Chapter 11 · Her Name in Blood

The thing that grabbed the list didn’t have a hand.

It had fingers. Too many of them. White knuckles pushing out of the dark behind the service door, nails split and black underneath. They closed around the paper and yanked.

Elias caught my wrist before I could grab it.

“Don’t,” he said.

I jerked against him. “My name is on that list.”

“I know.”

“Then let go of me.”

His grip tightened instead. Blood had soaked through the side of his shirt again, dark and wet under his coat. He looked gray under the station’s dead emergency lights, but his eyes were locked on the doorway.

“Whatever took it isn’t Vera,” he said. “Vera doesn’t need to hide in a hole.”

From somewhere inside the room, paper rustled.

Slowly. Carefully.

Like somebody was reading.

Micah stood three steps behind us, head tipped toward one shoulder. His smile had gone wrong again. Too wide. Too still.

“Anchor,” he said in a voice that wasn’t fully his. “Pretty word for a girl they plan to drown.”

I spun toward him. “Micah.”

His eyes found mine.

For one second, it was him. My brother. Scared out of his mind.