She heard his voice clear as a bell, now. Remembered it like a wound that wouldn’t heal. He’d asked it of her in The Ruins, and again at Eleanor’s party, when she’d sat on his lap and wished for a Butterfinger. Of course she hadn’t seen the mark, then. It was covered by his Santa Claus hair and beard. And later, when she’d gone to see him at Exos Labs, he’d worn a turtleneck.

Outside, the winter wrapped wraithlike arms around her. The ground was so cold, it felt as though she were standing on nails. Morgan squeezed her knees together, jammed her hands into her armpits. In the drive, she noticed Christopher’s blue truck, its windshield the only one not frosted over. He must have arrived only twenty minutes ago or so. She imagined him entering the house, slipping off his shoes, and slithering onto her bed to lie beside her. It reminded her of a story she’d watched on the news where a woman let her pet snake sleep with her. She thought it was cuddling, but it was really just sizing her up to eat her.

Her memory flashed back to the video in The Ruins and the conversation she’d had with Nik and Hudson about the buttonhole-sized camera. The answer was clear. Christopher had known who she was the whole time—his brother’s secret daughter—and he’d planned to do one of two things with the video: expose her for the ruinous thing she was, or rewatch the video to satiate his lascivious appetite later.

Morgan half turned, her eyes scanning the expanse of snow and ice and skeletal trees. Running wouldn’t get her far. She’d freeze before she made it to the main road. Although it had been dark when they arrived last night, she hadn’t seen another residence for miles before Bennett turned onto their sequestered property. She wondered if the Reynoldses owned the entire town. She was on their turf now, without another soul in sight.

“Morgan!”

A voice calling her name ripped her from her frightening reverie. Through the fog of her own breath, she saw Bennett standing in the open doorway. He was shirtless, wearing flannel pajama pants and slippers. She was in his arms before her brain had a chance to decide between fight or flight.

“What are you doing out here?” His hands encapsulated hers.

Her teeth chattered. “I— I must have been sleepwalking.”

“Come on.” He started pulling her toward the house. “You’ll catch your death out here.”

But he was wrong, Morgan knew as she was hauled helplessly to the Reynoldses’ front door out of which she’d burst just a moment ago. Her death awaited inside, and he’d been waiting for her for a long, long time.