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Another piece of mortar dropped.

“You need to stop!”

But Nate wasn’t listening. He raised the hammer again and the next swing drove into the mortar joint.

“GET OUT!” Leo yelled again.

The house answered him. A door slammed upstairs, and then another.

Something heavy crashed in the kitchen.

The walls groaned around them.

Nate pulled the sledge free.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” Leo demanded.

Nate’s face was pale.

Was he afraid? He should be. He should be leaving this place.

But he was still holding on to the hammer, and he was moving it again.

“Nate.”

Swing.

“Stop.”

Swing.

“I SAID STOP! You’re going to hurt them!”

Them? Who was them? Leo didn’t know, even though the words had come out of his mouth.

Nate stared at him with the same level of bewilderment that Leo felt.

“Who’s in there, Leo?”

“I don’t know. You can’t know. You can never know!” Leo’s voice rose as he spoke. The whole house rattled above them. One of the work lights buzzed, and then it burst.

Nate planted his boots.

Leo hated him.

He hated him so much.

He hated the stupid calm in his voice. Hated the dust in his hair. Hated his hands around the sledgehammer and the miserable look in his eyes and the fact that he wasn’t running in terror, that he was ruining everything⁠—

Because you asked him to.

Had he?

Leo narrowed his eyes.

He’d asked for this. But he didn’t want it anymore. He’d been stupid. He’d been confused. He’d forgotten what he was here for.

Not anymore.