“She was trying to hurt people.” She leaned forward and cupped a hand around my ear. “Amelia told me.”

I started to tremble. “What did she tell you?” I whispered back.

Her breath was hot in my ear. “That people are going to die.”

CHAPTER
20

I splashed some cold water on my face in the bathroom after sending Emily back downstairs. My hands were shaking as I brought them to my face and closed my eyes. Something was happening with her. To her. This was officially not a Satanic Panic situation; this was real.

I dried my face with a hand towel and pulled my phone out of my pocket, checking to see if Mark had replied to the text I sent him: Call me.

Nothing.

I clutched my phone in frustration. I knew he was in meetings all day and likely wouldn’t see the message until late that afternoon, if at all before he got home. Which meant I was on my own to deal with this for the day.

My fingers wildly shaking, I typed out a text to Jess and Melissa, trying to explain what I’d seen. As I waited for a response, I peeked out of the bathroom window toward Liz’s house. The chimney spouted a thin stream of smoke, as it had the other day. I swallowed hard. At least her children were here, safe. Or what I had assumed was safe.

I looked down at the Ouija board on my bedroom floor. My first instinct was to throw it in the trash. Yet, I wondered if Emily’s story was true. Could it possibly be that there was something supernatural hanging around? Was that force trying to hide it for a reason?

Even though the last thing I wanted to do was touch it, I picked it up with two fingers on each hand and stashed it on a high shelf in my closet, covering it with a paint-splattered red sweatshirt.

My phone dinged with a text from Melissa.

I’m not sure what is happening. I had awful dreams all night long, about the rabbits in your backyard, except it was the three of us who were killed. And then when I woke up, I had this—

I held my breath as I waited for the next text. What could she have?

Finally, an image came through. It was a picture of Melissa’s upper arm, where she was holding up her sleeve. On her skin was a red mark, bleeding in the middle, with purple and black lines radiating outward. I sucked in a breath as I slowly lifted the leg of my pants and held the phone next to my ankle.

It was the same mark as on my leg, the same mark from the pit.

I whimpered and dropped my phone onto the bathroom floor with a loud crack, the screen shattering.