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

arm. “Wait,” he said. “Let’s all go in together. I have a light; let me get it out. You don’t want to go there alone. You can’t help Jewel if you get hurt.”

Nothing to do with ghosts, the place was falling apart.

Samantha shook him off but stopped her progress toward the house, turned and started calling for her daughter again.

If you were here, Ian thought, you’d know what to do.

He’d told Liz about Merle House and Havenwood, about the Dark Man. About the night in that basement, about Mason’s wish, and how Ian had carried it with him. Ian had never told anyone about it until he’d told his wife; he’d let it disappear into the past. He’d told her how he’d made a wish he hadn’t meant to make.

“Claire, Mason, and Matthew—they all saw him at some point or other. But I never did. Still, I felt something that night. And I’ve never stopped looking for that thing again.”

She’d gazed at him thoughtfully. She never judged, always listened. That was why she was good at her work.

“A haunting can be like a virus,” she’d said. “It leaches out of the ground, out of structures. It can infect people. Even if you never get sick, you can carry it with you.”

Had he caught something that night? Carried it with him all these years? And it was only now, in grief, that he was open to the Dark Man’s promises? That was why he had only just found Ian at Astrid and Chaz’s house.

Ian felt the weight of the pack on his back. It held his best and lightest camera, flashlight, electromagnetic wave detector, a silver cross, a bag of shaman-blessed crystals, some other talismans.

But standing before the dark behemoth of Havenwood, all of it seemed like the junk that it was, toys to convince simpleminded people that they had some control over the dark forces in their lives. Still, he lowered the pack and fished out the flashlight.

I am a believer, he said to Liz now. I believe in the darkness. I just don’t believe we have any power over it.

You have more power than you think.

He could still hear her voice. Liz was always with him. She was the haunting he wanted, one from which he hoped never to be freed. He wanted to be with her forever, whatever that meant.

Claire stood beside him, their arms touching. He hoisted the pack back on his shoulders, shoving the light into his pocket.

They hadn’t seen each other in years, but it felt more like days. That was the way it was with some friends, the years between time spent together mattered not at all. Matthew, on the other hand, seemed like a stranger, distant and cold. But then again, Matthew’s daughter was missing. Fear did ugly things to people.

“I can’t believe we’re back here,” whispered Claire.

“It’s time,” said Ian. “It’s time to face this thing. Whatever it is.”

“Is that why we’re here?” She looked up at him, questioning.

“Why else?” he asked.

A shadow passed over her blue eyes, and he saw the dangerous depths of depression there, a kind of blankness that drew the light in. Depression was bad for facing down the darkness. It was a weapon that could be used against you.

“Claire,” he said. “Are you okay?”

She seemed about to say something, but then Avery March came through the trees. And Claire pressed her mouth into a tight line, went quiet.

They stood in a loose circle—Samantha, Claire, Ian, and Avery. Ian could hear Matthew’s voice as he drew closer. Who was he talking to? They were missing only Mason. If Matthew had reached out to him, Mason hadn’t come.

“Mason Brandt claimed that the last time he saw my sister, it was in the basement of Havenwood,” said Avery.

“I’m sorry,” said Samantha, lifting a palm. “But we’re here to look for my daughter.”

She held up the phone, the blue dot pulsing in the blank green space, close to where they were. They all stared at it; then each in turn looked back to the house.

Matthew came through the woods, a young man behind him.

“Who’s this?” asked Samantha, pinning the young man with her gaze.

“This is Eldon. He’s a friend of Jewel’s,” said Matthew. He filled her in about how Eldon and Jewel met online, the text Eldon received, and how he’d come to help.

“I can’t listen to this right now,” said Samantha, shaking her head.

Eldon offered an awkward shrug.

Samantha stared at him a moment longer, then turned. Seeming to have reached some internal decision not to wait for the group, she then moved quickly to the structure and disappeared into the darkness of Havenwood. Ian realized he’d never given her the flashlight.

A moment later, her voice carried out through the broken windows, the open door.

Jewel! Jewel! Where are you?

Matthew followed her at a run; Avery March waited a beat, then went as well. The young man stood, looking toward Havenwood, then back toward the trees. He stayed rooted.

“Go home, son,” said Ian. “You don’t want any part of this.”

“I want to help StarGirl,” he said. He was young, face open and skin clear, eyes earnest. “I mean Jewel. In Red World, she’s called StarGirl.”

Ian had no idea what the kid was talking about. “Then go get some help. I think we’re going to need it.”

Eldon stared a moment, then broke off into a run back through the trees.

Ian and Claire stood still, lingering behind as they had that first visit.

“What did you ask him for?” Claire asked. “That night. What did you say to the Dark Man?”

“Just—I don’t know. I just said I wanted to be happy. I didn’t mean to ask him for anything. It just popped into my head.”

He didn’t want to tell her that he had just seen the Dark Man. In fact, he wasn’t even sure he had. Maybe grief had caused him to depart from the real. In fact, maybe they were all crazy. Was this some kind of mass hysteria? Could madness be like a