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

distance warped and pulled as she ran toward the lifeless girl, her daughter, the person she loved more than any other person on the planet. This was her punishment for hiding Matthew’s dark secrets, for letting someone else’s daughter meet an ugly fate, essentially aiding and abetting her murderer.

Jewel.

Her voice didn’t even sound like her voice as she wailed, then fell to her knees. Up above there was a hole in the ceiling that went up two stories. Samantha could see out to the gunmetal sky above, snow falling. It was as if Jewel had just fallen from the sky.

She reached for her daughter’s perfect face, those peaches-and-cream cheeks, the almond-shaped eyes, and the cupid’s-bow lips. She’d always been the most beautiful, perfectly angelic-looking little girl.

Jewel. Pleasepleaseplease.

Matthew was behind her, but she pushed him back. “Get away from her,” she yelled.

“Jewel,” she whispered, turning back to their daughter. “Honey, please.”

She put a finger to her neck and felt a pulse, strong and regular. Then Jewel opened her eyes and looked around.

“Mom,” she said. “I tried to save her.”

Relief was a wave so intense it nearly knocked Samantha over. She was alive. Her daughter was alive, and everything else could be rebuilt from here. Nothing else mattered.

“Who, baby?” She stroked her daughter’s hair, moving bits of dust and debris from her face.

When she used to sleepwalk, she’d wake up saying the craziest things. And Samantha would listen to them all.

“Amelia,” said Jewel. “The Dark Man has her. He’ll never set her free.”

“No, baby,” said Samantha. “There’s no such thing as the Dark Man.”

“Mom,” she said, trying to sit.

“Stay still,” said Samantha. “Don’t move.”

Matthew dropped down beside her and took Jewel’s hand.

“I know where she is,” he said.

“What? Where?” asked Jewel, confused.

Samantha felt icy water in her veins as Matthew put a hand to Jewel’s head, then got up to walk away. Samantha helped Jewel to her feet, and they followed him down the hallway, and toward the stairs.

“The basement,” Jewel said as they began their descent.

16.

They were all standing in the circle when Matthew walked down the stairs—Mason, Ian, Claire, Avery March—standing there as if they were waiting for him.

“Hey, Mace,” said Matthew, keeping his voice light. “Thanks for coming.”

Mason nodded. “Matthew.”

Jewel and Samantha stayed on the stairs. There was a wide chasm between him and his family, a wider one between him and the people he used to call friends. He was, as he had always been in some ways, alone.

I saw the darkness in you, whispered Sylvia. That’s what drew me to you.

Not the darkness, he thought. The Dark Man.

“Let me walk you home, okay?” young Matthew said to Amelia.

He’d listened back at Havenwood while she’d had a fight with her drifter boyfriend, then run out on her own. He’d watched as the other guy stalked off in the opposite direction, disappearing into the trees. And then Matthew had set off after Amelia.

“Bring her to me,” the Dark Man told him. His voice somehow inside and outside Matthew’s head. Sometimes he came in dreams. Other times he was a whisper on the wind. Mainly when Matthew was busy or happy, playing soccer, or spending time outside, he didn’t hear the Dark Man. It was when he was lonely, or sad, or depressed that he showed up with ideas about how things might get better.

“Bring her to me,” he said again when Matthew didn’t move right away.

When he looked back on that night, he didn’t fully remember what had happened.

“Did you fight with your boyfriend?” Matthew asked.

Amelia started to cry. “I shouldn’t have come here. I shouldn’t have done this. It was stupid and I need to go home.”

“It’s okay,” said Matthew. “I’ll get you home. It’s Amelia, right? I met you once. I came to the pizza place with Mason.”

“Oh, right. Matthew?”

“You remember.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Thanks, Matthew.”

They walked, and she didn’t seem to notice at first that he was leading her in the opposite direction they needed to go. Finally, “Hey, are you sure this is the right way?”

There was a stutter there, just like there was that night with Sylvia. Where one moment the world was one thing, and then that fog descended, and when it cleared, the world was something else.

All he remembered about it was all the blood. How it was hot and sticky and all over his hands and his clothes, and his face. He remembered how heavy Amelia was as he dragged her back to Havenwood, how unyielding Sylvia’s body was as he rolled it into her carpet. How none of it seemed real, and he just kept pushing the reality of it away and away, until it was just like a dream he would wake up from, but didn’t. Matthew Merle, nice young man, professor, good husband, loving father. He would never hurt a fly.

It was just that he wasn’t always that Matthew.

Now they were all staring like they had forgotten about Matthew Merle and all they saw was the Dark Man.

He walked, footsteps echoing, and took his place in the middle of the X, in the middle of the circle.

“Where is she, Matthew?” asked Avery, her voice steady and calm.

Mason, Claire, and Ian moved in to form a semicircle around him. He remembered how they used to laze away their summer days, how their lives and their friendships were so easy. Those were the best days of his life. Certainly nothing else ever compared, except maybe the early days with Samantha, when Jewel was still a baby, and they were all so in love with each other. Nothing dark ever touched him then.

“She’s down here somewhere,” said Jewel, moving into the light with Samantha behind her.

“How do you know that?” asked Avery March.

“The Ouija board,” said Jewel. “It wanted me to come to the basement.”

Claire moved away from the group and started to walk the perimeter of the basement.

“I remember from that day we played hide-and-seek that the basement didn’t seem