I thought back for a moment. My immediate memory was fine, but the fact that I couldn’t remember certain months, maybe even a year of my life, left me second-guessing myself. What had Sullivan said? There had been a twinkle in his eye when I asked him about her, a glimmer that had immediately told me that he knew nothing about her. It wasn’t about helping me, but preying on me, and her.I’ll help you find your sister, he had said, touching my arm in a way that made me cringe, as if he was a vulture and I was a carcass.Does she look like you?
And what would have happened if I had followed him? Would he have taken me to my sister, or would he have hurt me in worse ways than Wil? Sullivan seemed like the kind of man who would want a favor in return. The kind of man who would lie to get what he wanted.
And yet Wil was upfront with his demands, with our arrangement. I knew exactly what he expected of me.
And I had disobeyed him.
“He said he’d help me find her,” I said.
“And you believe a gambling addict stuck at the bar midday can help you more than I can?”
That stoic expression screamed thousands of words in that one question. As if I should have known better. The smug asshole. I wanted to spit in Wil’s face. To prove him wrong about everything. That he might have been right about that man, but that he had underestimated me.
Wait until the right moment, the voice said.It’ll come to you. Then you’ll make your move.
“I don’t even know who you are,” I said, finding courage within me. “How am I supposed to know what you’re capable of?”
“He wouldn’t be the first person I’ve killed, but it would be for a far lesser reason than the rest,” he said, his voice so calm that it made my skin crawl. I scoffed, and Wil laced his fingers together, as if this were simple a business matter we were dealing with.
“This will be the last time I give you this warning, Ellie,” he said. “You will speak to no other man, besides my brothers, my father, and me. You can save a lot of lives by following my rules.”
I gulped down a dry swallow, then looked away, trying hard to stay strong. I couldn’t remember anything since my sister had disappeared, and even the circumstances surrounding that were hazy. I concentrated, trying to think back. She was about to start her first year—no, her second year of college. She wanted to be on her own, and I had let her. Finally, I let her.
But she had gone too far.
That was more than I had unlocked before.
“Next matter,” Wil said, interrupting the foggy memory. He shifted his weight in the seat, then leaned to the side, looking down on me. “Why are you afraid of knives?”
Flashes of those images of my sisters’ butchered body glimmered before my eyes. My whole body shook, trying to get them away.
If you tell him, he will know, the voice said.He will know where you came from.
I wanted to scream: Knowwhat? Where did I come from? I didn’t know a damn thing, so how the hell would Wil know anything?
“I know there’s something going on in that mind of yours,” he said. “Spit it out.”
The voice got louder, booming at me:He will know. If you tell him, he’ll know exactly who you are. Where you came from.But I had to do something. Had to reach. Had to trust my instincts. Had to trust myself.
I had to hope that what I was doing was going to be okay. That it was the right thing to do to save my sister.
“I’ve had this nightmare,” I stammered, my voice suddenly frantic, “Not really a nightmare. More like a waking-dream. A vision.” I closed my eyes, letting the images of her corpse wash over me. The blood a vivid red at times, a dull burgundy at others. Had she just been murdered, or was I looking at her decomposing body? It always changed. I could never get the images to make sense.
“And in this nightmare?” he asked.
“My sister is dead,” I said. “In pieces. Her body sliced into dozens of chunks. Like a puzzle. I can hardly tell if it’s all her.” I opened my eyes immediately, not wanting to see her like that anymore. “Like a murder you’ve never seen before.”
Wil studied me like he was pulling back the skin of a fruit. I sucked in a breath.
“I’ve seen a lot of things,” he said.
I shrank back. I twisted my wrists back and forth, trying to pull my focus away from those images, and back to the present. It was like experiencing her death over and over again, seeing her body splayed out, the life draining from her eyes.
“Do you need help sleeping?” Wil asked.
I raised a brow, coming back to the room. It was such a strange question, coming from him. “Help sleeping?” I asked.
“For the nightmares,” he said. “I can get some pills for you.”
