Unlocked (33 page)

It fell from my hand and clattered to the floor.

Harrison's back arched and his mouth opened, as if he was silently screaming out in horror. A black mist surged from his gaping mouth. It spiraled upward, growing in size. For a brief moment the mist took the shape of decaying flesh and rotting talons as I'd seen in the bathroom mirror at home. I was not hallucinating. Not then and not now. Harrison had been possessed by this demon, and they'd acted together. But then I remembered what Kyla had said about Harrison getting kicked out of Princeton for messing with demonic rituals. Had Harrison commanded the evil spirits or had they commanded him? And for how long? The man who knew the answers lay dead in front of me. He had committed atrocities that I could barely fathom. But in some small way had I taken a step down the same path? I'd opened my mind to outside influences, and because of that my fingers had ripped Chelsea's shirt; my hands had set fire to the Santos home; my distraction had killed Jordan. Of course, I could claim innocence and say the devil made me do it, but a part of me had wanted revenge against Chelsea; a part of me had envied the Santos family; and another part of me had wanted to be rid of Jordan.

The demon returned to its blackened mist form and swirled toward me. I stared it down and refused to flinch or turn away. It hesitated. Then it spun upward and dissipated along the ceiling. Maybe it realized my mind was closed to its games. I'd reclaimed my power.

The room brightened as though someone had turned up the lights.

I sat in shock for a brief moment. Then I snapped out of it and scrambled over to Mom.

She had her hands wrapped around her neck, but blood seeped between her fingers. Her cheeks were wet with tears. She said nothing, but her eyes begged me to help her. I tugged the crocheted scarf from the purse and pressed it to Mom's neck. Her body relaxed, and she closed her eyes.

“Mom!”

Her eyes fluttered opened. I grabbed her hands and pushed them against her wound.

“Keep pressure. I have to call for help.”

Her fingers tensed.

“Do you understand?” I pleaded with her, and my tears fell onto her blood-soaked skin. I needed her to help.

She pressed her hands against the scarf, which was changing from gray to red.

I dug Chelsea's phone from the purse and dialed 911. Then I darted over to the house phone behind the bar and dialed zero. Both operators answered at the same time.

“I need help!” I said. “John Harrison cut my mom's throat. Beth O'Leary. He stabbed her thigh. Please. Send the paramedics. We're in the lounge on the fourth floor of the Main Street Hotel.” I dropped the house phone and ran back over to my mom. I switched the cell phone to speaker and set it next to me. I wrapped my hands around Mom's to help stop the bleeding, but she went limp beneath me.

“No, Mom!” More tears flooded down my face and mingled with her blood. I'd been so mad at her for lying about Dad and how he died, but she didn't even know the truth herself until now. “Mom, you can't die.” She moved us across the country, not to get away from the memories of Dad, but to get away from Harrison. She was trying to protect us.

She struggled to open her eyes halfway, but then blood dripped from her mouth. My heart sank.

“Mom, I love you. Please, hold on. Help is coming.” I leaned forward and pressed my forehead to hers.

In the background the 911 operator asked questions, but none of it made any sense.

I lifted my head when Mr. Holloday burst through the main entrance of the lounge with a security guard on his heels. Mr. Holloday ran behind the bar and yanked out towels from beneath the counter. He darted over to us and knelt next to Mom, applying the towels to her neck. His face was red and swollen from the pepper spray.

The security guard checked Harrison, who lay motionless in a pool of his own blood.

Mr. Holloday pressed two fingers to the side of Mom's neck searching for her pulse. “Does she have other injuries—”

Chelsea let out an earth-shattering scream from the locker room.

Mr. Holloday twisted toward the sound. “Someone else is here?”

The security guard moved toward the kitchen.

“Harrison's daughter is in the locker room,” I said. “She helped kidnap Mom.”

Mr. Holloday glared at Harrison's body. “He looks familiar.”

“He auditioned Thursday,” I said. “Mom told him to leave.”

Mr. Holloday's eyes narrowed, but he kept pressure on Mom's wound.

• • •

Two EMTs helped my mom, and I sat on the edge of the stage, staring at my blood-covered hands. What were the chances Mom would survive her neck injury when Harrison died from his own neck wound?

A police photographer snapped pictures of my injuries: my face, bruised and bloodied; my head, scalped bald in one spot; my hands, covered in Mom's blood. A woman in a CSI jacket scraped under my fingernails and caught the bits in tiny bags. When she finished, an EMT cleaned and bandaged my facial wounds and then the road rash on my forearm. I told him more was along my left thigh. He cut the side of my slacks and spread ointment over the wounds before wrapping my leg in clean cotton gauze.

“Hannah, I'm Detective Samuelson,” a man said. I peered up and recognized the detective from Manny's house.

“I remember.”

I reached into Mom's purse for the wet wipes and left pink fingerprints on everything I touched. I yanked out a wipe and scrubbed my skin and my torn, chipped fingernails.

The EMT stopped me. “Let me do that.” He used a moist cloth to wipe my hands and checked for any remaining wounds. He applied ointment and bandages to the cuts on my hands.

“You have friends who really care about you,” Detective Samuelson said.

“Who are you talking about?” I asked. Certainly not Chelsea. Right then, officers escorted her through the lounge with her hands in cuffs. She had moved here last fall and had infiltrated our group. We'd accepted her, and all along she'd been doing the bidding of Harrison, laying the groundwork to make me look crazy out of my mind.

She mumbled incessantly to no one in particular. As she passed Harrison's body, she asked, “Can I go home now?”

Detective Samuelson perched next to me on the stage and set his hand on top of mine. “Hannah, Eugene is fine. Firefighters got to him in time. He's at the hospital waiting for you. He told me everything.”

My head dropped in relief. “I thought he was dead,” I said. My chest heaved, and I gasped for air.

Detective Samuelson wrapped his arm around me. I sobbed into his shoulder. I had hoped Plug would be saved, but I hadn't allowed myself to believe it. Just like I couldn't let myself believe Mom would be okay.

“I assure you, Eugene is very much alive,” Detective Samuelson said.

In that moment, I knew for certain, my feelings for Plug were real. Out from under the influence of the hypnotist or the demons, I still cared about Plug, and I needed to see him.

“Kyla and Nick are in the hotel lobby, waiting to come up here if that is what you want,” the detective said.

I brushed away my tears and nodded.

He motioned to the officer standing nearby. “Let Kyla and Nick come up.”

Detective Samuelson squeezed my hands. “Your friends fought hard for you. They told us everything that's happened, and they showed us the videos with Harrison manipulating you. We've been trying to catch up to you, Hannah. We want to help you.”

I glanced at Harrison's body. The CSI people were taking pictures and collecting evidence.

“Hotel security caught it all on video,” Detective Samuelson said. “Well, most of it. The video pixelated out a few times. Some sort of glitch in the system. But there's enough to prove self-defense.”

“Did the video show the spirit leaving Harrison's body?” I asked.

Detective Samuelson raised his eyebrows. “Spirit? I don't know. That's not my area of expertise.”

The EMTs lifted Mom onto a gurney. Detective Samuelson gently took my hand and helped me up. We walked over to Mom.

She reached out for me. She was alive. And alert.

I wrapped my hands around hers.

Beneath the oxygen mask, Mom tried to speak. I leaned in closer.

“I'm so proud of you,” she whispered.

I pressed my cheek against hers. “I love you so much, Mom,” I whispered in her ear.

“We need to get her to the hospital,” an EMT said.

Reluctantly, I let go of Mom. I kissed her on the forehead and tucked her hand in next to her side.

The EMT adjusted the oxygen mask on Mom's mouth and nose. “The knife didn't sever any major arteries in her neck,” he said, “but she may need surgery to repair the damage. And the thigh laceration needs to be stitched up, but it will heal. Would you like to ride in the ambulance with her?”

“Yes.” I walked with them toward the lounge doors and cried silently.

Kyla and Nick exploded through the entrance before we reached it. Kyla threw her arms around me.

“Are you all right?” she asked and held me tighter. Her indigo hair buried my face.

“Of course not,” Nick said and wrapped his arms around both of us. “But she will be. If she can take down Tall-Tree-Chelsea and her Devil-of-a-Dad, Hannah can do anything.”

They held me even tighter.

“Hannah,” Detective Samuelson said, “if you want to ride with your mom in the ambulance, we need to go.”

Kyla and Nick drew back, but they each held onto my hands.

I nodded at the detective.

“Meet me at the hospital?” I asked Kyla and Nick.

“Of course,” she said. “We'll do whatever you want.”

• • •

Lights flashed beneath the awning of the Main Street Hotel. A throng of reporters shouted questions and thrust their microphones in my face. Mr. Holloday and Detective Samuelson shielded me with their arms as I followed Mom's gurney to the ambulance. The aromas of blood and pepper spray still clung to the inside of my nose, and my stomach churned.

“Hannah!” the reporters shouted in chorus.

“Did you love your mom?” some dumb guy asked.

“Why did you set fire to your boyfriend's house?” another one yelled.

Mr. Holloday helped me up into the colossal white ambulance.

“I'll meet you at the hospital,” the detective said.

He closed the door, and I sat on the side bench. I held Mom's hand, and the ambulance crept through the crowd of onlookers that had formed in front of the hotel.

The driver flipped the sirens on and sped toward the hospital.

• • •

A team of doctors met my mom in the ambulance bay. Kyla and Nick waited there for me as well. The doctors assessed my mom and rushed her off to surgery. Kyla had the forethought to tell them we'd be waiting in Eugene Polaski's room, and a nurse assured us they would find me there after the surgery.

“How'd you beat the ambulance here?” I asked Kyla.

“You've never seen her drive,” Nick said.

Kyla smiled and looped her arm through mine. “Let's go see Plug.”

Before we reached his room, we ran into Mrs. Santos and Manny in the hallway. We halted about six feet apart. They each wore navy blue police department T-shirts, and it was the first time I'd ever seen Mrs. Santos without makeup. She wiped a tissue beneath her eyes, but more tears spilled down her pallid cheeks.

Manny shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at the floor. My first instinct was to kick him for not believing in me and sticking with me through the hard stuff. But then I remembered how Jordan's mom had slapped me in this very same hospital. I remembered how awful it felt. The hypnotist had left my mind open to his manipulation and to evil influences. The accident was a result of both.

I had no idea if Jordan's family could ever forgive me, but I knew that Manny couldn't forgive me for changing. He wanted our relationship to stay the same forever in a tight little box, and I'd ruined that for him. He had folded when I needed him the most. It's easy to be with someone when everything goes right, but Manny couldn't deal with my dark side when everything went wrong. And I wanted to be with someone who could.

“Hannah,” Mrs. Santos said, “the police explained to us that you were not responsible for the fire.”

“I'm still sorry you had to go through that,” I said.

“I jumped to conclusions,” Mrs. Santos said. “Protecting my children was foremost in my mind, and . . . I apologize for assuming the worst about you.”

She had once thought of me like a daughter. She'd rocked me and hummed lullabies to me after the accident. But everything changed when she found me on the couch with her son.

Manny gazed up at me. “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

“No.” I answered too quickly. But exhaustion clouded my mind, and I couldn't bear the idea of having a drawn-out conversation with Manny right now.

“I'm sorry.” He ran his hand through his chestnut hair and frowned. He seemed to struggle to find the words, and then he suddenly pivoted and walked away.

Mrs. Santos gazed at me for a moment, and then she followed Manny.

“That went well,” Nick said.

Kyla wrapped her arm around my shoulders and escorted me to Plug's room. I paused at the door. Necro was already there, huddled over Plug's bedside. Plug's grandma sat nearby with her hand resting on Plug's leg. Necro lifted his head and smiled when he saw me. Days ago I thought he was scary looking, but Harrison, in fact, had been the scariest man I'd ever seen on the face of this earth. I had been so wrong about so many things. Nick nudged me, but I was immovable. So much had happened in the past week. Was it all really over?

Necro tapped Plug's leg. “Hannah's here.”

Plug turned his head toward me, and a tear rolled down his cheek. Plug's head was wrapped in bandages, and new stitches blanketed his lower lip. His rings, plugs, and trinkets had all been removed from his face and fingers. An IV tube ran from his arm to a bag dangling from a pole.