Haddie nodded.
“Well, I think this house does too. Do you get that feeling, Haddie?”
“Yes, Mommy,” she whispered.
Scarlett smiled, reaching across the table and taking her daughter’s hand. “Then let’s make it happen. Do you think we can do that?”
Haddie’s expression faltered and she glanced out the window. “I hope so, Mommy,” she whispered.
CHAPTER SIX
Thirteen Years Ago
Kandace stepped into the room where Jasper had led her up a narrow set of steps, the door clicking closed behind her as his heavy footsteps descended. She was in the attic. A wide-open space with a peaked, beamed ceiling and a partially stained-glass window at the end, the nighttime forest stretching as far as the eye could see.
Two girls sat on beds, their bodies still, staring at her with wide eyes. One of the girls, a chubby redhead nodded to an empty, twin-sized metal bed by the window. “That’s yours, I guess,” she said, her voice barely above a whisper.
Kandace looked at it, noting the clothes draped over the thin gray blanket: two all-red uniforms, two white nightgowns, two pairs of white cotton underwear, and a white bra. Sitting on the floor was a set of black penny loafers. “Are you kidding me?” Kandace muttered softly, fingering the stiff fabric of the calf-length uniform skirt.
A red uniform? Seriously? Dark red, but still. She was sure it signified something. “Is fucking red the color designated to fallen women, or what?” she asked the other two girls, thinking of the story of Lilith Ms. Wykes had told.
“Shh,” the tall girl with black hair hissed. “If they catch you swearing, there’ll be a punishment.”
Kandace looked back and forth between the girls, noting they had the same short, shaggy haircut she now had. Evidently, violent, forced haircuts were status quo at Lilith House. “What’s with this fucked-up place?” she asked, lowering her voice as she swore again. “Is everyone here like Ms. Wykes? Because if so, we need to get PETA out here, stat.”
The girls glanced at each other. “Not exactly but . . . they all follow her lead. They do whatever she says. Unquestioningly,” the girl with black hair said. “The bird?” she asked.
Kandace nodded. “Is that part of every greeting?”
They shook their heads in unison. “We didn’t experience that. Apparently, she saves it for the girls she thinks need an immediate lesson in compliance. But we’ve heard talk of that and . . . well, we were walking by her office earlier and heard the . . . noises.”
Noises. That seemed like an insufficient word to describe the bird screams that still rang in her head.
Kandace turned toward the window, mentally shaking off the memory of what had been done to the poor creature . . . the awful sounds it had made as it died . . . She refused to think about it anymore, though. It had been done to control her, to horrify her, and Kandace refused to be controlled.
“Ms. Wykes told us about the natives who used to live in those woods,” the redhead said, and when Kandace turned toward her, she glanced at the black-haired girl who nodded. “She said one’s still out there, a war-mongering demon hungry for human flesh.”
Kandace laughed, but when the other girls did not, she put her hands on her hips. “You can’t be serious.”
The black-haired girl shrugged. “I don’t know, but a few girls have reported hearing drumming noises coming from the woods, and others have spotted . . . horns on walks around the property.”
Kandace resisted rolling her eyes. “So we’re not always kept on leashes?”
“The better your behavior, the more privileges you receive.”
“Of course,” she muttered. Just like any proper prison. She moved the clothes aside and sat down, the metal bedsprings squeaking. She sized up the girls, wondering if they were trustworthy or not then decided to risk it. “I’m Kandace Thompson, seventeen, from Los Angeles. I’m here because, according to my mother, and several judges, I’m a substance abuser and a thief. I flunked out of the sixth school my mother forced me into, and Lilith House is my last chance to straighten up, or I receive jail time for my most recent crime of stealing my latest stepfather’s Lamborghini, taking it on a joyride while high on ecstasy—that I purchased by pawning several pieces of my mother’s jewelry—totaling the car, and almost killing an eighty-year-old pedestrian. In my defense, that old lady came out of nowhere and was so hunched over, she barely appeared above my windshield.”
Neither girl looked particularly impressed, which meant she was in good company. Unless they’d been broken in or rather broken down. The girls seemed so . . . meek. That will never be me.
“Who are you and what are you in for?” Kandace asked.
The red-headed girl spoke first. “I’m Aurora Duncan. I’m sixteen, from Arkansas. I got here three months ago. I’m a chronic cutter.” She lifted her nightgown where seemingly hundreds of short red scars crisscrossed her milky thighs. “I’m self-destructive, socially awkward, and a rebellious academic failure, to name just a few.”
“Wow. You sound like a royal mess.”
“The mess part? Yeah.” Aurora pulled her nightgown back down and drew her legs to her chest.
“How long are you here for?”
“Until I show improvement.”
Kandace’s eyes widened. “No specific end date? Wow, that’s rough.”
The girl nodded. “Some girls stay here for years. I’m pretty sure my parents would be just as happy if I never returned at all.”
“I relate. My mother’s latest husband is a judge and they’re both worried sick that I’m going to publicly humiliate him and ruin his chances for re-election.” She picked at a hangnail for a minute. “They sent me here as much to reform me as to hide me away.” Kandace paused for a moment and then looked to the other girl. “And you?”
“I’m Sydney Dennison. I got here a few weeks after Aurora. I’m seventeen, from San Diego. Drugs, alcohol, chronic sexual promiscuity, general lowlife behavior.”
“Nice.” It seemed Kandace wasn’t the only lowlife, after all. She leaned back on her elbows. “So . . . no one’s ever reported this place? At the very least, seems like an animal cruelty charge would stick.”
Sydney shrugged. “If they have, no one’s believed them. We’re not exactly . . . trustworthy people.”
The truth of that statement trickled down Kandace’s spine like a slow drip of ice-cold water. Damn, that truth hurt. Of course, Sydney was right. “No,” Kandace murmured. “I get it. My mother wouldn’t believe me at this point if I said the sky was blue. If I told her what happened when I got here, she’d say I was lying because they took my drugs.” And truthfully? That was far from beneath her. She’d done a lot worse than that.
Aurora lowered her feet to the floor. “You brought drugs in?” She shook her head. “You’re on her radar then. Fly low.”
Kandace sat up too. “It’s not like she can do us actual harm. That would leave marks, evidence.”
The girls exchanged a look. “Like we said, we haven’t been here long so we don’t know if it’s true. But there are rumors . . . they do things that will heal before we leave or that make it look like we did them to ourselves. Ms. Wykes’s trained dog is only too happy to carry out her sadistic punishments. That’s what we’ve heard anyway. And sometimes there are . . . screams and then one of the girls is absent from class for a couple of days. When she comes back, you can tell she’s been smacked around.”