To think of how much she and her friends had laughed at the oracle’s eerie prophecy!
Never for a moment had she taken it seriously when the woman had said, “You will come to a fork in the road and darkness beyond it...”
And yet there had been exactly that.
So much the psychic had been right about...
“On the one side of the fork, a boy who makes you feel safe. On the other...”
Hannah shivered at the memory.
And a few days after, after their return from Montauk, there she was at a fork in the road, just as the woman had warned her.
There she was shouting to her friends, “Which way? Which way!”
There she was saying, “We’re running out of gas...”
And the men were closing in.
And a decision had to be made.
Right or left?
Right or left?
She had gone right.
Some instinct drove her, a faint recollection that she’d come upon this road before with Henry. That they’d gone right at the fork.
Almost instantly she’d recognized familiar landmarks. They were nearer to home than she thought. They probably even had enough gas to make it. Her cell service came into range. She called Henry. Told him about the men. He knew exactly where they were. Guided them to his house.
“Stay on the line with me,” he’d said, and so she had, glancing nervously in the rearview mirror until the sleazebags disappeared from view. What relief when they finally turned onto Henry’s well-lit street, pulled in to the driveway, no one behind them!
He was waiting at the door for them, her handsome Henry looking so huggable in his sweatshirt and boxers, his brown hair lopsided from sleep, matted on one side, sticking up on the other. The others leaped out and raced toward him, clamoring about the scary chase, giddy with release. She watched him tilt his head and furrow his brow as he listened in that charmingly befuddled way he always seemed to have around her loud, squealing friends, looking, to her mind, like a new dad, adoring and sleepy and confused. She remembered thinking as she observed him that Henry was her home, the truest home she’d ever known, and how lucky she was to have found him so young, when their whole lives were only beginning, when their love was a springboard launching them both into a shared and promising future.
She stepped out of the car feeling like a surprise gift the way he smiled when he took her in. She smiled back, wanting nothing more than to press herself to him, to feel his heart beat steady and strong and soothing against hers. To walk toward the shelter of a hug.
But then he turned his head, just slightly, his gaze sweeping past her to something beyond. She turned too. Saw the blinding headlights careening up the driveway. For a split second she thought it was Henry’s parents back early, a trick of the brain.
Then Blue and Renee were screaming at her from the doorway.
“Run, Hannah!”
“Hurry!”
The piercing yip in their voices went through her like a shiver, stopped her heart in that animal way, trilling the biological alarm of nearby danger. She looked back at the car. It felt like slow motion, that head turn. The men were climbing out, rising like shadows in a child’s darkened room, and all at once her mind exploded, her thoughts disorganized, scrambling to catch up to what was happening. She needed to run. But her legs refused to work. They came toward her, slow moving and dangerous, a dark current of menace approaching from three sides. She turned back to her friends. To Henry. Their mouths were open but their words traveled over her as if she were underwater.
“Run, Hannah!” Henry shouted then, his voice so loud it splintered her shock. It was as if a switch went off. Her legs came to life and she ran for him, ran toward love, toward the safety of Henry. He reached her, grabbed her hand, pulled her to the house, shouting to the others to get his father’s gun from the closet. She tripped on the front steps, fell to her knees and the men were just behind them, so close she braced for them to grab her. Henry pulled her to her feet and they plowed through the door, and she couldn’t make out the words of her friends over the sound of her own terror, could only join the screams, the chaotic squawk of birds and beating wings in the presence of a hunter.
They slammed the door shut just in time, but as soon as it was closed, it crashed open again, evil men spilling through, smashing into Hannah’s safe world with their demented smiles, their greasy, sweaty faces and unwashed clothes. Their smell of booze and rot. There was so much movement then. Everything happening too quickly and too slowly all at once. Time warped and the volume was turned up on faces, bodies, sound, everything so immediate, hyperreal. She remembered Blue and Renee splitting away, running toward the kitchen, chased by one of the men. And then a crack and a stunned stillness as her head hit the wall, a sudden eerie quiet, one quick pause and then everything was in motion again. A large man with dull eyes stood over her where she’d fallen or been knocked down, and another one—the scratchy-looking one who had started it all back at the convenience store—laughed at her, his spit flying from his mouth, landing sour on her face. The large man pulled her to her feet and she had this strange moment of hope when she thought that maybe they wouldn’t hurt them, that they were just trying to scare them. It was a hope she would never allow herself again. About anyone. About anything.
“Leave her alone!” Henry shouted.
“Leave her alone,” the scratchy one mocked in a high, squeaky voice.
She could see him only in profile, light hair slick with grease, face meth pocked, body skinny and slithering. He laughed again and then his voice turned low as a prowl.
“Or what, tough guy?” he said. He shoved Henry so violently that his feet left the ground and he fell into the couch, and then Large Man who still had Hannah by one arm grabbed her other one and held them behind her back.
Their eyes met, hers and Henry’s.
“Let go of her!” Henry screamed again.
“Or what? Or what, bitch?” the scratchy one said, turning to laugh with his friend at their fear. His eyes were unsteady, dangerous. He was the one to worry about.
“The police are on their way,” Hannah lied, trying to steady the tremor in her voice. “We already called them.”
“Oh yeah?” the scratchy one said without concern. “We better hurry up, then.”
In a flash, he had a gun to Henry’s forehead.
The scream that came out of Hannah was disembodied, unearthly. It haunted her, that scream, the piercing shriek of her own helplessness. She could still feel it in her sleep, the way it tore through her body and smashed against the air, trying desperately to shatter the moment, stop it from happening.
“No!”
It was all she had. That scream. She tried to wrestle her hands free, but Large Man’s grip only tightened.