Logan glances around, then points toward the glass doors leading into the garden. “Step outside for a bit. I’ll meet Zloban and tell him you have social anxiety.”
Another term he uses to justify my behaviour. I don’t wait for another second and leave the room. The outside is cold—better. No one’s here.
I walk into the garden, pull out my cigarette case, take one, and slip it back into my pocket. I bring out my lighter, set the cigarette between my lips, and ignite it. As it catches, I snap the lighter shut and pocket it. I take a long drag, it calms me a little. I take another immediately. I only start to feel like myself once the cigarette burns down to half ash. I walk around, letting the calm sink deeper into me, until I finally stop near a thick tree.
I lean against it and stub out my almost-gone cigarette on the trunk. Logan would disapprove of this action.Fuck him.
I take out another cigarette and light it. The noise from inside reaches here, but it’s muted compared to what’s inside. The faint sound of the river mingles with the stillness of the night.
I pull the cigarette from my lips, exhaling smoke into the cold air. My hand stills before I can bring it back to my mouth at the sound of a piano. The melody is so faint, it feelsas though someone is playing it from somewhere in the distance.
My ears strain toward the music, desperate to hear it more clearly. The calm of nicotine vanishes like the smoke I just exhaled. There’s an unsettling current beneath my skin, too deep for any drug’s effects to reach. My legs move on their own. I wander, chasing the music. It’s all I hear now, though it’s little more than a whisper.
The sound is loudest where I was standing. I move back to the tree and scan the area. Is it coming from outside the mansion? But there’s nothing beyond the wall on this side, just empty rock and then the river. This is the side we’ll enter from when the day comes—the day we kill this family.
My eyes don’t stop scanning until they land on something that freezes them. Freezes me.
On the first-floor balcony sits a woman. The balcony is illuminated by the glow from the room behind her. Half her face is lit by the warm glow from the room; the other half by dim light rising from below. Brown hair dancing like waves whenever the wind disturbs it. Eyes closed. Fingers moving across what looks like a keyboard. A piano keyboard.
Dressed in pale blue full-sleeve pajamas, she sits in the cold playing music that has rooted me to the spot. I’ve always had a strange fascination with piano music, one I don’t touch while sober, but when I’m drunk, I play. Sometimes I talk to it. Logan told me that. It’s never felt strange because we both know I like piano. That’s why I bought one, even though I can’t play a single composition without alcohol.
I’ve heard many piano pieces over the past year, but none come close to what she’s playing. Except the music of a pianist who no longer plays. This woman is playing a melody carrying so much pain it reaches into my skull and blankets every corner like fog swallowing a landscape on the most ominous day. It changes the way my heart beats—forcing it into the rhythm of her anguish, without asking my permission.
Who is she?
I need to know with the desperation of a lost traveler finding his way home. I need to get close to her, need to see the pain on her face up close, need to take it from her. A strangling fear crawls from the pit of my stomach up toward the place everyone says I don’t have.I need to reach her before she vanishes.
A hand grips my shoulder and shakes. I tear my eyes from her to glance at Logan, then back to her. I can’t look away, I’m drowning in the fear that if I do, I’ll never see her again.
“This isn’t the place to indulge your brown-hair obsession.”
I don’t reply.
“Hunter, are you listening to me?” He shakes me again.
“I am. And I want you to shut up,” I snap, low enough not to carry over her music.
Logan tugs my arm. “Let’s go, we’re done here.”
I don’t budge. My eyes stay fixed on her until a man steps into my view.
My brows pinch. My jaw locks.
Who the fuck is he?
Fury bleaches my vision. My fist clenches around nothing, trembling.
The man kneels in front of her, wiping tears from her face. He rises and kisses her forehead. Red bleeds into my vision. My body moves on its own, but I’m yanked back. I turn and shove Logan aside.
He grabs my arm again.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
He punches me in the face. “Come back to your senses!” he shouts, gripping my head like a vice.
I wrench my head free and look up again. There’s no one on the balcony. Everything behind my eyes burns. My lungs refuse to draw air.
“I need to see her,”—a desperate plea torn from my lips.
