Page 1 of Heartless

Chapter

One

Someone is crying.

At first I think it’s coming from the television, though the animated Halloween special isn’t really sad or scary. A dog in a ghost costume bounces around the screen, and a little girl is running after him as I curl my legs up under me and reach for the popcorn again.

Carissa can’t be mad at me if I don’t have my shoes on with my feet on the sofa. But another sound catches my attention. Her voice comes from her bedroom above me, but Carissa doesn’t sound happy or giggly like she does when she calls her boyfriend and thinks I don’t realize what she’s doing. It’s not like I’m going to tell Mom or Dad that my babysitter isn’t always present.

I like watching movies on my own, anyway. When she isn’t down here, it’s easier to switch the channel to an actual horror movie, then feign innocence and say that whatever she’d had on before ended. Usually, Carissa even buys it.

A thud and a yell drag my attention back to the ceiling above me, and it occurs to me that Carissa might need help. But I hesitate a moment longer before getting to my feet, swallowing the last mouthful of popcorn I grabbed from the bowl. TheHalloween movie still plays, and when I pass by the windows, I see a few last trick-or-treaters roaming the neighborhood outside. I stop and look at the colorful costumes, biting my lower lip. That would’ve been me, if my parents were home.

Halloween was alwaysour thing.I trudge up the stairs, frowning. Mom and Dad and I always celebrated together with pizza, movies, trick-or-treating, and a house decorated with the same intensity as Christmas. But this year, they’d changed that.

And they left me with my babysitter for the weekend. Well, my babysitter and her younger brother who I barely ever see. He’s older than me, I know that, at least. Maybe twelve to my eight, and quiet, with ghostly blue eyes that send shivers down my spine.

“Carissa?” My soft voice doesn’t travel far on the upstairs landing as I stand with both feet at the very top of the stairs. She doesn’t answer, so I call her name again, louder this time. She still doesn’t answer, though I hear another loud, almost sob from her room down the hallway.

Looking up, I can see that her door is cracked. Carissa’s room is at the far end of the short hall, and I trudge toward it with a sigh, worry bubbling in my chest. Most likely, she’s fine. Maybe she just needs a little bit of help with something. Maybe she’s just joking around with someone.

“Carissa?” This time I’m right outside of the door, and I’m met with a soft whimper from inside, and a groan of pain.

My hand comes up, and I push open the door, just as I hear Carissa’s voice from inside. “Winnie no!” she screams. “Run! Go get help!”

But I can’t run. My eyes are fixed on the red splashes of blood on the walls and the stains on the wooden floor leading from her bed to where she sits huddled in a corner. She screams again, repeating for me to run, but I can’t run.

I can’t evenmove.

I’m frozen in place, heart pounding in my throat, as my eyes stay locked on the blood and, finally, on Carissa herself, curled up in the far corner. Her hands move frantically, trying to stop the blood from spilling from her thigh, her chest, and her shoulder, but it’s like trying to stop a river with her hands. Blood seeps from between her fingers no matter how she pushes, staining her white shirt and denim shorts red, red,red.

A low sound pulls my attention toward the closet, and when I look, I wish more than anything I could run.

By the closet stands someone a little taller than me, wearing a too-large mask and holding a too-large butcher knife in his hand. His hand and white sneakers are stained with blood, though his clothes are mostly clean of it. I make a sound, soft and low in my throat, but it’s enough.

He looks at me from behind the black eyes of the dirty mask, and his grip shifts on the knife. Carissa screams and the masked figure walks across the room; I notice something strange in the way he walks and the graceful movements he makes as he circles Carissa on the floor.

My cat,I think suddenly, eyes fixed on him.He reminds me of how Bandit stalks things in the yard.All slow, graceful movements and absolute patience. Like he knows he has all the time in the world to mess with his prey.

I can’t look away, no matter how much I want to. Not when he gets on his knees in the slick red blood and reaches out to touch Carissa’s hands.

I can’t evenmovewhen she screams again, tears running down her face as she turns away to press her face against the corner wall. “Please don’t do this,” she begs, as the masked figure lifts the blade above his head. “Please—Cassian don’t!”But if he hears her, he certainly doesn’t listen. The masked boy plunges the knife downward into her chest, slicing and stabbing amidst her frantic, agonized screams. He keeps going, bloodspattering the wall, his mask, and every surface in between as hejust keeps going.

Even after Carissa has stopped moving, stopped screaming, and stopped breathing.

At first, I don’t realize the boy is on his feet. Not until he turns and takes one step toward me.

Then another.

But I still. Can’t.Move.

It’s like one of my nightmares, where my feet are locked in place while something comes closer to me. Like being in the front of my class with no idea what to say, but not being allowed to go back to my desk.

It’s like those things, but worse. So much worse that all I can do is stare up at the bloody, dirty mask he wears and open my mouth to say nothing at all.

But he doesn’t raise the knife like he had with Carissa. Instead, his free hand comes up, and he tugs the mask off to hold it at his side, then fixes his ghostly blue eyes on mine.

It’s Cassian.

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