Page 69 of The Midnight Knock

“A drink is the last thing I need,” Kyla said. Her hand was still pressed over her forehead. Ethan couldn’t see her eyes.

He said, “You’ve got a headache?”

“From hell,” Kyla said.

Hunter gave a little twitch in the seat next to Ethan. “Hold still,” he said to Kyla. “You’re bleeding everywhere.”

He was right. A smear of red blood shined where Kyla’s hand had touched her forehead. It was on her sleeve, on the table, on her cheek.

The blood was coming from the index finger of her right hand.

In that moment, Hunter revealed another flash of the strange new tenderness Ethan had experienced in their room.Can I hold you for a minute? Just like this?Here in the cafe, Hunter whipped open a roll of silverware to shake loose the cloth napkin. He tore the fabric down the middle, folded it lengthwise, grabbed Kyla’s hand. He squeezed Kyla’s first two fingers together until the wound closed, wrapped them in the makeshift bandage, tied it off with a tight knot.

Hunter didn’t smile once during this entire process. Didn’t say a word, showed no real sign of worrying for Kyla’s well-being. Yet in his every move there was a soft, unassuming kindness, a firm care, that felt wildly out of place in a man so hard. You’d never think this was the same person who’d deep-fried someone not six hours ago.

Hunter tested the knot of the bandage. He released Kyla’s hand with a soft squeeze.

“You probably could use some stitches,” he said. “But it should clot eventually if you keep that tight.”

Kyla stared at him. “Thanks. I’m surprised.”

“Why’s that?”

“To be honest, you look like you kill kids for a living.”

Hunter went very still.

Kyla said, “Relax. It’s a joke.”

Another clang came from the kitchen. Ethan winced at the pain it sent through his head. He studied the bandage on Kyla’s finger, feeling the strangest certainty that this had never happened before.

But of course it hadn’t. He’d never been to this motel before.

Had he?

“How did you cut yourself so bad?” Ethan said.

Kyla, too, was staring at her fingers. A bloom of red was spreading through the napkin, bright and insistent as a buried memory. Judging by the look in her eye, Kyla was deep in a world of her own.

“The mirror,” she finally said. “The cracked mirror in our bathroom. It shattered.”

KYLA

The mirror had looked strange from the moment she saw it. Standing next to her in the bathroom, shortly after they’d arrived at the motel, Fernanda said, “Did the twins not leave us any towels?”

Kyla could look at nothing but the mirror. “Was the crack in the glass that wide last time?”

Fernanda looked from Kyla to the seam in the mirror, back again. “Last time?”

Later, after the girls hurried back from the office—after meeting Ethan and Hunter, after encountering Sarah Powers and her camera, after watching Stan Holiday barrel his way toward the motel in a Honda Odyssey—Kyla realized just how differently she and Fernanda tackled their problems. Fernanda had grabbed one of the towels they’d taken from Tabitha as they’d passed the motel’s maintenance closet on their return to their room. She’d cranked up the shower. “I need to think.”

In a daze, Kyla had bolted their doors and sunk into a deep slumber, hoping it would clear her mind, or at least dissipate the awful headache that had hounded her since the road. It did neither.

Instead, Kyla dreamed of the dead city, just as she had in the Malibu. The silver streets were running with blood. The hot air thrummed with unstable energy. A voice echoed between the white buildings, across the empty plazas. A man’s voice.

He was looking for her. He knew her name.

Oh no, Miss Hewitt.