Hatch clomps up the back steps. He blows and snorts like a colt run into the ground. “You!” His face pinches with pain and rage. His arms are out, fingers hooked. He’ll tear me to pieces. I don’t wanna die at the hands of Hatch.

I sprint out of the kitchen, down the hall. I pull open the first door. A linen closet. Damn! My heart slams against my chest. I yank open the next door. The garage. I stumble down two concrete steps. The air’s thick here, the floor strewn with garbage. I slosh through it at a run. My foot thunks into something solid and pain shoots up my leg. I crash hard into a pile of oily rags. I think I’ve broken my toe. I push up and hear him behind me.

Hatch stands at the garage stairs, gurgling, frothing. He looks like one of the brain-eating zombies from Auntie’s horror stories. He’ll crack me open and scoop out my insides, but not before using me up first. Go! I think. I claw my way up.

He growls and tumbles down the steps.

I sprint through the open garage door and into the dark toward the fire. When I reach Ethan, he’s standing stock-still.

“Riley, is he—”

“Give me your feet!” I shout, stooping to dig at the twine around my brother’s ankles. As I’m prying off the twine, I keep shooting glances back toward the garage. I keep expecting to see Hatch running toward us, his knife raised, but nothing. I pry off Ethan’s bonds and I pull him toward the street. We skirt around the house. When we hit the pavement, I can see into the garage where I left Hatch. The dark, moaning shadow on the garage floor lets me know he won’t be coming after us. The venom is working its magic. It’s the only time I’ll thank a rattler.

“Come on,” I say, jogging next to Ethan down the moonlit street. “The hospital’s this way.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

The hospital looms in the distance, all nine stories of concrete and glass glowing like an electric beacon. From here you can’t tell the horrors going on inside. When we can see each individual window, my palms glisten with sweat. We’ve jogged on and off for two hours. My shirt is soaked, I have blisters on both heels and I want a drink of water so bad I’d kill for it. Ethan stops in the shadow of a leaning streetlamp, puts his palms to his thighs and sucks in rattling breaths. When he looks up, his eyes follow mine to the building illuminated before us.

“There it is,” he whispers.