Page 27 of The Midnight Knock

“It’s your choice,” Thomas said.

“Stay out here and die,” Tabitha said.

“Or come to the office, and maybe survive.”

Hunter went very still.

Ethan said, “Survive?”

The twins turned a frown in his direction.

“Survive what’s coming,” Thomas said.

“What’s already on the way,” Tabitha said.

Thomas said, “Whoever did this will suffer.”

“We will see to it,” Tabitha said.

“An eye for an eye.”

“Blood for blood.”

“The old law.”

“The law of the desert.”

Together, the twins said, “Justice will be done.”

THE ULTIMATUMETHAN

8:15 p.m.

The office was cold, the air clotted with shadows. The fire in the grate had burned down to embers. A single gold lamp with a green glass shade glowed on the front desk, barely bright enough to illuminate the walls around it. The windows looked out on nothing but the ring of light surrounding the motel, the vast desert blackness beyond.

The walnut door, set into the room’s far wall, was little more than an outline in the dark.

Five of them filed inside: Hunter and Ethan, Kyla and Fernanda, Stanley alone. Penelope was still nowhere to be seen. Kyla and Fernanda stood very near the office’s front door, looking like a pair of rabbits ready to bolt. Stanley collapsed into one of the office’s easy chairs. He shivered, his lip trembling: a big, frightened child. A child with a very large gun on his hip.

Hunter went all the way to the back of the office and settled against the wall near the walnut door. He vanished into the shadows, his eyes a pair of hazel jewels in the gloom.

Ethan looked at them all. He thought of the exposed flesh he’d seen in Sarah Powers’s room. The bloody pillows where her head should be.

Who in this office would have a reason to dothat?

And where on earth was that teenaged girl, Penelope?

The twins stepped inside as Ethan tossed a spare log onto the fire, and in the long shadows of the sudden flame, Thomas and Tabitha looked far, far older than they had all evening. Older than should be possible. The pair walked in unison, made their way around the front desk, stood very still for a long, long moment.

Finally, Thomas said, “A grave crime has been committed on our land.”

“Against our family,” Tabitha said.

“Against our blood.”

“We will see justice done,” Tabitha said.

“Even if it means watching all of you die.”