The Bitter End - Hardcover

Donne, Alexa

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593651065 ISBN 13: 9780593651063

Verlag: Random House Books for Young Readers, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

When a winter storm traps eight teens in a remote ski cabin, they find themselves stranded with a killer—who may be one of their own. From the acclaimed author of The Ivies and Pretty Dead Queens comes a YA thriller that will make your blood run cold.

The trip of a lifetime might be the death of them all.

The students of LA’s elite Warner Prep can’t wait for their Senior Excursion—five days of Instagrammable adventure in one of the world’s most exclusive locations. This is not your average field trip.

Which is why eight students can’t believe their bad luck when they end up on a digital detox in an isolated Colorado ski chalet. Their epic trip is panning out to be an epic bore . . . until their classmates start dropping in a series of disturbing deaths. The message is clear: this trip is no accident.

And when a blizzard strikes, secrets are revealed, betrayals are exposed, and survival is at stake in a race to the bitter end.

"Will leave you gasping for air." -Katy Hays, New York Times bestselling author of The Cloisters

Über diesen Titel

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Alexa Donne is the Edgar Award–nominated author of Pretty Dead Queens, The Ivies, and The Bitter End. By day she lives in Los Angeles and works in television marketing. The rest of the time she contemplates creative motives for murder and takes too many pictures of her cats.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

1

Erin is running away tonight. She’s been soaking in the cold, soapy water of her tub for what feels like hours. Her chin rests atop her knees, arms hugging her legs. The tiles on the wall are a shade of blue so deep that it seems almost purple. It creates an effect that makes the room feel impossibly large and yet deeply constrictive. But maybe she’s just looking for excuses as to why she feels so nauseated. The weird paint job seems as likely to be the offender as anything else.

Erin finally pulls the drain and grabs her towel, resting her face in it for two long, deep breaths. She wonders if anybody’s ever died from anxiety before, or will she be the first?

The mirror is partially fogged up, but Erin can still catch her reflection when she approaches. Her hair is plastered to the sides of her face. Ordinarily, it hangs just above her shoulders, a near-white level of blond. Bluish-green eyes. Her mouth curves downward naturally, which makes it look like she’s always fighting a pout. She definitely is now. A fraught expression keeps forming despite her best attempts to look normal.

The family photos that hang in the hall paint a strange portrait. Erin takes note of them as she treads past. There used to be more, before Erin complicated the adolescent boyhood depicted and her mother packed almost everything into storage boxes. What remains of Erin is a mix of genderless baby pictures and glossy senior pictures. It’s rather funny. As if she were born at eighteen, fully conceived.

She knocks gently on her sister’s half-open door before she steps inside. Hayley, already covered in summer freckles, lights up at the sight of her. She casts her book to the floor and pulls her covers up to her chin with a toothy, eager grin. Erin smiles and sits at her feet. Despite the decade between them, they get along just as well as if they were twins.

“Did you already brush your teeth?” Erin looks her sister up and down, reaching over and tucking a few wild strands of hair behind her ear.

“Uh-huh.”

“Uh-huh. Let’s see ’em.”

They bare their teeth at each other. Hayley’s teeth are tiny and perfect.

“Okay. You’re good.” Erin sighs and looks around the room. “I don’t know, are you enjoying summer break?”

Hayley nods. “Are you?”

That depends entirely on how this next week will play out. Erin still pretends to think about it. “Well, it’s not summer break for me anymore, it’s just summer. Adults have to work.”

“You’re not gonna be--”

Erin shushes her. Downstairs, she can hear the sound of the front door closing: Mom is home. Hayley’s blue eyes get big, and she nods knowingly.

“You remember what we talked about?” Erin whispers, as quiet as she can get. “You’re gonna have to be the woman of the house. Can you handle that?”

Hayley nods with deadly seriousness. “Swear to God.”

“Do you know what the woman of the house has to look out for?”

Hayley shakes her head.

Erin puts her feet on the ground and leans in. “Ghouls. Ghosts. And tickle monsters.”

Hayley’s eyes go wide again, but she’s not fast enough to stop Erin’s hands from rushing to her sides. She shrieks, and Erin takes a wild kick to the ribs, but they’re both laughing so hard that they’re out of breath within seconds. Tickle monsters don’t often manage lasting attacks around this house.

The light above them turns off, then on again. Erin and Hayley look up to find their mother watching them. She’s still in her scrubs, and most of her hair is poking out of its bun.

“Get some sleep, you two.” She takes her hand off the switch.

“Good night, Mom!” Hayley grins, flopping back against her pillow, audibly out of breath.

Their mom lingers. Her eyes shift to Erin.

Erin smiles bashfully. “You might’ve just missed a tickle monster breach,” she admits.

As quickly as it comes, her concern melts away. “I thought we agreed, no more tickle monsters at bedtime.”

“That’s why I said breach.”

“Uh-huh. Hayley, if you can’t sleep, I want you to bug your sister, not me. Got it?”

Hayley shoots her a thumbs-up.

Both girls listen as the footsteps grow softer and softer, until they’re no longer able to be heard at all. Erin realizes that might’ve been the last thing she’ll say to her mother for the foreseeable future. Her stomach rolls with too many emotions to neatly sort out.

“Are you ready?” Hayley’s hands are cupped around her mouth.

Erin returns to the present moment and nods.

“Promise you’ll be safe?” Hayley asks.

“Yeah. I’ll send you guys a postcard.”

“Promise?”

Erin sighs and puts her hand out, pinkie up. Hayley does the same and intertwines their fingers. She gives Erin a good, firm shake with her whole arm.

Then Hayley pulls herself out from under the covers and wraps her arms around Erin’s neck. Erin’s face twists up as she hugs her back, holding Hayley’s tiny body against her own.

“I’m gonna miss you,” Erin breathes.

“I’ll have an extra good summer, just for you,” Hayley whispers, “so when you come home, I can tell you and Max all about it.”

Guilt knots up in Erin’s throat. She forces a laugh.

Yes, Erin told Hayley that she’s leaving. Hayley is good at keeping secrets. Even still, Erin omitted a few crucial details. Like where she’s headed, and the fact that she’s not coming back.

Erin hates the way lying weighs on her shoulders, pressing down on her until it feels like she can’t breathe. She carefully takes Hayley’s arms from around her neck and lays her back down. She tucks the covers snugly underneath her chin.

Eventually. Erin will tell her everything eventually. Now is just too fragile of a moment. Too many things could still go wrong. Erin only hopes that, unlike their father, she’ll get the chance to explain herself to Hayley one day.

“Tell Max I said hi?” Hayley smiles with all of her teeth.

Erin tries to smile back, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.

Downstairs is so quiet that it makes the whole house feel brittle. Erin tiptoes across the hardwood, as if the slightest noise will bring it all crashing down on top of her. This is a familiar routine. Like she does every night, she checks that the back door and all the windows are locked. The fire alarms are set. It’s a nice neighborhood, and they’re a careful family, and neither fact is related to why she does this. It’s about feeling the control that comes with her fingers sliding against the dead bolt. The knowledge that she is responsible for this house. She needs that feeling of control on a normal day. It is especially vital tonight.

The front door comes last. On the wall beside the door are two things: a mounted rack, which holds a variety of lanyards, coats, and bags. And then there’s the family photo.

Erin’s always thought it was strange. Her parents divorced when she was twelve. The family that greets her at the door hasn’t existed in six years. And yet it hangs there anyway, at her mother’s insistence. It’s supposed to be a reminder of what they’ve come from. Erin struggles to see it as anything more than a marker of what they’ve lost.

In the photo, Hayley is two, nothing but a head...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House Books for Young Readers
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593651065
• ISBN 13: 9780593651063
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 352
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Harder; https://www.edel.com; ; Neum�hlen 17; Hamburg; Hamburg; 22763; Deutschland