19

“Wake up.”

It’s pitch black in the cabin, but Devin doesn’t need to see to know who’s talking. There’s a dip at the end of her cot, a weight where Sheridan sits beside Devin’s shins. Devin catches just the glassy glint of her eyes. Her hand squeezes Devin’s knee.

“Are you awake?” Sheridan asks.

“Jesus.” Devin groans. “What do you want?”

She blinks, but it doesn’t help orient her in the dark. The night is colder than it was when she fell asleep, the air sharper at her cheeks where her rugged blanket can’t quite reach. A shimmer of orange dances in the far corner of the cabin. A reflection from Aidan’s fire outside. She can just hear the murmur of his usual self-directed pep talk. It can’t be time for her watch yet. Sleep sits too heavy in her bones for four hours to have passed.

Sheridan doesn’t tell her to take watch, though. She leans so close Devin can feel the quiver of her breath. “What’s going on with you?”

It takes Devin too long to understand the question.

“What?”

“Tell me what your deal is,” Sheridan demands. “Now.”

“My deal?” Devin asks, voice muffled in a yawn. “I’m going back to bed. Get off.”

“You’re acting like … not you,” Sheridan says. She briefly glances at the window, and it’s clear she doesn’t want Aidan to hear. “I can’t say anything to him because he’ll think I’m lying. That’s what you wanted, right? Make me the liar?”

It finally clicks.

“Wait, you don’t think I’m—”

Devin moves to sit up and something cold meets her throat. If it weren’t for the sting, Devin might think this was just a dream. She can’t see all of Sheridan’s face, but it’s clear her eyes are wide. Frantic. The cold at Devin’s throat quivers. Sheridan’s breath comes out jagged.

“Is that a knife?” Devin hisses. “Where did you—”

“Did you do something to her?”

“It’s me,” Devin says. She adjusts, careful to lean away from the knife. “You think I’m a mimic?”

“If it’s you, why are you acting so different?”

“When have I acted different?”

“The real Devin wouldn’t keep defending me.” Sheridan breathes. “She wouldn’t.”

The heat of her grasp on Devin’s knee is the only warmth between them. Their fights the last few days finally feel clear. Sheridan wasn’t being a menace just because. She’s been building this theory in her head for days, collecting evidence in silence. Now, with just a knife in hand, she’s decided to be brave. Devin wonders how long Sheridan’s been harboring this suspicion.

“I did, though,” Devin says, practically choking on the words. She can’t find the right way to explain it. Maybe the old Devin wouldn’t defend Sheridan, but it’s different now. “We’ve both been acting different. That doesn’t mean anyone’s—”

“Where did you go the night of the cabin?”

“What?”

“The burnt cabin. The night I saw the mimic that looked like Theda. You weren’t there.”

“Yes, I—”

“No, you weren’t,” Sheridan spits. “You pretended you were there, but I remember. And I’ve been trying to figure out when you could’ve … when things could’ve changed.”

Devin blinks. In a rush, she’s back outside the cabin’s husk, ambling to the tree line while the stars spun overhead. The wide-faced mimic was a nightmare. The long-legged mimic was a nightmare. The familiar face she saw—the one permanently tattooed to the back of her mind—was a nightmare. It has to be. Her breath comes up short.

“The next morning was when you started being nice to me. And when I started…” Sheridan presses the knife harder to Devin’s throat. “Where did you go?”

“I saw something.” Devin breathes.

“What?”

“I saw a mimic, too.”

“Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

“I thought it was a dream.”

“What about when we all said what we saw? When we all realized we weren’t dreaming.” Sheridan’s grip on the knife slackens. Her hand shakes. “Why wouldn’t you—”

“I…” Devin’s tongue feels too big for her mouth. The air is cold and Sheridan’s touch is scorching. “I couldn’t say…”

Sheridan’s breath fans over Devin’s face. God, she’s close.

“Ollie said Liv messed with his head.” Sheridan adjusts her grip on the knife. She swallows so hard Devin can hear it. “You could make me trust you. That’s how you get me to tell you things. You want me to let my guard down. You could be doing it right now.”

Before she can put thought behind her words, Devin speaks.

“You made me trust you, too.”

Sheridan says nothing, but she burns. Her grip is so tight Devin has to pull her leg to freedom. The sound of Sheridan breathing—too fast, quicker than a heartbeat—is electric. In an instant, Devin sees this for what it is. The only universe Sheridan can imagine where she cares for someone—where someone cares for her—is one where it was never real. Where it was all a ploy. Against her will, Devin softens. She sees the cracks in Sheridan, the places where her life before the woods pushed her down too deep to swim back up. And it dawns on her in a single, suffocating moment that she does care about Sheridan. She cares about her even now, with a knife to her throat.

“If you’re not a mimic,” Sheridan breathes, “why do I…?”

Devin’s mouth goes dry.

Sheridan’s hold on the knife eases and Devin seizes her chance to snatch it, throwing it across the cabin. It clatters against wood somewhere in the dark. Devin grabs Sheridan’s wrist and she doesn’t let go.

To her surprise, Sheridan doesn’t fight it.

And then her spare hand finds the back of Devin’s neck and she pulls Devin to her, crashing their mouths together with enough force to press Devin to the wall. Devin’s gasp is muffled in Sheridan’s mouth and it takes her too long to understand she’s being kissed. She’s being kissed. A moment ago, Sheridan had a knife to her throat. Now, she kisses Devin like she’s got seconds to live.

Sheridan’s mouth is surprisingly soft, her fingertips cool and frantic as her hand crawls up Devin’s neck to knot in her hair. This isn’t supposed to happen. It short-circuits Devin’s already sleep-fogged brain. Here in the cold, in the dark, surrounded by mimics, it’s this that makes her heart race.

Devin’s fight folds quicker than it should. She doesn’t linger on how badly she’s wanted this, too. How long she’s wanted it. Instinctively, she clutches the fabric of Sheridan’s T-shirt and pulls until there’s no space between them.

They’re a blur of raspy breath and teeth clashing, hands searching for traction. Sheridan’s lips part and Devin tastes iron in her mouth. Whatever inch of rational space was left in her head burns away and Sheridan is all there is. In the sliver of moonlight through the cabin window, Sheridan pulls away for air. Her pupils are wide and electric, silvery hair spilling over her narrow shoulders. Devin wraps her arm around the small of Sheridan’s back and pulls her down to the mattress. Sheridan gasps, pushing both hands into Devin’s hair. They kiss until Devin can’t feel the cold and she doesn’t stop to wonder if she should be doing this.

She shouldn’t. She knows she shouldn’t.

Devin’s mouth finds Sheridan’s jaw, kissing down her neck. Sheridan groans, fingers in Devin’s hair tightening until her scalp stings. She hardly knows why she does it—maybe it’s because, for the first time since they set foot in these woods, she can pretend she’s somewhere else, living a different life, heart racing only from wanting and not from fear. She wedges her leg over Sheridan’s hip, wresting control back, drawing Sheridan’s mouth up to her. She’s halfway tugged up the hem of Sheridan’s T-shirt when something shifts.

In an instant, she’s dizzy. Not in the normal kissing way. It’s enough to make her sick, like a plane losing altitude. She’s forced to jam her palm to the cabin wall for balance.

She’s felt it before.

Devin straightens, clambering off Sheridan. She can’t see her, but she hears the hoarseness of her breath. Greedily, she wishes she could see what Sheridan looks like now, lips swollen, eyes wide, neck still exposed. There’s a fire still ripping through her, even under the fear, and it humiliates her. Devin touches her own lips and they burn.

“What?” Sheridan breathes.

“What is that?”

“I don’t hear anything.”

“Yeah,” Devin whispers. “That’s the problem.”

They should be able to hear the wind through the gaps in the cabin wall and the shifting of the trees up the cliffside. Even the crackle of the campfire was audible when Sheridan woke her, but now it’s gone. It’s unearthly quiet.

Across from her, Sheridan goes stiff. “Who’s he talking to?”

Devin listens harder and she hears it.

“It’s okay,” a voice says, and even though she’s sure it comes from outside, it’s like they’re speaking only feet from her bed. “I’ve been watching you. I’m sorry I didn’t help more. I know you’ve been trying.”

Devin’s hand finds Sheridan’s wrist and she squeezes. They hold their breaths and wait. Aidan murmurs something, but it’s impossible to make out. There’s a smoothness like velvet to his voice. If Devin didn’t know better, she’d think he was drunk.

“I know,” the other voice says. “I wanted to make it work, too. I wish there were people who got you like I do.”

Aidan’s voice comes next, this time clear as day.

“I don’t know what to do,” he says. “I just keep messing up.”

“I wish we had more options,” the stranger’s voice coos. “Maybe there’s nothing else you can do.”

Devin’s grip on Sheridan’s wrist tightens. “Mimic.”

She bolts out of bed, scrambling from the cabin into the cold. The trees are dark, swaying and crashing into each other all the way up the cliffside. The fire was roaring when they went to sleep, bright enough to blanket the tree trunks in light all the way to the trail. Now it’s only a bed of glowing embers and cracked, burnt logs.

“I know you’re scared,” the mimic says from everywhere at once. “Do you still trust me to help you?”

“Aidan!” Devin cries. “Aidan, stop listening to it!”

She stumbles to the crooked staircase at the front of the cabin, tumbling to the packed earth below.

“Devin?” Aidan manages. His voice shakes like he’s crying.

“I’m here,” she says. “Focus on my voice.”

It’s only when she makes it to the fire that she realizes she’s unarmed in complete darkness. Overhead, the stars streak as she turns, feeling around the fire for their lantern. Judging by the slurred drawl of Aidan’s voice, the mimic has worked its strange hypnosis on him, just like Liv did to Ollie. She tries not to let it scare her that, suddenly, the mimic is done talking. The world is still deathly quiet. It hasn’t left them yet.

It isn’t running away.

“Sheridan!” Devin calls.

There’s no response. If Sheridan followed her out, the mimic’s unearthly silence swallowed the sound. Devin’s heart pounds. A rotten thought comes to her: The mimic might have turned its attention from Aidan to Sheridan. It might have her cornered in the cabin all alone.

Finally, Devin’s fingers close around the handle of their lantern. She flicks the switch, bathing the campsite in light. When she turns to Aidan, she freezes.

He lies in the dirt, his broken glasses in the soil by his arm. Standing over him is a man who shouldn’t be here. The sight of him stops the air in Devin’s lungs. Her grip on the lantern tightens until her fingernails break the skin of her palm.

It’s the same man she saw the night of the cabin, that she saw the night they fought Liv.

“Devin,” he croaks, voice too low. His thin lips curl into a smile. “It’s been years.”

She can hear her pulse.

The cold means nothing, the fire means nothing, the stars mean nothing. It’s like she’s ten again, lying in her twin bed, hearing that voice from the living room. It’s like she’s focusing on patches of dry grass tapping at the window, waiting for it to be over. She’s going to vomit.

Footsteps thump from the deck. There’s a moment of complete silence, then an orb of light sears past her. It collides with Mr. Atwood and Devin stumbles back as he’s engulfed in flame. Devin’s back hits the dirt and she gasps.

The mimic curls over itself so that its meaty fists touch the ground. Fire moves over its skin, burning it away like paper. The mimic begins expanding, widening until its massive body bridges the space between Devin and Aidan. Its face stretches so far Devin is sure it’s wider than the tree trunks behind them. Its body looks human—no claws or sharp teeth—but it’s wrong. It’s wider than physically possible, dredging up rain-wet bits of dirt as it continues swelling. Its gray skin stretches until Devin can see flushes of bones and viscera beneath its flesh. Finally, when the growing stops, the mimic throws its massive head back and screams.

The fire continues to work its way up the mimic’s body, but it isn’t fast enough. The mimic turns, eyes set on the cabin porch, and Devin realizes that the fire didn’t come from nowhere. Sheridan stands at the handrail holding a flare gun, panting for air. She saved her—saved both of them.

“Aidan,” Devin snaps. “Aidan, wake up. Where’s the lighter?”

Aidan groans, lazily pointing to the other side of the fire.

The mimic shifts its weight from side to side. Sheridan fiddles with the flare gun, aiming at the mimic again, but it doesn’t fire. She runs back into the cabin, but Devin knows she won’t have enough time to get away. Not with the size of the mimic, and not with its attention fully on her. Devin crawls to the other side of the fire, clutching the lighter to her chest.

“Sheridan,” the mimic whines.

It begins shifting again, shrinking. With each inch it shrinks, its voice pitches upward, softening. By the time Devin stands, the mimic is human-sized again. It sounds like Sheridan. It looks like Sheridan. The only difference is the color of its hair, muddy brown instead of lavender.

“Sheridan, are you cold?” the mimic asks.

Devin doesn’t wait. She bounds after the mimic, flicking the wheel of her lighter until she feels the lick of a flame against her skin. She gets within arm’s reach of the mimic and grabs it by the shoulder, eliciting another angry whine. Before the mimic can turn on her, Devin shoves the flame against its neck.

It screams again as the flames swallow it. Between the lighter and the flare, the mimic’s entire body burns. It smells like burnt plastic, like rotting meat, like decay. Devin crawls back again as the mimic collapses, a blackened husk withering in the fire.

When the mimic is finally reduced to nothing and the firelight snuffs out, Devin slumps. Her head hits the soft wet dirt like it’s a pillow and the stars blur. She hears Aidan breathing, Sheridan’s footsteps on the porch, and she knows they’re alive. It’s enough for now. They barely made it, but it’s enough.