- AHMED -

I twisted to the right again, this time getting a clearer view of EdgeWay's personal sanitarium. Through the glass, I spotted her—Myra Gravestepper, standing with one hand on her hip while the other held a phone to her ear.

"Who is she talking to?" Irina mused. "And why in Molding the Way?"

"Only one way to find out," I whispered back.

Irina nodded as we pulled into a parking space, then powered off the car.

When we made it to the front of the building, we crouched down behind apposing pillars that flanked the entrance. Aside from Myra Gravestepper, there looked to be no one else inside Molding the Way.

"That's so weird," I whispered to Irina as I knelt. "Where's the receptionist? ...And who let your mom inside?"

Her only reply was a light exhale.

Ice in the air whistled past, and I shivered. But Irina stayed still as a statue, straining to hear the hoarse words erupting from between her mother's lips:

"I gave you what you wanted—everything you wanted. I left it at Chadwick's, now where is she!?"

I turned shakily to Irina. "Are you hearing this—?"

"Shh!" she ordered as her mother began to yell.

"I don't care!" Myra screeched. "You're the one who broke into my house! I've done enough for you already! I bought the one you asked for, I used the card you gave me, and I gave the name you told me to tell the clerk! Now, the rest is up to you! I've kept my end."

"What is she talking about?" I mused.

Irina stayed quiet, moving only the slightest bit to get a better vantage.

"DON'T YOU DARE HANG UP ON ME!" came another scream from Myra. "GIVE HER BACK TO ME! GIVE ME BACK MY DAUGHTER!"

"There's no way," Irina finally broke her silence.

I scarcely processed what was happening before Irina'd jumped to her feet and bolted inside the door, hollering the moment Myra turned to her. I rushed in on Irina's heels, the glass doors of Molding the Way clanging shut behind me.

"Irina?" Myra gasped. "What on earth...how did you—?"

"Who is that, Mom?" Irina demanded, pointing to Myra's phone. "Who were you yelling at?"

"What?"

"MOM!"

"Young lady, do not raise your voice at—"

"She has GiGi," Irina fired. "I heard you screaming at her about GiGi!"

Myra's eyes drew wide. "How on earth do you—?"

"I know I had a sister, Mom. I know you locked her up in here, and I know she's missing." Irina paused. "What I can't understand is why...how...you could keep something like this from me."

"It wasn't..." Myra began. "You weren't meant to know, Irina. It's all so muddled, so horribly, unforgivably muddled..."

"H—how long, Mom?" Irina's question came out more like a plea. "How long has she been...in here?"

Myra looked away. "Twelve years."

Irina drew a long breath. "Then it's all true—everything I found, everything about...about Pastor Hall and Marissa, Madam Caroline...Lane..."

Myra gasped. "How do you know that name?"

Irina crossed her arms. "Did you really think she died twelve years ago? Died with GiGi's memory?"

"Stop that!" ordered Myra. "Don't you dare take that tone with me!"

"Well, that's what you wanted, isn't it? I know it was Lane, Mom. She's the only reason all of this is happening. Some stupid hearing, a kangaroo court of high and mighty faculty?" Irina snorted. "Did they have the audacity to drape that leather cross over the podium before the final verdict?"

"Irina," Myra spoke evenly, her eyes thinning, "I don't care how upset you are; you will listen to me. I am your mother."

"No, Mom," Irina breathed, giving pause. "I won't listen...but the police will." She raised her phone. "Because while I was outside, I recorded everything I heard you say. Something about a credit card? I wonder what the cops would find if they did some searching. Just what did you buy at Chadwick's?"

Standing behind Irina, I stole a quick glance at her phone. The screen was pitch black, and I knew she must've been lying. I doubted she'd even turned that phone on since we left Ms. Charity's house. But Irina stood with such authority, such confidence, that I almost felt I could believe anything she said. And her mother was visibly shaking.

"Irina," she ordered. "Give me that phone. Now."

"Did I mention that I just recently became BFFs with the Deputy Commissioner's wife? Her name's Prudence Darrow, and her number's at the top of my contacts list right now." Irina clicked on her phone for the first time, navigated to Prudence's name on her digital screen. "You wanna call her, Mom?" She held up the screen for Myra to see. "Or should I call her—and tell her everything?"

"Irina, stop this!" Myra screeched.

"You've got ten seconds," Irina answered back. "Ten seconds before I press Call and tell Prudence to come find me. And I promise you she won't be alone." Irina smiled a grim yet daring smile. "Ten...nine...eight...seven...six..."

"Alright, alright!" Myra yelled. "Stop it, Irina! Just stop it!"

"THEN TELL ME WHAT HAPPENED TO GIGI!" Irina's devious eyes and pointed grin exploded almost instantly to rage and despair. "HOW COULD YOU LOCK AWAY YOUR DAUGHTER, YOUR CHILD—MY SISTER!?"

"I did what I had to!" Myra screamed in retaliation, her voice breaking at last. "You have no idea how hard it was to watch and wait, to pray endlessly that somehow God would save her. She'd lost so much blood by the time I got the call that she'd been taken to the hospital...the doctor said he thought for sure she'd be brain dead at the end of her operation."

Irina sniffled back tears, her hands rising to her cheekbones.

"But somehow, she woke up," Myra continued. "And...and Pastor Hall came to visit her. He said he'd heard about what happened, that some kind soul had brought GiGi to the hospital. They managed to stop most of the bleeding, but...there was so much damage from clotting inside her head..." Myra covered her eyes, wet droplets falling between her fingers.

"When GiGi woke up, she wouldn't stop screaming the name Marissa. Her vitals went off the charts, and...then she got quiet, so awfully quiet. I thought we'd lost her, but she sat up straight in her bed. And she...pointed...right at Pastor Hall. She screamed Marissa's name, and she wouldn't stop pointing. All night, she screamed it—'Marissa, please! GiGi's dying!' Over and over, she screamed. And she pointed; even when Marcus left, she pointed at the wall where he'd been standing."

"And you didn't think," Irina growled, "that maybe—just maybe—Pastor Hall had anything to do with it?"

"Of course I did! You think I couldn't tell that he was hiding something? But what was I to do? Accuse his secretary of attacking my daughter? Demand that she be fired, charged without a shred of evidence!? I had no choice, Irina! There was nothing I could do except to pray!"

"Pray?" Irina raised an eyebrow. "You mean let Marcus Hall pray for you?"

"Do not start with me—"

"Just what did he pray about, Mom? For justice to be served? For some waiting-in-the-winds assailant to be found?" She folded her arms. "Or maybe he prayed that Marissa'd actually finish the job next time."

Myra drew a deep and pained sigh. "It wasn't like that," she tried. "I was terrified. Can you imagine what I must have been feeling—a mother, unable to save my daughter?" Her eyes fell. "And you were terrified too."

Irina's lip quivered. "So what? You made me forget her?"

Myra sighed again. "Nothing is ever that simple. The mind of a child is...there's just no telling what might've been..."

"Then what happened!?" Irina raged. "Why couldn't I remember her until...until I saw that report card and—" she froze—"and thought about Lane, thought about those skittles!?"

"You always wanted Lane to be your sister...even though GiGi was, you always wanted Lane as well." Myra's voice began cracking as new tears rolled down her cheeks. "The doctors said it would be better this way, better if you stopped visiting GiGi, stopped thinking about her and Lane so much. We got you involved at the church, started you on extracurriculars, did our best to bury anything that would remind you. We hid GiGi's old report cards, threw out her make up, bought all-new calendars and toys and clothes just for you."

Myra sniffled. "It really felt like a fresh start, a clean slate. You were only five; and by the time you were seven, starting second grade...by then, it'd finally worked. GiGi was gone, and so was Lane. Sam still visited, still did his best to see you when he could; but he was so wrapped up in basketball, so thrown into sports that I guess he just forgot about Lane too..."

"No," Irina whispered, her voice a wisp of subdued rage. "He never forgot about her. He never got over it. He blamed himself, Mom. He still blames himself. He saw her that night, the night GiGi was attacked. He tried to save Lane, but...he couldn't."

"Well, maybe that was for the best," Myra retorted. "That girl was a monster, Irina. She dragged GiGi everywhere with her, into every dirty plot she cooked up. It was her fault—if it hadn't been for her, GiGi never would have left home in the middle of the night. She would've never gotten hurt; of that, I'm convinced." Myra paused for tears. "But that girl is dead now. GiGi's the only one who remembers, who cares. And now some psycho has her kidnapped, and all you can do is whine about a delinquent who got what she deserved."

"Wow," Irina breathed. "You really don't get it, do you?" She uncrossed her arms, began speaking evenly for the first time since we'd arrived. "Lane isn't dead, Mom. She's the one behind all of this. And until tonight, I'd never have thought it was possible. But hearing what happened to GiGi, what all of you did to her—I know Lane's alive. She's alive, and she's angry."

Myra placed a hand on her hip.

"But for the first time in forever, it's not me who has to be afraid. It's not me who has to stand up for myself, to weather the storm—it's not me who has to hide and sneak, to think up witty remarks just because people can't mind their own freaking business. It's not me who has to literally run for my life because my own mother forced me to go to a hotel with the pastor's rapey son!" She breathed in, breathed out. "It's not me who has to be terrified, so afraid that my existence means nothing and that everyone else was 'right about me.'"

Irina's mother glared at her with impassive, narrowed eyes.

"Lane Martin saved me at that hotel," Irina said. "I didn't even know who she was, but there's no denying it. Lane Alexandria Martin is alive." She smiled. "And it's not me who has to be scared this time—it's you."

Myra scowled, her face livid and tremoring.

Irina stepped closer. "Lane left a file in our house, didn't she? A picture, maybe a few different ones, of her in a bathtub. She was bleeding, terrified, in so much pain...and Marissa was there. Bathing her, raping her, who knows? But you'd already seen it before, hadn't you? Was it all over the news, Mom? Did they plaster Lane's photo on Channel 6 Local? Is that even what they called it back then?" Irina's eyes narrowed. "Tell me, was it not worth fighting Marcus in his own town? Is that why you never voiced your suspicions back then, why you still won't voice them now? Why you keep blaming Lane, as if she somehow got what she deserved because she was such a spoiled, nasty little girl?"

"Irina," I whispered, tried to cut in. "Hey, maybe go easy...this is—"

"You tried to act like everything was fine," Irina ignored me, then cocked back her neck. "But even you can't deny the fact that GiGi's missing. And if I didn't know it was Lane who took her, then I'd maybe be a little more freaked."

Veins pulsed with rage across Myra's forehead. "Irina Zoey Gravest—"

"But GiGi's with her best friend, Mom," Irina calmly interrupted, "and I'm done trying to chase down the girl who saved me from becoming another notch on Steven Hall's belt. I'm done acting like you and Marcus and Glenn and Marissa are somehow victims in all of this, and I'm done making excuses for people who use God as a license to ruin lives. That's not the God I serve—and neither are you."

Irina twisted around, turned her back to her mother. "Goodbye," she said evenly as she strode to the building's exit.

"IRINA! YOU GET BACK HERE THIS INST—"

BAM! Irina's only reply was the slamming of the glass door behind her.

Myra was shaking, seething with rage. Her eyes were burning, and her mouth hung agape with wrathful replies she must have been aching to spew. But how could she? What could she say? Irina had been right—at least about GiGi. I couldn't believe that the woman who stood with her blood boiling next to me was somehow the same person who'd been so welcoming that day when I'd visited the Gravestepper household.

I was thoughtless, wordless, speechless. I couldn't move; I couldn't breathe. What was happening? What in the world was happening?

ZZZING!!! ZZZING!!!

I jumped, snapped back to reality at the jolt of my phone against my thigh.

Myra kept her silence as I answered after the second ring:

"Hello?"

"Ahmed, you're not gonna believe this."

"Steven?"

"I know who attacked me on Saturday," he blurted. "And who shot Marissa at Molding the Way."

"What? H—how?"

"I saw her. She was sitting in this coffee shop, and then she...smiled at me. She twisted her finger through her hair, then booked it outta the building."

I heard Myra gasp behind me.

There's no way. "Wait—you said you saw her...could you describe what she looks like to Prudence? Maybe the police could start a search—"

"Dude, there's no point. I know her name. That's what I'm trying to tell you!"

"Huh? Steven, how do you—?"

"It's Mia Sasher, Marissa's roommate!"

I gasped.

"Look, I know she's not blond, but she must've dyed her hair or something. I saw her face; I know that was her."

"She didn't dye her hair," Myra spoke up next to me.

Steven paused. "Ahmed, who said that?"

"This is Irina's mother," Myra leaned close to my phone to answer. "And that girl you saw is no brunette. She's a natural blond, and her name isn't Mia..."

I heard Steven swallow hard.

"...it's Alice."