“Why are you smoking? My teacher says it can kill you.” Her eyebrows rumpled.

“It was a gift, my dear. Like your gifts.” Dark amusement flashed in her eyes and sent Chloe creeping behind Max’s leg. “Tell me, how’s Sophie?”

“Okay,” she squeaked, hands wrapping tighter around his leg. She got it now. Finally.

I’m so sorry….

“Well, Sophie’s a little piece of shit,” the beast spat, head cranked. “Are you a little piece of shit?”

“Stop it,” Max snapped.

“Mommy?” Tears choked Chloe’s voice.

He turned to his sister, crouching down. “Get out of here. Go!”

“Go where? What about you? What’s wrong with her?” Questions spilled out.

“Oh, don’t go yet. Don’t you want to be with Mommy forever? I can make that happen. It’s easier than you think.”

“Shut! The hell! Up!” Heat lapped at Max’s skin; the room was burning, sweltering. He shoved his sister toward the door. “Run!”

Then the sound of another car squealed in the distance.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Vera

As soon as Vera placed a sneaker on the curb, she felt the tension crackle through the sticky summer air. Standing on the sidewalk, the wrath from Maxwell’s mother pulsated from the home, across the weedy lawn, and onto Vera.

She sprinted across the too-long grass, and when she reached the front stoop, the door flung open. Chloe cowered in the entry with blotchy cheeks and snot oozing from her nose, shaking in hysterics.

Vera didn’t have siblings, not even little cousins, and no one in Roaring Creek dialed her number to babysit. A few days ago, she’d say she wasn’t good with kids. But it turned out she didn’t need prerequisite knowledge to know to throw her arms around a sobbing child and drag her to safety.

“It’s okay. I got you.” Vera cradled Chloe’s head.

She pulled her to the car and flung open the back door.

“Where is your brother?” Vera asked, guiding her onto a crumby seat cushion as the child gulped for air.

Chloe pointed, her mouth opening and closing like she wanted to say something, but Vera couldn’t wait for her to choke out the words.

“Stay here! Do not move! Do not open this door for anyone!” Vera locked the vehicle and raced across the lawn, heart thundering against her rib cage.

She tore through the front door, knowing where she’d find him. That smell…What was that smell? She spun into the hallway, a blanket of night cloaking the house in broad daylight. Even still, she caught Maxwell at the far end, a silhouette backlit by the dim light of the bedroom.

She thundered toward him, rattling the pictures on the walls, and the closer she got, the more she smelled it, the more she tasted it.

She skidded to a halt behind Maxwell.

“Are you okay?” Vera whispered, then looked around him to see his mother. Instantly, she wrenched backward.

Holy Mother of Hell.

Maxwell’s mom, or what used to be his mom, stood in a long white sundress, the flowy kind you might wear to a fancy garden party, and she was smoking. Literally. Thick white plumes seeped from flared nostrils and a gaping mouth. The clouds coiled from within her, stunning all rational thought. The smoke traveled up. It didn’t exhale down from her nose then rise with a gradual drift. It was the smog of a chimney, swirling overhead.