The Girl in the Wall Read Free Page A

moment the lack of oxygen makes me light-headed, like I will faint, but still I can’t look away from the bodies on the floor. The bodies that are most surely dead.
    The bodies that are Mr. Barett and Ariel.

CHAPTER 2
Ariel
    When the room goes black I feel my energy coil. It’s been a while since I was in actual physical danger but my body remembers and it is prepared. There is a slight rustle behind me and then the shot, loud, makes me jump and leaves the smoky scent of burnt paper in the air. I am up before my mind processes what it was, heading to the fireplace. My fingers are sure as I reach for the catch that springs open the secret door that leads to the hidden passages that wind through my old house. As the lights flicker on I am inside, grate closed firmly behind me. It’s only then that I realize I am panting and my heart is pounding with a sickening heaviness inside my chest.
    I lean back against the wall of the tunnel and close my eyes. These tunnels go all over the house, at least the old part. The addition my dad had put on, the one with his office suite, doesn’t have any. I’m not sure why they are here—the Underground Railroad maybe?—but I also don’t think anyone else knows about them. Which means I’m safe for the moment, while I try to figure out what is happening.
    I peek out through one of the openings in the grate and gasp. I see a body on the floor. It’s not until Hudson rushes over that I realize it’s his bodyguard. Someone must be trying to kidnap Hudson. But when I look around to see who’s coming for him, I see it’s not Hudson they’re after at all. It’s my dad and Bianca who are being hustled from the room, guns pressed to their temples. For a moment Bianca throws a wild look behind her and I see pure terror in her eyes. Does she know it’s me they want, not her? If so, she needs to say something, now.
    That’s when the screaming starts and I see my dad pulling free, grabbing for the gun. Then it’s in his hands, he actually has the gun, can do something, can fight back.
    I don’t see who fires the shots but I see them fall, first my dad, then Bianca.
    And now two more bodies lie on the floor. My dad’s head is steadily pumping out blood. Next to him is Bianca, her blond hair matted with red and little flecks of gray, the heart necklace I gave her wet with blood.
    I stumble backwards, retching, bile burning the back of my throat. But burning even hotter is the thought that screams in my head. That is supposed to be me on the floor, bleeding to death next to my father. Bianca switched seats with me at the last minute so she could have the better view of Hudson Winters. The chain of my own heart necklace is suddenly searing into me and I tear it off, ripping the delicate links, and throw it in a far corner where it’s hidden in shadow.
    I am alive and Bianca is dead. And my father—
    There is something wet on my face and I realize it’s tears. I am crying, which is weird because I don’t actually feel anything, just a cold numbness at my core. But tears are there and my nose is started to get stuffed up. Still, I feel nothing, just the surreal emptiness, like a dark cavern where my insides used to be. And the knowledge that I will not look out again at the bodies.
    Another shot rings out and I scramble over to the grate, my heart in my throat. I see my classmates stumbling around, crying, a few sitting clumped together on the floor. It takes a minute to see that no one has been hurt. The shot was fired by another man in Army pants and a black ski mask. He is probably the man who shot my father. I am looking at the guy who just made me an orphan. I should probably be crying or hysterical but all I feel is this emptiness, like wind is blowing through a cavern in my center. That and a profound thankfulness that my sister Abby isn’t here. Her mother is a pathetic caretaker, but right now I couldn’t be happier that Abby is with her instead of here, in the room where her