Take the Key and Lock Her Up by Ally Carter

Author:Ally Carter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Scholastic Inc.
Published: 2016-08-15T04:00:00+00:00

The rain has turned to a hard, wet drizzle. Water’s not really falling from the sky anymore; it simply fills the air. It’s like walking into a cloud—or a fog. In a way, it’s how I’ve been feeling for ages.

Megan’s jacket is hanging on a nail by the door, and it’s the most natural thing in the world to pick it up and slip it on. Outside, water clings to me, soaking my hair and chilling me to the bone, but I barely feel it. It’s like I’m already numb as I ease farther and farther from the open barn doors and the light inside. I stand under the overhang of the barn’s roof, staring at the wet night, thinking. And then I want to scream. I want to fight and kick and claw until the rest of the world hurts as much as I do.

I want to make it bleed.

But I can’t. So I do the next best thing.

Megan’s phone is heavy in my hand when I pull it from the jacket’s pocket and dial the number that I wish I could forget.

As soon as the voice says hello, I know it’s a mistake. But I’ve always been my own worst enemy, and that, of course, is saying something.

“Where is he?”

Princess Ann’s cold laugh fills the line. “In a hurry, Grace? I suppose that makes sense. It’s foolish of you to call, you know. This can be traced. You’re being careless.”

My carelessness is the least of her problems, and of mine.

“If you hurt him, I will kill you,” I say. My voice is calm and even. “And, just so you know, that’s not a threat. This isn’t the frantic ranting of a delusional girl. I’m not talking crazy, Your Highness. I am crazy. And if you harm my grandfather in any way—if even one snow-white hair is out of place, I will hunt you for the rest of my life. And I will kill you.”

At the other end of the line, Ann giggles. For a moment, she sounds like the girl who used to be my mother’s best friend. She seems like the person in the photos that my mom kept all those years. But just that quickly, that girl is gone.

“Oh, Grace—” she starts, but I don’t let her finish.

“And then I’ll kill your son.”

A different kind of silence fills the line now. Ann isn’t laughing anymore.

“We want the same things, Grace,” she tries, but I shake my head. Finally, it’s my turn to laugh.

“I find that incredibly hard to believe.”

“We both want you to be safe and happy. We want you to be able to stop running.”

“You’re right,” I tell her. “I do want to stop running. Maybe I should just go ahead and kill you, hurry this process along.”

“Oh, Grace. What good would that do? I’m not in line for the throne, and you’re no killer,” Ann tells me, but she’s wrong.

I am a killer. And I know it. What I did to my mom was

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