Chapter 8 · The Sister Behind the Door

The door splits down the middle.

Not breaking. Peeling. Like wallpaper coming off in one long strip, except what's underneath isn't plaster. It's dark. Moving dark. And the smell hits me before I can step back—rust and something sweeter, like the air inside a closed room where someone died and nobody found them for weeks.

"Mara, don't."

Elias is on his knees. The chains are tighter. They're cutting into his wrists now, actually cutting, and the blood running down his arms is too dark. Almost black.

"She said run." My voice sounds far away. "Then she said open it."

"That wasn't her."

"It sounded like her."

"I know." He's breathing hard. The kind of breathing you do when you're trying not to scream. "That's how it works. It finds the voice you'll follow."

The door keeps splitting. The gap in the middle is wide enough now that I can see through it. Not into the hotel hallway. Into somewhere else.

Somewhere I know.

"What is that?"

Elias doesn't answer. He's staring at the chains. They're glowing now. Faint, like someone drew lines of light under his skin, tracing the marks up his arms, across his chest, into his throat.

"Elias."