Page 121 of The Midnight Knock

5:15 p.m.

“It’s good the Malibu didn’t stop for us,” Hunter said, rubbing his temples. “Those girls were armed.”

They walked the Dust Road: Ethan’s fingers numb around the handle of their gas can, his mind in the past. He thought of what Jack Allen had told him today in that little pocket of suspended time they’d shared at the diner in Turner. He thought of a scar his mother had shown him once. Two scars to be exact, a pair of small circles like a snakebite in the flesh of her thigh.Daddy did this to me with a barbecue fork, his mother had told Ethan.Can you blame Mama for running the second she could?

Ethan remembered the night his mother had died. Themomentshe’d died. She’d passed in her sleep, in her little bedroom behind the shop. Ethan had been in his own bed upstairs, directly above her, and he’d awoken a few minutes before dawn to feel an electric tingle in the air, a creeping sensation on the back of his neck. Something seemed to vibrate for a long moment in the room, tense and melancholy as an unanswered question.

Ethan had known, even before he found the courage to go down and check her pulse, that he’d just felt his mother’s soul move from one place to the next.

He remembered the crushing weight of the debts she’d left him. He remembered the tinkle of the bell over the shop’s door when Hunter had stepped inside, a few months later, and asked for a job. Ethan remembered the letter he’d found addressed to Sarah Powers in the old house behind the Brake Inn Motel last night, shortly before the end of the world.

Don’t try to steer the wind. The ceremony is drawing them together all on its own.

Ethan wondered if there had ever been a moment, in all his life, when he hadn’t been trapped in a plan not of his own design. Just as Jack Allen had said.

You will witness true horror.

Up ahead, the mountain grew closer. Ethan thought of what Tabitha had said in the cafe last night.

The old tribe believed the mountain had a special power. They said it ensured things always worked out the way they were meant to.

But at what cost?

He saw the motel come into view. An hour ago, when the Malibu had passed Ethan and Hunter on the road, time had seemed to dilate for a moment when Kyla’s face passed near Ethan’s own. There had been a question in her eyes so obvious, Ethan could almost hear her voice in his head.

Do you remember?

Ethan had nodded. Somehow, when they’d swallowed the shards of the silver mirror last night, they’d finally broken free of the amnesia that had cursed them for who knew how long. Ethan had brought a finger to his lips.Don’t say a word.

They couldn’t risk Sarah’s killer knowing something had changed. That this night wasn’t like all the other nights. The killer might do something drastic. They might find a way to murder Sarah before Ethan and Kyla had the chance to stop them.

Kyla nodded in agreement, looking as if she understood all of this. The car crept along the road until the moment they lost sight of each other’s eyes. All in a rush, time kept moving. The car rocketed away.

Hunter spat a wad of bloody phlegm into the desert. He thumped his chest. Ethan pulled his mind back to the present. He said, “What?”

As they neared the Brake Inn Motel, Hunter spotted the Malibu parked at the gas pump. He grew tense. He withdrew the Python they’d stolen in Turner from the back of Ethan’s jeans, just as he did every night. Ethan saw a glint of light from an upstairs window in the old house behind the motel. The lens of Sarah’s camera snapping their photograph. Just like always.

But through the window of the motel’s office, Ethan saw his first surprise of the evening: Thomas was standing behind the front desk. Just Thomas. Alone.

Tabitha was nowhere to be seen when the boys made their way inside. Thomas smiled. “Good evening.”

“Evening,” Hunter said. “We need to pay for some gas.”

“I’m so sorry. I’m afraid our pump is dry for the night. We’ve been told to expect a delivery—”

Hunter tilted his head. “?‘We’?”

“Yes. My sister and my… myself.” Thomas seemed anxious, his patter falling flat. His hand twitched across the desk. He toyed with the heavy fountain pen. “She’s in her room. Not feeling well.”

They heard footsteps on the porch. Kyla arrived, followed a moment later by Fernanda, and she gave Ethan a single alarmed look, a brief widening of the eyes.

Something else was wrong.

Thomas certainly seemed bothered. There was an edge in his voice as he said, “What is it?”

“We need some soap. There’s none in our room.”

“Of course there is. I left it with the towels not twenty minutes before you arrived.”