Page 70 of If Anything Happens To Me

“Danger zone,” Abigail said. “The oldest ones rely on us being exactly the way they want us to be, right, Hayley?”

“One hundred percent,” Hayley said. “We have to know our places in the little-sisters box.”

I watched Abigail give Hayley a big smile, and Hayley smiled back. I was struck by it all—the bonding of younger sisters, hearing what it was like for them. Had I kept Eloise in a box, expected her to be a certain way?

I realized then that Abigail and Hayley had a sort of friendship. In spite of the circumstances, the horror, they had become close.

But now, Abigail turned away from Hayley. I noticed she was staring hard at the panels.

“I used to wonder what it was like for them,” she said, pointing at the Sibylline sisters. “I knew about parasomnia, and how the two younger sisters died in their sleep, but it seemed so far away, so impossible. Like something that could never happen to me.” She swallowed hard. “But itishappening. I don’t know how many more episodes I can live through. They’re getting worse. I didn’t think I’d survive the last one.”

“But you did, Abigail,” Hayley said. “And you’ll keep going.”

“You will,” I said. I realized that in spite of her part in this, I really wanted Abigail to be okay.

“Maybe for a while,” Abigail said. “But I won’t survive my brother.”

“Fitch?” I asked, confused.

“I’m going to help you get away,” she said. “And he’ll kill me when he finds out.”

“No, we won’t let him hurt you,” I said, excitement building inside as I thought of the possibility of really getting out of there.

Abigail shrugged. “I’m going to die, anyway.”

“Don’t say that,” Hayley said. “You’re not going to die.”

Abigail gave Hayley a skeptical smile.

“How are we going to do this?” I asked.

“I heard you two talking about the window, and the cameras,” Abigail said. “Like I said—the glass will be almost impossible to break, but you’re right—there’s a little crack. If we focus on that one spot, hit it over and over with something sharp, it might be possible.”

“But first, the cameras,” I said. “We have to get up to the ceiling, to unplug them . . .”

“That’s one way,” she said. “But they’re controlled by an app. He can run it on his phone or a laptop.”

“And we don’t have either of those,” Hayley said.

Abigail smiled. “Not his,” she said. “But the system is wired into the control panel, and I know where it is.”

Fitch had found a good place to hide the white metal box that held the router and other Wi-Fi components necessary for running the security cameras. It wouldn’t have been the first place most people would look, but it certainly had symbolism. If Abigail hadn’t told us, we never would have found it—but once she did, it made perfect sense.

She gestured toward the Sibylline panels.

“It’s behind that one with Daphne painted on it,” she said.

I was dying to get my hands on the box, but the irony was, the cameras were most likely trained on us now, making it almost impossible to disable the electronics. Fitch would see us, and that would defeat the purpose. Abigail had come up with a plan that would require serious synchronization. The success or failure of our operation depended upon her acting abilities.

So Hayley and I pretended to be absorbed in working on a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle on the card table and Abigail lay on her bed. I felt tense, waiting for what I knew was coming. And then Abigail got started.

I never thought she could have done it well enough to fool Fitch, but within half an hour, she was faking an episode. If Fitch was monitoring the seizure the way he had last time, we’d have about one minute from the moment Abigail went rigid to the instant Fitch came bursting through the door. During the time it would take for him to run upstairs, no one would be watching the monitor, so that was exactly as long as we had to get into the system.

Abigail moaned and tossed in bed. It seemed so real. Real enough that it was easy for me and Hayley to look at her with concern.

We saw her stiffen up. She was forcing herself to lower her respiration so Fitch would see she wasn’t breathing right. A great stillness filled the room. I remembered how scared I’d been to think she had actually died, and it was a tribute to her acting that I felt it again now.

I heard the quick throb of the buzzer attached to her mattress, and I knew that was our sign—it meant that Fitch had been alerted, and he’d be running up to the attic to tend to her.

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