Violet hung a right turn onto the rural highway that led to her house. “My parents had to reschedule their trip to St. Barts over Christmas because my mom got sick. So they left on Friday night, and they’ll be gone until Tuesday.” She hesitated and then added, “I probably shouldn’t be telling that to either of you in case you decide to murder me as soon as we get to my house, but that’s the truth. You can both stay until Tuesday if you need to. No one will know.”

Trey lurched forward in the back seat. “No. No way. I’m not going into that house!”

“Trey, we don’t have much of a choice,” I reminded him over my shoulder. “We’ve really only got tomorrow to end this thing, or—”

“No. Anywhere but there. I’ll sleep in Tallmadge Park if I have to.”

“Sleep?” Violet scoffed. “If we accidentally pushed Mischa out of her own body, and McKenna’s supposed to die before the next new moon, then I don’t know why you guys think we have time to sleep.”

We. She’d said “we.” For whatever reason, Violet seemed to really be in this. Although I was grateful, I didn’t say anything for fear she wasn’t aware of what her choice of words had implied.

She slowed to a stop just a few feet before the gated entrance leading to her family’s mansion. Her car’s high beams cast cones of light outward into the forest. The display on her dashboard gave the time as 9:17 p.m. and the temperature as thirty-eight degrees Fahrenheit. It was way too cold for anyone to consider sleeping outside.

“So, what’s it going to be?” Violet asked. “Do you want to sleep on a park bench, or do you want to put our heads together and figure out how the hell we’re going to prevent McKenna from dying?”

After a tense couple of seconds when I could practically smell Trey fighting the urge to tell Violet to go to hell, he finally grumbled, “Fine,” and she flipped on her turn signal. I shifted in my seat to turn around and smile at him as Violet pulled the car forward, lowered her window, and tapped in the security code to open the gate.

Once again, the eerie sense of being transported into another world came over me as we were swallowed by the trees lining the private road to the Simmons mansion. I never could have known the very first time I’d crossed onto this property back in the fall, when I was simply trying to get closer to Violet to gather information, that I’d be returning to this place so frequently. And every time I came back, it seemed to be under much more abysmal circumstances.

In the side-view mirror, I caught a glimpse of Trey where he sat behind me. His eyes stared straight ahead as he took in the grandeur of the house and fountain out front. I wondered if he was estimating the value of the house, and how much of it was rightfully his as Michael Simmons’s biological son.