Page 59 of Blade

I let the car move, slowly, toward her house and stop by the steps that form a path to the front door. Her lights are on. I can smell the wood burning in her fireplace.

My hands stay on the wheel as I chase away the fear that rises. This woman wields no power in my life. I have been through the exorcism to rid her from my mind. My heart. To kill the giant weed.

I place my hand on the car door handle, skipping ahead to the look of shock, maybe even fear, when she sees me. I have the power now. The skills, the knowledge, the facts about what Emile was doing.

I’m not a child. I’m the protector of children.

I march through the snow to the front door, coat undone, and make a fist to pound on the wood.

I hear footsteps inside. Feel a rush of adrenaline.

“I am what you should fear.”

But she’s wrong, I tell myself as I struggle to swallow with a mouth that’s bone dry.

Then the turn of the knob and the pull of the door.

It opens to expose a small older woman in loose joggers and a sweatshirt. Pale skin that pulls from her bones, painted with red stripes. Lips and cheeks. Her fake eyelashes, thick black spider legs on top of small black pupils. And that smile, exposing yellowed teeth, the crooked one at the bottom.

I’m shocked by this unfamiliar image, but then my mind adjusts as the scent of her enters my nose and my brain identifies the things that are the same.It’s her. It’s Dawn.

Her expression gives nothing away, and I think how good she is at this. Fighting her own fear. Because that’s what she should be now. Afraid.

She speaks through slightly parted lips. “Can I help you?”

As if she doesn’t know who I am. But she must. The same way that I still know her.

“It’s me, Dawn,” I say, my voice finding strength. Because fuck her, pretending she doesn’t remember. “It’s Ana Robbins.”

She studies me, head to toe, with that same blank expression.

Which now appears genuine, and it pulls from every cell in my body the same sense of panic I felt when she would skate away. “Bad girl. No more lessons this week.”

“I’m sorry,” she says after a moment. “I don’t know who you are.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Excerpt from Testimony of Dawn Sumner

Ada Olson: Were you aware of the relationship Emile had with the skaters sixteen years ago—the skaters called the Orphans?

Dawn Sumner: Well, back then, Emile was still one of them. He’d just stopped skating himself.

Ada Olson: Did you know how he intervened after Kayla Johnson was assaulted in the field?

Dawn Sumner: Of course not.

Ada Olson: And the other girls—

Dawn Sumner: I only saw them on the ice.

Ada Olson: Except the time he joined you for dinner—you and Ana Robbins.

Dawn Sumner: Yes. He came to dinner sometimes. He lived on my property. Like I said—he had just stopped skating.

Ada Olson: Were you aware that he blamed you for that?

Dawn Sumner: Emile and I coached together for over seventeen years. If he blamed me, he must have gotten over it.