Page 131 of The Midnight Knock

We’ve been safe! We’ve been safe here every night.

And then Ethan had thought of Adeline, Penelope’s strange specter of a sister. Last night, when he’d found the girls in the water tank shortly before the end, Ethan had realized that Adeline appeared to be immune to the amnesia that affected all the other guests when the ceremony began again. Maybe it was because the girl was some kind of spirit, a shade—arevenant, his mother might have called it—but Ethan suspected the girl simply went on, night after night, aware of everything that had ever happened to them here.

What a hell that would be.

Hell or not, it meant that if Adeline was immune to the ceremony’s amnesia, she might have been able to enter into a conspiracy to protect Sarah’s killer onanothernight. A previous night. By setting a plan in motion in the past, Adeline and the killer could then act independently of each other on all subsequent nights. Never meetin person. Never risk being seen together. Never risk betraying that there was a conspiracy at work at all.

But for that conspiracy to succeed, the killer would need to remember the past as well. And unless they were a shade themselves, they would have also suffered the same pain and relief as Ethan and Kyla had felt last night. The headache, and the sudden release when their memories returned.

If that was the case, there was one person here whose head had hurt, every night, until it didn’t.

The waitress had been right, all the way back in Turner.

Mark my words. This man is going to get you into the sort of trouble you cain’t never get out of.

Stepping into room 4, the shotgun braced against his shoulder, Ethan found Hunter right where he’d expected the man to be.

And of all the expressions Ethan had expected Hunter to wear, it wasn’t this one: a soft smile, a sort of pleasant confusion. Pride.

Ethan ignored it. He said simply, “We’re not doing this anymore.”

Hunter didn’t move right away. He remained poised over Sarah, her knife in his hand, his eyes locked onto Ethan’s. He hardly blinked when Kyla came through the back door and down the short hallway, armed with her Glock.

Ethan locked eyes with Hunter. “I said drop it.”

Hunter said, “Did you live long enough to see the world end last night? Have you realized what Jack Allen is like? Do you really know what’s at stake here?”

“I’m not going to ask again.”

“Then shoot me. I don’t think it matterswhodies. The ceremony will still keep going.”

Ethan hadn’t considered this. He suddenly felt very tired. “Please, Hunter. Just put down the knife.”

Hunter watched his face a moment longer. “Do you have some kind of plan for how we deal with the mountain? Without the ceremony to seal it away, what are you going to do about whatever the fuck is trying to break free?”

It sleeps.

It wakes.

“I don’t know,” Ethan said. “But I’m not going to spend eternity trapped here.”

Kyla spoke. “Besides, the loop is already breaking down. Jack Allen said it himself. This isn’t sustainable. One way or another, it’s going to end. Seems smarter to me that we break things on our terms before the whole thing falls apart.”

“She’s right,” Ethan said. “And Jack Allen knows where to find Penelope and her sister now. There’s nothing to stop him from killing us all and breaking the loop for himself. He thinks he canmergewith whatever’s in the mountain. Eat it or something. Use its power for himself.”

Hunter hesitated a moment longer. “Jack Allen—you know he’s your grandfather, right?”

Ethan didn’t bother asking how Hunter knew this. “Yes. And my mother hated him so bad she never told me his name. Even if I hadn’t seen the crazy in his eyes, that right there would have been enough to tell me I can’t let him get away with this.”

Hunter held his gaze. That look of pride never left him. “So you’re sure? Positively sure?”

“Yes.”

Hunter seemed to tote things up in his head. He nodded.

He stood up off the bed. He bent down, retrieved the knife’s sheath from the floor, slid the blade away.

Hunter said, “Time for one last adventure, then.”