Page 108

“But you did,” he says. “And I know about them. I know about your mother, and I know about Mary. Not your little sister from the Middle Ages. Your little sister from here. I know she was only four when she died.”

On the night of January 10, Mr. Mills gained entry into Ms. Dougherty’s apartment whileshe was giving her daughter Mary a bath. Mr. Mills was allegedly yelling and threatening Ms. Dougherty. Ms. Dougherty attempted to hide in the bathroom with her children. It is believed that when Mr. Mills gained entry into the room, he attacked all three with a pair of kitchen scissors and a butcher knife.

Hannah seems to be visibly shrinking. Jordan crosses the room and sits down beside her. “I think that if you can let yourself remember what happened, you can learn how to cope with it. You don’t have to keep running away. You don’t have to keep going to the castle. Do you trust me?”

She blinks at him. Her chin dips. He tells himself it’s a nod.

And so Jordan Hassan begins to tell Hannah Dougherty every dark thing that he’s learned about her past.

CHAPTER 107

Jordan was sitting close to me on the bed, and he was saying the most terrible things in his soft, gentle voice. He kept saying, “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

He was telling me a horror story, but I was having trouble understanding him because shadows were leaking into the room. They were slipping down from the ceiling, curling up from the floor.

I welcomed them. They were going to take me away from here.

I’m going to the castle. I’m leaving.

I felt myself being pulled down into darkness. My limbs felt stiff, but somehow I was trembling, too. My body was being shaken apart. I was dissolving.

When I opened my eyes again, I was in a room that I recognized. But it wasn’t in the baron’s castle. It was in the apartment where I lived when I was little. Prickles of fear crawled over my skin, a million tiny spiders.

No, please no, I don’t want to be here!

My mother was standing in the doorway to my bedroom. Her face was panicked, and her voice didn’t sound like her voice at all. “Hannah, come!” she was saying. “Darling, you have to hide, you can’t be here!”

I don’t want to remember—

When I didn’t move, she grabbed me and pulled me down the hallway, and she tripped over Mary’s shoes and almost fell. I hit my head on the wall and started to cry. My mother was crying, too, and shaking, and terrible shouting was coming from the kitchen. I heard drawers being yanked open and things crashing onto the floor. There was a monster inside our apartment. A demon.

Please don’t make me see this!

My mother pushed me into the bathroom and she followed me inside, bolting the door and pushing the trash can in front of it. She was crying so hard she could barely breathe. “It’s going to be all right, girls,” she said. “Just be really quiet, okay? Can you do that for me?” And Mary was in the tub with her little tugboat and crying and I was in my pajamas and crying and outside in the hallway the demon was coming closer. I heard him yelling and cursing us, and he was pounding on the door. And then the door splintered and there was a flash of bright, sharp silver and my mother screamed—

“Stop!” I shouted, and the whole world flashed white like it was full of lightning, and then I was back, and there were strong hands on my shoulders, squeezing me. The hands belonged to Jordan Hassan, and he was holding me tightly and staring at my face.

“Hannah?” he said. “Oh, Hannah, I’m so sorry.”

I can’t believe it. I don’t want to believe it.

But I remember it.

I was shuddering and crying so hard I could barely see. My chest heaved up and down, and every breath hurt me, like I was being stabbed all over again. I buried my face in my hands, and then I felt Jordan’s arms encircle me and hold me close. If it weren’t for his grip, I would fracture into a million tiny pieces.

The tears wouldn’t stop. Waves of darkness and agony crested, broke, and crested again.

“It’s going to be okay now,” Jordan whispered.

I’d fallen into a black void and his voice was calling me back up to the light. I couldn’t get there—couldn’t come up—but his arms were keeping me from falling further.

“Hannah? I promise you, it’s going to be okay. No one is ever going to hurt you like that again.”

The darkness held me down. There wasn’t enough air to breathe. All the grief I’d shoved deep down into my subconscious had come loose and it filled every part of me. I was made of pain.

“I’m here,” Jordan said. “I’m here, and you’re safe.”

I couldn’t remember the last time someone wrapped me in the circle of their arms and held me. I could’ve stayed that way forever.