. . . serial offenses: animal cruelty, bedwetting, fire-setting.”
Axel’s mouth twisted into what she assumed was supposed to be a smile. “Ah, well, there you go. Science.”
Liza closed her eyes, picturing Everett, his shy smile, the gentle demeanor. The stack of comic books he’d brought to camp and kept on his bedside.
“He was wrong, Axel. So very, very wrong.”
He’d been tortured.
And Everett’s suicide had evidently completely thrown his brother over the edge of reality. Whatever he was attempting to do here was part of some wild explanation he’d come up with for the trauma they’d both endured. Some answer to the inexplicable question of why.
A life raft to clutch to in a black, bottomless sea.
And she was part of it. She and Arryn.
“Why her?” Liza asked, nodding over to a still unconscious Arryn.
Axel smiled. “All demons have a weakness.” He nodded at Charles. “His is Josie.” He cocked his head to the side. “He let her go,” Axel murmured, staring at Charles, his expression almost . . . perplexed. “Not once, but twice. My grandfather never would have done that. No loose ends, he always said. Never any loose ends.” Axel’s voice trailed away, eyes going distant before he startled slightly, coming back to himself, gesturing toward Charles again. “I let him know Josie was at risk and just as I thought, he fell right into my hands.” He smiled. “I prepared this. All of it. It took meticulous planning, lots of time. Months and months. I followed all of you . . . Josie”—he turned toward Arryn—“Josie’s family.” His smile grew tender and a distant shiver went down Liza’s spine. “I watched Arryn, I even talked to her once. She was kind. Innocent. Pure. Perfect.”
Liza’s head cleared a little more, the room becoming sharper, more real.
“Your grandfather is dead, Axel,” Liza said. “Isn’t that enough? Please, let us go. Let them go”—she nodded to Milo, Sabrina, and Arryn—“and we can talk. You don’t have to kill anyone, not even him.” She extended her head toward Charles. “We’ll talk and we’ll figure this out, just like we talked before. Then”—she looked over at Milo and Sabrina—“we’ll all talk, okay, Axel?”
“No,” he said. “It’s too late for that now. You have to understand, Angel, this is for you too. It’s the only way to escape hell and evade evil once and for all. You want that, don’t you?”
He looked over to the others shackled to the chairs, his gaze moving between Milo and Sabrina, who looked to be in various stages of regaining consciousness. He addressed Charles. “They understand evil.” He walked over to Liza and ran a finger down her cheek. She shrunk back, groaned. “This angel, terrified of the dark because her father locked her there, alone, for days.” Something in Charles’s face shifted as he watched her. Liza looked away.
Axel walked over to Milo, placing his hand on his shoulder. “And this angel, who numbs himself to keep the visions at bay, the memories of what those men did to him.” He moved to Sabrina, smoothing her hair away from her face, though it fell immediately back to where it’d been with her head bent forward. “Her, attempting to exorcise the demons through paint, splashing the memories of every slap, every kick, every vicious word, and every broken bone that never healed quite right onto canvas.” He sighed. “My grandfather hadn’t started our . . . lessons yet when Everett and I met you all at Camp Joy, but later, I remembered.” He looked around at all of them. “I remembered you—I remembered us—as I sat alone in our room, reading Everett’s comics, listening to him beg, listening to those women scream in agony for hours.” He drifted off, face going slack for a moment, shoulders shifting forward. “I remembered, and I realized who we really are.”
Axel swiveled, his eyes landing on Charles, his expression blank, the eyes of someone who wasn’t all there. “And my demon? Well, you already know Everett’s and my demon. You wanted to know about our grandfather? He didn’t just hurt us, he thought he’d create another version of himself. He thought he had the perfect recipe.”
“Well,” Charles sighed. “His recipe was a little off because you’re a few cinnamon sticks short of an apple pie, my friend. You do realize that, right?”
“You think you’re funny?” Axel smiled benevolently. “You think this is a joke? Of course you do, because you’re the same as him. You’re not as clever as you think you