out to touch her. My hand is sure as I caress the strands of her blond hair, dragging my fingers down the side of her face to tilt her chin up. The hunger to taste her one last time burns through me, voracious.
The room feels as if it exhales a leaden breath as I rest my forehead against hers. “This is exactly what you’re designed to do.”
She releases the rock and I catch it before it hits the floor.
“That’s not true,” she whispers, her breath unsteady.
With every vicious craving, I place a tender kiss to her forehead, then take I aim at the clock. The loud crash reverberates through the room. Glass clatters to the floor. The silver pendulum lies motionless in the dark.
A moment of sublime silence where the vile, relentless ticking ceases, then the cold chill of darkness.
As I face Blakely, her relief is momentary as it flits across her features. I dig the keyring out of my pocket and push it into her hand. “Run.”
Her soft forehead creases as her eyebrows knit together in confusion before realization dawns.
I remove the glass vial from my pocket and hold it up so the chemicals within catch the light.
“Alex—?”
Her voice is a faded whisper as I smash the vial to the hardwood floor. The potassium chlorate and glycerin work just fine when combined, but the addition of water reacts as an accelerant.
Blue flames spark on impact. A white-hot liquid fire races across the floorboards, chasing every flammable material and igniting the cabin like kindling. The flames start blue and hot, then surge into a wall of red that rises up between us.
22
Escape
Blakely
I meet Alex’s eyes across the flames. My whole body is paralyzed, waiting. For him. I’m not sure what I’m afraid of more: the fire, or Alex’s pain swallowing me like the void of this room.
This one moment of hesitation, of indecision, will haunt me a lifetime.
The dark room glows with its own roaring sun, the light of the fire almost blinding amid the blackness. I lose sight of Alex, and as the heat intensifies, I run toward the only escape in the room.
Fire takes hold of the cabin with a punishing violence, consuming the dry, timeworn wood like rain drops in a parched desert. The walls crackle. Thick smoke billows down the stairway as I race ahead of the flames.
Panicked, I grab an armful of clothes from the cot. Using a shirt to cover my nose and mouth, I start toward the storm door, pausing at the stairway entrance just long enough to look for Alex.
A loud pop spits out, and I dash toward the basement stairs, using the key to unlock the chain and sliding the bar aside. I cough to clear my lungs as I make it free of the basement.
Looking back once, I watch the plumes of smoke rise into the morning sky like dark storm clouds. There’s no other way out. Alex is trapped in that blaze.
And I left him there.
A sick weight pulls at my stomach. With trembling hands, I slip on a pair of jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, then I shove all doubt away as I follow the trail toward the other side of the river.
The fear of Alex emerging from behind a tree chases me at the corner of my mind. Every shadow, every snap of a twig, causes my heart rate to spike. It’s a twisted mix of dread and relief, and it forces my legs to move faster.
My bare feet hit every bramble and thorny vine, but the adrenaline coursing my bloodstream numbs the pain. My mind turns obsessive as I search for the truck.
Another loud explosion from the cabin that rattles the ground, and my foot hits a root. I trip and fall face-first into the dirt. Classic, I think, as I use the heels of my hands to push onto my knees. The final girl fleeing the bad guy trips during her escape.
A quick whip of guilt lashes at me. Alex was the villain. But that doesn’t make me the hero.
I left him.
Sharp pain stabs my hand, and I curse. I dust the dirt off my palm to inspect the cut, my gaze trailing to the offending object poking out of the ground. “Shit.”
With an unsteady hand, I push pine straw and leaves aside to reveal the bleached bone. A terrifying realization that it doesn’t belong to an animal seizes me, and I glance around, knowing exactly where I’ve stumbled.
This is a graveyard.
What’s left of Alex’s subjects that couldn’t be dissolved by chemicals lie here, waiting for the earth to decompose the remains. An ill feeling sweeps through me. I would’ve been next.
With sheer willpower, I’m back on my feet and running toward a thick row of trees. I reach the other side and, nearly falling to my knees, I find a black truck. Oh my, God. There’s really a fucking truck. I get the door unlocked and hoist myself into the driver’s seat. My hands shake as I key the ignition.