"I didn't kill your dog," Nick said.

"You wis.h.!.+" Conner shot back. His foot lashed out then, the toe of his shoe catching Nick's kneecap and sending Nick sprawling to the ground, clutching at the injured knee.

"Want to see how it feels?" Conner said, las.h.i.+ng out again as Nick tried to squirm away. "Where's the knife? Want me to cut you with it?" Another kick. "Huh?" Another. "Come on, a.s.shole, where is it?"

The voices in Nick's head were screaming at him now, telling him to fight back, to kick Conner, or trip him, or- But it didn't matter what the voices were saying; every time he tried to get up, someone kicked him again.

Nick curled into a ball, praying for one voice to rise above the others the way it had yesterday when the dog was about to attack. Where was that one voice that had somehow given him the power to stop the dog with nothing more than a single desperate slash with a hand that held no knife?

But no voice rose above the rest. The cacophony in his head and the taunting from the boys who kept on kicking him swirled into a nightmare of chaotic sound and searing pain.

Nick curled tighter and held his arms over his head, s.h.i.+elding himself as best he could, but the blows kept coming, raining down with ever-increasing force.

They were going to kill him.

He gritted his teeth, refusing to give them the satisfaction of crying out, but then someone-he couldn't even see who-picked up a rotting branch and slammed it down on him so hard that the world around him reeled, spinning black with shooting points of light.

The voices, the sounds, the pain, all of it began to recede into a tunnel of calm, quiet darkness. But before he gave in to the quiet and the darkness, he heard one last thing.

Conner West's voice.

"You think you you hurt? Wait'll you see what we do to your crippled girlfriend!" hurt? Wait'll you see what we do to your crippled girlfriend!"

Sarah!

Nick struggled to stand, but his arms and legs wouldn't respond. He slumped onto the frozen ground and slipped gratefully into the darkness.

Chapter Fifteen.

Sarah pushed through the heavy school doors, hoping Miss Philips hadn't made her so late that Nick would leave without her. But the sidewalk and lawn around the school was empty, which meant she was even later than she thought. Nick had already gone, and Angie would be furious.

She made her way down the steps, but as she started to cut across the lawn to the left, she found herself going in the other direction instead.

But why?

Why wasn't she going directly home, just as Angie had told her to? All she had to do was turn around and- But she was no longer near the school. Instead she was at the gate to the park, with no memory-none at all-of walking in that direction. In fact, she had no real memory of going anywhere at all-it felt as if she'd taken only a few steps, but the park was more than two blocks from the school.

How had she gotten here? What had brought her?

She looked around, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary. Yet she was certain there was a reason she was here. She took a few steps into the park, listening for anything other than the sporadic traffic on Main Street, heard nothing, and was about to head back to the sidewalk when she saw something lying in the middle of the jogging path.

Nick's backpack.

Sarah's heart began to pound as she moved closer and clumsily stooped down to pick it up. "Nick?" she called out as she straightened up. "Nick, are you here? Nick!"

She heard a faint groan from off to the left, dropped the backpack and ran. Nick, unconscious and covered with blood, lay on the frozen ground half hidden by a bush, a bloodied tree branch next to his head. "Help!" Sarah called out. "Someone help me!"

Ignoring the pain in her hip, she dropped to the ground. "Nick? Nick!"

For a moment it seemed he wasn't going to respond at all, but then his eyes opened a crack. "S-Sarah?" he said, his voice barely audible.

"What happened?" Sarah asked. "Who did this to you?" But even before Nick could start to form the words, she answered her own question. "It was Conner, wasn't it? Conner and his friends!"

"I-I tried to s-stop them," Nick whispered. "Like I did ..." His voice trailed off, then he spoke again. "... yesterday."

Yesterday? What was he talking about? Yesterday the dog had come at them and- Her thoughts were interrupted by a groan as Nick tried to sit up, failed, and dropped back onto the ground. "Where's your phone?" Sarah asked. "I'm going to call 911."

"P-Pocket," Nick managed. "But not 911. Call my mother."

"You can't even stand up," Sarah said, fis.h.i.+ng the phone out of Nick's pocket as carefully as she could, but still seeing him wince as she pulled it from his pants. "And if your mom tries to move you, it could make things even worse."

"They hit my head," Nick said. "And kicked me. But I don't think anything's broken." But when he tried once more to get up, and failed again, he shook his head. "Okay. But call my mom, too."

In less than a minute Sarah had made both phone calls, and when she started to slide Nick's phone back into his pocket, he pushed her hand away. "Keep it," he said. "That way I can call you."

"But it's your-"

"Just keep it for now, okay?"

She started to argue with him, but already she could hear the siren of the approaching ambulance, so she dropped the cell phone into her backpack. "They'll be here in a minute," she told him. "You're going to be okay."

Nick managed a nod. "I-I'm glad you weren't with me, but-"

"If I'd been with you, maybe they wouldn't have tried anything."

Nick shook his head, wincing at the pain even that slight movement caused. "W-We could have stopped them," he said. "Like yester-" He broke off as the siren, which was blaring so loudly that Sarah could barely hear him anyway, abruptly fell silent. "You better go tell them where I am," he said, but Sarah was already getting to her feet. Then, as she started back toward the path, he spoke again. "I'll call you," he said. "Tonight, after my mom's gone home."

No more than thirty seconds after the ambulance arrived, Lily Dunnigan pulled up behind it and ran into the park. Sarah watched as the EMTs quickly went over Nick, then loaded him onto a stretcher and carried him to the ambulance. If Lily Dunnigan even noticed Sarah, she gave no sign, but simply followed the EMTs, brus.h.i.+ng past Sarah as if she hadn't seen her.

The fading light of the afternoon made Sarah glance at her watch as she stepped out of the park, and she hurried her step as she started home. Angie was going to be angry, but maybe when she told her why she was late- No. Not Angie. It wouldn't matter why she was going to be late.

Angie was going to be angry, and she was going to be punished.

Sarah lay down on the old camp cot in the attic that now served as her bed and wondered what Angie would do if she knew that the person she thought she was punis.h.i.+ng would far rather be right where she was than downstairs with the Garvey family. Angie had been so angry at her late return from school that instead of listening to what had happened, she simply banished her to her "room" without dinner. Sarah had seen no reason to tell Angie that the banana in her backpack-left over from lunch-would do just fine for supper, let alone that she'd rather be up here by herself than sitting at the table with the family. Nor was the attic nearly as bad as she suspected the Garveys thought it was.

She had found an old table to serve as a desk and rescued a piece of clothesline and some old wire hangers from one of the drawers of an old dresser she suspected the Garveys had forgotten was even up there. After stringing the clothesline between two of the rafters for a makes.h.i.+ft clothes rack and hanging most of her clothes on the hangers, she put the rest of her things in the dresser drawer without having to worry about Tiffany complaining that she was taking up too much s.p.a.ce.

The naked lightbulb hanging from the rafters was a little glary, but all in all, the attic was a whole lot better than sharing Tiffany's room.

She was just finis.h.i.+ng the banana when Nick's cell phone vibrated in her pocket.

Swallowing the last of the banana, Sarah sat up, fished the phone out of her jeans and started to open it. But then she hesitated. What if it wasn't Nick? But even if it wasn't, what did it matter? He'd given her the phone, and even Angie couldn't get mad at her for answering it. Well, maybe Angie could, but not anyone else. Still, she turned her head away from the attic door just in case someone was out there listening.

"h.e.l.lo?"

"It's me," Nick said.

A flood of relief flowed through her. "Are you okay?"

"They gave me a bunch of painkillers," he said, his voice tired. "I have a couple of cracked ribs and some other stuff, but they're letting me out tomorrow."

"Did you tell them who beat you up?"

"Are you kidding?"

Sarah frowned, then understood. "So if they get away with it, why won't they just do it again?"

"They probably will," Nick said. "But it's not just me-Conner said something about you, too. So just stay away from them, okay?"

"Why don't we just tell the police?" Sarah countered.

"Because Conner's dad is is the police, remember? Besides, maybe this way Conner will think we're even." the police, remember? Besides, maybe this way Conner will think we're even."

"Even?" Sarah echoed. "For what?" Sarah echoed. "For what?"

"Killing his dog."

"You didn't-" Sarah began, but Nick broke in.

"I think I did, Sarah," he said. "I mean, it sounds crazy, but while they were beating me up, I tried to do the same thing to Conner that I did to his dog yesterday."

"What are you talking about? Neither one of us did anything!"

Nick was silent a moment, and when he spoke, his voice had dropped as if he didn't want anyone else hearing what he said. "I think maybe we did. Or at least I did. Remember how I had the hallucination of the dog being cut open at the same time you were drawing it?"

Every nerve in Sarah's body began to tingle, but she said nothing.

"Well, when Conner's dog came at us, one of the voices in my head started yelling at me, and I knew what to do. I mean, I just knew knew. I just remembered that hallucination and-" He hesitated, then plunged on. "-and I knew I could do it! I just held up my hand like I had a knife in it, and-and ..." His voice trailed off. There was a long silence, and when Sarah didn't say anything, Nick finally spoke again. "I mean, you were there-you saw what happened."

Sarah shuddered at the memory. "You didn't do anything," she insisted.

"I think I did," Nick replied. "I saw the whole thing while you were drawing it, and then when Conner's dog came at us, I just did what the voice in my head told me to do. And I tried to do it again today."

Sarah's fingers were gripping the phone so hard her knuckles were turning white. What was he talking about? He couldn't have done what he said he'd done. "But it didn't work, did it?" she said, the trembling in her voice belying the confidence she was trying to project.

"I think it was because you weren't there," he said. "I think I could have stopped them if you'd been there with me."

"No," Sarah said. "What happened to Conner's dog didn't have anything to do with us."

"I think it did," Nick said. Then, before Sarah could say anything else, he added, "The nurse is here. I've got to go. Talk to you tomorrow."

And the phone went dead in Sarah's hand.

For several long minutes she sat where she was, trying to make sense of what Nick had said.

It was the drugs they'd given him for the pain. It had to be!

Without thinking about it, Sarah rose from the cot and moved to the grimy attic window. Rubbing some of the dirt away, she peered out into evening darkness.

Out there in the shadows of the gathering night was someone-one person-who might be able to tell her what had happened.

And she had to talk to that person.

Tonight.

Now.

Sarah listened to the house.

Mitch's TV was blaring through the surround-sound speakers, barely even m.u.f.fled by the full floor separating it from the attic. Sarah unlocked the window and pushed up on the old wood frame.

It was stuck fast, glued in place by layers and layers of paint.

She pressed harder and pushed upward again, but not until splinters and paint chips had dug into her palms did the window finally move, giving way with a protesting screech but only opening less than half an inch.

She pushed again, but the window held fast. Yet if she was going to go see Bettina Philips, she had to get it open. Turning back to the attic, she searched for something she could use to pry the window open. It didn't take long to find the near perfect tool: behind a cracked mirror was an old set of wrought-iron fireplace tools.

Perfect. She took the poker back to the window, wedged it into the opening and pushed down.

Slowly-and protesting loudly-the window opened far enough so she could get a good grip on the bottom of the frame.

She raised it as quietly as she could, inch by inch, every screech and sc.r.a.pe sounding loud enough to wake the dead, let alone summon one of the Garveys, but finally the opening was large enough to squeeze through, and no one arrived at the attic door to stop her.

Now all she had to do was wait for everyone else to go to bed.

At ten the television finally fell silent. At ten-thirty loud snoring began wafting up through the floor from Mitch and Angie's bedroom directly beneath Sarah's cot. As the snoring settled into a steady rhythm, she put on her parka, stuffed gloves into her pockets, wrapped her scarf around her neck, and pulled her wool hat down around her ears.

One leg at a time, she climbed out of the window and stood shakily on the steeply pitched roof outside. She held perfectly still for a moment, staring down at the yard below and wondering if she wanted to risk breaking her leg again-or even worse-just to get to the ground, only to still be faced with the long walk up to Shutters. What if Bettina wasn't even home?

But she would be-Sarah knew it.

And if she didn't talk to Bettina, she wouldn't sleep at all.

Slowly, testing every step before she trusted her weight to it, she moved down the roof until she could steady herself against a large branch of the maple tree that overhung the roof. Then she was in the tree itself, climbing down the branches until she was at the lowest one. Once again she paused. It still wasn't too late to turn back, to climb back up, creep across the roof, and slip into the shelter of the attic. She looked down at the ground, which now seemed much farther away than the seven or eight feet it actually was.

Two feet, she told herself. That's all it'll be when I let go of the branch. But what if she broke her hip again?

Don't think about it!

Steeling herself, she lowered herself from the branch until only her hands were clinging to the bark, offered a silent prayer to whatever G.o.d might be listening, and let go.

Her good leg hit first, catching most of her weight, and there was just a small jolt of pain from her bad hip. She took a couple of deep breaths and limped toward the fog-haloed streetlight, away from the ugliness of the Garvey household and toward the sanctuary of Bettina Philips's mansion.