My heart was still pounding. It hadn’t slowed down in days.
I didn’t know how long I waited. It felt like hours, it could’ve been minutes. My phone was with me. I could’ve checked the time, but I was reluctant to turn it on. After Ben’s last message, I had turned it on and off at random moments, but it had remained off since the guard took me inside Octave. For some reason, I enjoyed the silence. Though I was scared and my pulse was still skyrocketing, I drew in another shuddering breath and felt something else. Sheltered. I felt safe, holed away in some glitzy penthouse. It was a relief to be away from what happened and what I had done.
The first tear dropped to my hand. I stared at it, detached from myself. I hadn’t realized I was crying and I didn’t feel it on my hand. My hands were folded over the pillow, and as I stared, more tears joined it.
How could I cry and not feel it?
I couldn’t take my eyes from the growing wet spot on the pillow. It was soaked before long, and then exhaustion settled in. My eyelids grew heavy and I couldn’t keep them open. My head went down, but I jerked back upright. The pillow was clasped tighter to my chest and I sat as straight as I could. It didn’t matter. My head fell backwards this time and I caught myself at the last moment. I gasped again and tried to stand, but after I swayed and started to fall, I grasped the top of the couch and then gave in.
My head rested on that soaked pillow and I curled around it. It wasn’t long before I faded away.
Something woke me, and I stirred briefly, but sleep overtook me again. I folded back into the darkness. My bones thanked me. Then something woke me again. My eyes flicked open and I saw a dark silhouette. It stood above me. An alarm in the back of my mind told me to wake up, defend myself, but my body didn’t heed the alert. I slipped back into a deep slumber. It was heavy. It was welcoming, and I succumbed to it.
When I woke again, it was still dark out. That couldn’t be, but I saw a clock in the corner. It said 8:00 o’clock. I had come in around four in the morning and it wasn’t eight in the morning now. I drew in a breath; I had slept through the entire day. Scrambling, I searched my pockets. No phone. Panic pressed tight into my chest as I ran my hands over the couch cushions, then around and underneath them. Still nothing. I sat upright and peered into the darkness. Where had my phone gone? It wasn’t on me, it wasn’t in the couch. I dropped to my knees and felt on the floor. Again, nothing. Then I started to fumble around until I found a lamp. When I tried to switch it on, no light came out of it.
Was it broken? But no, it couldn’t have been.
“Where were you when AJ was mugged?”
The voice came from above me and behind me. I knelt on the floor as my heart started to pound. Oh god. What was this? My phone was gone. The place was in darkness on purpose. Carter didn’t trust me? I sucked in a breath. Was he going to kill me?
He repeated, even quieter, “Where were you when AJ was mugged?”
Thump. Thump. Thump.
My hands started to shake again and my palms grew sweaty. I rubbed them over my pants and opened my mouth, but nothing came out. A choked sound ripped from me.
“I asked you a question.”
My eyes clasped shut. He had stood, wherever he was. I could tell it was him, but his voice was colder. I’d known him most of my life, but I’d never feared him. This was the Cold Killer. He was in the same room as me. I had sought this out.
“He wasn’t.”
I waited. One second.
Then two. Then a minute.
He was so quiet. “Who mugged your brother?”
I spat out, “He wasn’t mugged. He was killed.”
My chest was heaving as I remembered that day. A sick helpless feeling came over me. I couldn’t do anything. I wanted to, I wanted so desperately, but AJ shook his head. He didn’t want me to help, but for a moment I considered it. I thought about crawling out from behind the vent so I could die with him, but I knew they would’ve done something worse to me. So I stayed.
The old sobs were there again. I felt them climbing up, ready to come out again. I gritted my teeth and pushed them back down. I wouldn’t cry, not here, not if this Carter Reed was going to kill me. He wasn’t the same guy that I remembered. That Carter never would’ve done this to me, set me up, isolated me, and then started an interrogation.
“How?”
“How what?” Anger was starting to boil in me now. How dare he?
“How did he die?” He never reacted. His voice grew colder, quieter, each time he asked. He wasn’t human. He didn’t sound like it.
“With a bat!” I yelled at the dark room. “A f**king bat. They killed him with a f**king bat and I saw the whole thing.”
I bent over and pressed my forehead to my knees. I had hoped that they would be cold, that they would cool me off, but they weren’t. My jeans were warm and sweaty. I could smell traces of blood still on them, though I had showered…hadn’t I? I didn’t remember anymore. Was Mallory’s blood still on me or was that Jeremy’s? Was their blood ingrained with me now? I gasped for breath. A part of me wanted to still have Jeremy’s blood on me. He deserved to die again. He deserved to die a worse way than a bullet to the head.
I didn’t know how long I stayed like that. The room remained in silence and then it was flooded with light.
I fell to the side and closed my eyes against how sudden it was. It blinded me. When I opened them, with my chest still heaving and my heart still pounding, I still wasn’t ready to see him. But there he was. Carter Reed.