The thing about silence is that it builds. It expands in your chest until it becomes something else. Something that curls around your ribs like a wire, twisting tighter and tighter.
The heat wraps around me, too hot at first, then just right. It doesn’t soothe me, though. It stirs—like slipping into a bad memory.
Shane’s voice echoes through the steam like a heartbeat underwater. Not words. Just laughter. Sharp, cold, the kind he used when something ugly was about to happen and I didn’t yet know it.
My mother’s hands in a sink full of red water.
Her voice as she told me I was just like my father. A whore.
The crack of my bones.
The dripping of my own blood.
I dunk my head under to silence it, to shut it all up, to make it stop. It’s quieter beneath the water, like I’m going into a different world or rather seeing the world differently. A change of narrative. A story told from a different side. But the water follows me. Fills my ears, my nose. My arms feel too heavy.
The steam rises, but I’m slipping lower, face tilted toward the ceiling, breath held too long.
My body finally goes still. I see and hear nothing now. No water. No light. No voices. Just—
CHAPTER 25
Birdie
“You can’t fall apart, little bird. Not yet.”
I know that voice. I know who it belongs to, but I just can’t get the name in my brain. I struggle to open my eyes, to make out his face, but they are too heavy to open, stinging. From the bathwater or have I shed those tears at last?
It doesn’t matter. He’s here. I can hear his voice. Low. Familiar. Dangerous in its softness. I should scream for help. But I’m limp and soaked and too tired to shout. “I hate that name…little bird. Why are you calling me little bird?”
“I think you know why.”
“Get away from me,” I whisper, or maybe I don’t. Maybe I just think it.
He crouches in front of me. My vision blurs to take in the shape of him: black clothes. Leather gloves. A face obscured by a hood and mask.
Butterfly Man.
“You’re real,” I murmur. “You’re not—”
“A hallucination? Maybe. You hurt your head the other day, and now, you’re sleeping in the tub, head underwater, perhaps for too long…”
“What?” Disoriented, I try to take in my surroundings, but I can’t move. This is another nightmare, where I’ve been paralyzed.
His gloved fingers push damp strands of hair from my face. I flinch, but I don’t move away. If anything, I press my cheek to the leather and purr like a horny cat. This is definitely a nightmare.
“Why are you here?” Not that you can be here. There’s no way you’ll get past Brandon. Unless you killed him. Dare I ask?
No. You wouldn’t. You don’t lose control—you ration it. Every touch, every word, every gesture, every silence, precisely calibrated. You don’t act on impulse. You drip-feed your madness like venom, just enough to paralyze without killing.
You enjoy the unraveling, don’t you? Watching me flinch while you stay so precise, so calm—like a god dissecting his favorite creation. You administer chaos like it’s medicine—your twisted cure for a sickness you believe I have but can’t see.
“Why are you here now?” I repeat.
“To remind you that you’re not safe.”
“Because of you.”
“No, darling. Not from me. From yourself.” His head tilts slightly. “You think you’re trapped in this hotel. But you’ve always been trapped, Reagan. Since long before Blake. Since long before me.”
