Last Safe Place, The Read Online Free PDF Page A

was trying to get away from him.”
    Theo didn’t believe that for a minute.
    Gabriella pulled Ty into her arms, held him tight against her. “The man you saw is crazy, that’s all. Crazy people do crazy things. But we’re fine now, Sweetheart. We’re safe here.”
    Theo didn’t believe that either. From the look on her face, neither did Gabriella.
    T Y DIDN ’ T BELIEVE a word his mother said. They weren’t fine and they weren’t safe—here or anywhere else. He was certain they weren’t because he knew what none of the rest of them did. He knew why the man in black was after them. He also knew the man wasn’t after them at all. He was only after Ty.
    The boy felt cold, a freezing in his veins like crystals forming in the little river of water that flowed across the roof tile outside his window. He’d watched it happen last winter, fascinated by how the cold could turn the clear water milky, sluggish and then still and dead.
    The cold expanded all through him, freezing the rest of him as it slowly dawned on him that he had put everyone he loved in danger. His mother and Grandpa Slappy could be struck down along with him.
    Ty’s mother let go her crushing hug, sat back and looked down at him. Ty stared up into her eyes, locked onto her gaze and held on. He’d heard her tell Grandpa Slappy a couple of days ago that she’d never seen a child as intense as he was, who looked you right in the eye, never blinked or lookedaway. What his mother didn’t know was that Ty always looked dead into her eyes to avoid looking at the rest of her face. He couldn’t stand to see it, the ugly scarred horror that had melted away her beauty and turned her into a freak people gawked at and whispered about behind her back.
    But her eyes were still beautiful, still the same hazel green—exactly the same color as the eyes that looked back at him in shame when he looked into the mirror.
    “I love you, Champ,” she said, and he could tell she was about to cry.
    And that was his fault, too. Her tears were his fault . Everything was, all of it. He was the reason they were being hunted, chased out of their beds in the middle of the night.
    Oh, how he yearned to tell her that, to blurt out in a rush how he’d been hunkered down, waiting for this for a long time. How he ached to tell her that the man in black, the Boogie Man, had come for him, not her. But, of course, she was in danger, too, would continue to be as long as she was …
    Ty stopped breathing.
    … as long as she was near him.
    His mother got to her feet when she heard the wail of a distant siren, but Ty stayed where he was on his knees beside Puppy Dog.
    Mom and Grandpa Slappy would never be safe until … until Ty was not there to draw the attention of the man who was after him. It was suddenly clear to Ty what he had to do. He had to leave, had to put as much distance as he possibly could between him and everyone he loved in the world. He had to run away.
    A TEAM OF police officers rolled up with siren wailing and lights flashing. Gabriella met them at the door. One was a fat, red-headed man with a round face and chipmunk cheeks. The other officer was a hulking black man who stared openly at the scar on her face and asked blunt, borderline hostile questions. While Theo took Ty into the kitchen in search of Mountain Dew, and Bernie barricaded himself in the den making telephone calls, Gabriella described what had happened to her and how she had escaped.
    She didn’t fill in all the details—how she’d collapsed sobbing on top of her iPhone in the bed, picked it up and tried to figure how she could use it to call the police without Yesheb hearing her. With her trembling hands,she’d accidentally touched the voice memo icon and watched the needle jump as it recorded her sobs. That’s when the desperate plan formed in her mind. She’d forced herself to record ten full minutes of crying, fearing that any second Yesheb would open the door and catch her. Then she set her