A Light Most Hateful by Hailey Piper

Author:Hailey Piper
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags:  
Publisher: Titan

14. THE KISS

Olivia in tow, Sunflower swept past the warm living room, its fire gentler now. The staircase to the house’s upper split yawned open, and its rim dripped rainwater down cracked-open walls.

“What about Christmas?” Olivia asked. “The Hazibels? Chapel Hill?”

“Don’t rush me,” Sunflower said, waving a hand. “I’m figuring this out as I go.” She slowed as they neared the back of the hall. “I made all this.” A bright smile rose over her shoulder. “Me.”

“You.” Olivia’s back ached; her everything ached. “That’s why we have to go outside. To unstitch tonight’s mess. Only you can fix it.”

Sunflower looked ahead. “But should I?”

Olivia recoiled in shock. Her legs stiffened to slow Sunflower down, but she kept tugging, and Olivia didn’t know how to resist. They reached the fork at the hall’s end, where making a right would lead down a shorter hall to Hazibel’s room. Sunflower eased left and focused on the stairs.

“That monster—Lizzie.” Sunflower squeezed Olivia’s hand. “I think she had it wrong. When you lose a left shoe, you don’t go buy the same left to match the right. You buy a newer, nicer pair of shoes.”

She planted one sneaker on the firm bottom step and led Olivia up. Fissures in the wooden walls exposed wire webbing, and behind them, a crevice in the hillside formed another dark eye to watch Olivia’s ascent. Her shoulders shuddered with cold. She focused hard on the ache in her leg and skin, the sight of Sunflower’s mud-caked back, her red sweater sopping wet.

“How long’s it been going on?” Sunflower asked, cresting the top step. “Just tonight? Or longer?”

Olivia wasn’t sure anymore. Had Sunflower talked this way before tonight? Which came first, the storm, or that sickly glow, or this brash mindset? Lizzie had thought she was explaining everything, and the mess of Hazibels and Mason Houses spun Olivia’s mind, but she hadn’t said what Sunfall was, or what else Sunflower might do with her gift. Olivia could only think to put everything back the way it was before tonight began.

But Sunflower seemed to have other ideas.

The small upstairs divided between a window wall at the back, Gina’s room on the left, and Sunflower’s room on the right. Sunflower took two steps into the meager hall and gave Gina’s room a hard stare. Was she thinking of Gina Night, like Olivia had earlier? Or was she thinking of Gina?

“Wish I’d known,” Sunflower said, the pep in her voice wearing down to melancholy. “When did you find out I could do this? Just now?”

Olivia nodded, but she didn’t think Sunflower saw, too busy throwing open her bedroom door. Her fingers reached inside the doorframe, and a battery-powered lava lamp cast a warped orange-white glow. It had lit many sleepovers and at least one power-out.

Aside from a dented corner and the runny cracks in the ceiling, Sunflower’s room looked largely undamaged by this Mason House’s descent from Sunset Pass, if it had fallen at all. Maybe it had sprung here from Sunflower’s head full-formed while they were still descending the pass.

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