Love the Way You Lie (House of Crows) by Lisa Unger (early reader books TXT) 📕

Avery March was already headed for the woods, and after a moment of staring at this strange kid, Matthew followed. Eldon didn’t ask what he should do; he just headed after them into the woods.

7.

The room was luxe, big couches and plush pillows bigger than her torso, ultrasoft velvet throws. Above them strings of fairy lights twinkled, and Jewel felt relaxed to the point of being drugged.

“I thought you said you didn’t like it here,” she said to Amelia, who lazed on the couch across from her. Something passed across the other girl’s face.

“I miss my sister.”

Distantly, this connected to something Jewel knew, and for a second she could hear the shouting of her own faraway voice. But it was growing fainter and fainter. The fog kept swirling, and what stood outside the fog seemed like a dream.

“You can stay here if you want,” Amelia said. She twisted a strand of her long dark hair, bounced one long slender leg over the other. Her Converse sneakers were tattered and worn.

“Can I?” Jewel said.

“Yes,” said the other girl. “You just have to ask him.”

You just have to ask him. Never take anything from a stranger, her mother’s voice warned. And Mom’s voice was loud in her head, startling Jewel and making the fog dissipate some. She sat upright.

Amelia came to sit beside her and dropped an arm around Jewel’s shoulders. She was warm and smelled like flowers. There was another scent too. Something not as nice, deeper. Her breath was icy cold.

“I’ll take you to him,” said Amelia. “Just to talk.”

“Where is he?”

“In the basement.”

Amelia stood and did a kind of twirling little dance, her body lithe, her hair fanning around her—she was fairy and princess, a stunning beauty whom Jewel found utterly mesmerizing. When Amelia reached out her hand, Jewel took it and allowed herself to be led away.

The hallway was long and gray, walls crumbling. A row of painted doors, a peeling rust color, with heavy metal knobs and big dead bolts, seemed to stretch on forever. Some were locked tight, but others stood ajar.

Amelia danced ahead, and Jewel started to trail behind.

Somewhere, she heard her mom calling. And she remembered a day when she was a little kid. She’d been on the swings at a playground, and her mom was talking to another mom. There was a monarch butterfly on a flower, and when it fluttered off, Jewel followed it into the woods behind the swings. It wasn’t very long before she heard her mother’s voice calling and she could hear that her mom was really scared, but she’d kept following those beautiful black and orange wings. She heard her mother’s voice now. Amelia was the butterfly.

Don’t ever do that, Jewel. Don’t ever run away from Mommy like that.

Jewel came to a stop at a door that stood slightly open. Inside, she heard someone humming, soft and sweet. She pushed the door, but there was no one there. Just an empty cot with a thin, dirty mattress. A tattered pair of brown shoes looked as if they’d been kicked off and left askew in the middle of the floor.

There was a milky, grated window, and Jewel moved toward the light. Outside, she saw shadows gathering in the clearing.

Jewel. Jewel, where are you?

She tried to knock on the window, but it seemed made of air. She called out, but she had no voice.

“They can’t hear you.”

She spun to see a thin young man wearing brown overalls and a white T-shirt. He had close-shorn dark hair and a wild, desperate gaze. She backed away from him. He stuttered in the dim, there and then gone, like a glitch in the game. That was what this felt like. It was as if she were inside Red World, an environment created by someone else’s mind.

“You yell and yell,” he said. “But they can’t hear you.”

She tried to shout for Amelia, but only breath came out, a hoarse whisper. The boy held up his forearms to reveal long, gaping, open wounds on each arm. Blood flowed down his arms, dripped from his elbows into pools at the floor.

“Once they bring you here, they can’t get you back. Even if they wanted to. And sometimes they don’t want to.”

She sank to her haunches and buried her head. She tried to calm herself—orient was the word her doctor used. Am I dreaming? she asked. But her dream self wouldn’t answer. This is not real. He’s not there. She said more forcefully to herself, I’m dreaming. Wakeupwakeupwakeup.

“Don’t listen to anyone here.”

Jewel looked up to see Amelia where the boy had been. She was smiling as if Jewel were some little girl, afraid of monsters under her bed.

“Everyone here is a liar,” she went on.

“But,” said Jewel, “you’re here.”

Amelia’s smile froze and went a little cold. She held out a hand, and Jewel found herself rising.

“He’s waiting for you. And he won’t wait forever.”

8.

When Ian and Claire made it to the clearing, Samantha was standing there facing Havenwood, staring up in awe.

“Jewel,” she shouted, her voice hoarse and desperate. “Jewel, where are you? Come out here this minute.”

Ian came up behind her and put a hand on her shoulder. She spun away to face him.

“My God,” she said, throwing her arm back at Havenwood. “This place is a nightmare. Why is it even still standing?”

He looked up at the building. It seemed much smaller than he remembered. Still, it radiated a kind of nastiness, a petty malice, like a bully on the playground, one you knew could kick your ass and would.

The sky had turned moody and dark gray. It smelled like snow. That would be perfect, if it started to snow, thought Ian. Had he heard about a storm rolling in, a big, early-season northeaster? Maybe. The drive here was kind of a blur, like he’d been on autopilot.

Samantha moved closer to Havenwood, but Ian put his hand on her