Page 56 of If Anything Happens To Me

I nodded. “The birds see all,” I said.

“The birds?”

“Yes, it’s perfect for birders like Fitch and Matt.”

“Well, he keeps track of what’s going on up here. And he always knows when Abby-Gale—Abigail—goes into an episode.”

“Why does he need a camera or a spy? Doesn’t the monitor, whatever those wires lead to, tell him that?” I asked.

“It’s supposed to buzz when she hasn’t moved in too long. Once it was close, she almost didn’t come out of it, but he got to her in time.” She paused. “He’s very attuned to her.”

“I know their mother travels all the time,” I said. “She’s not exactly present in their lives. But seeing all this,” I said, gesturing around. “How does she not have a clue about what her son is doing? Or does she?”

“I’ve heard Fitch and Abigail talking,” Hayley said. “They say the family has tried all the conventional treatments, but nothing has worked. Not just for Abigail, but for all the women who have the gene.”

“What is the gene, anyway?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” Hayley said. “They just say ‘the gene.’ And they talk about AB negative. The only ones who get sick have that blood type. He doesn’t have enough subjects to do his research on, so that’s why he took me and Iris, and the other girl, too. Because we have it.”

Other girl. My sister.

“Anyway, I know his mother is a doctor,” Hayley said. “I think he’s raided her office, to get the knockout meds.”

“Doctors have to keep track of that stuff,” I said, thinking of how careful Gram’s physicians were about prescribing her medications, especially ones to relax her or help her sleep. “Maybe his mom gives it to him.”

“I really doubt she knows anything,” Hayley said. “She never shows up here. Fitch gets angry because he feels she’s given up on Abigail.”

“How could someone give up on their daughter?” I asked.

“Because it’s such a hopeless situation,” Hayley said. “It’s really bad, Oli. She honestly does die. It tears him up.”

“Well, I don’t feel sorry for him,” I said harshly. “He’s a criminal. Hayley, for him to do what he’s doing, he has to be a psychopath.”

She didn’t respond. I knew she was thinking of Iris, of what he had done to her.

“He killed my sister,” I said.

“What?” she asked, shocked.

“Before he took you and Iris, he took my sister. You said the ‘other girl’—that was my sister. She knew him, she trusted him. They were friends. It wouldn’t have taken much for him to convince her to go somewhere with him. She loved birds.” I looked up at the stuffed owls and hawks hanging overhead. “She had planned to go owling with another friend the day she disappeared. I think Fitch used that somehow to trick her . . .” My mind was racing, wondering exactly how he had done it.

“I’m so sorry, Oli. He tricked us, too—he pretended to love cats,” she said. “What was your sister’s name?”

“Eloise. She was about your age. She was wonderful—so smart, funny, the greatest sister ever. My best friend.” I felt my face turning red, but I wouldn’t cry. I needed my anger right now, not my sorrow. I needed rage to stay fierce and get us away from here. “I’m going to make sure he never hurts anyone again,” I said. “I am going to see him punished. We’re going to do it together, Hayley.”

“Good,” she said, and she flashed a big smile. She stood straighter and looked strong.

I saw her glance down at Abigail—still fast asleep, out cold.

“In a way, it’s hard not to blame her,” Hayley said. “He says we have to be a hero to the goddess. He means Abigail—this is all for her. He doesn’t care who suffers as long as he gets his answers. So she can live. He thinks if he can induce seizures in us, he can figure out a way to stop them in her.”

I stared down at the sleeping girl. I remembered that her seizures, and their serious underlying cause, were the reason she had left school. It was obvious that Fitch loved Abigail very much, in order to do what he was doing. I understood sibling love as well as—better than—most people. I would have said it was impossible to love anyone more than I did Eloise. But would I sacrifice other people’s lives for her? Because it seemed pretty clear he was doing just that, to find a cure for his sister.

“They’re terrible,” Hayley said, shivering. “Her seizures. I hate when she has them. It’s almost as if she’s possessed—by a spirit, an awful force that wants to destroy her. A demon.”

“It’s not a demon,” I said. “Fitch’s whole thing is science and medicine. That’s how he’s going about it. He thinks it’s the only way to get credit, make his mother love him. All our friends know it—we just didn’t realized that he was hurting people to do it.” But then I thought of what Minerva had said about the alchemy of gold dust, the magic of theHammer of Witches, and wondered if Fitch was really as scientific as he made himself out to be.

As if Abigail knew we were talking about her, she moaned in her sleep and turned over in her bed. Now that I had promised Hayley we were going to escape, all I had to do was come up with a plan to accomplish the impossible. But I was exhausted. I tried my best to fight through it.

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