Page 88 of Lethal Weakness

“She’s safe in my room.”

“I want to see her.” I can’t look him in the eyes. If I do, I know I’ll cry.

He nods in understanding and walks out of the room, and I immediately realize my mistake.

Now, I’m alone with two men who are looking at me like they’re deciding the most appetizing way to eat me. I can only tell by the ominous tilt of their heads behind their masks.

I avoid their gazes by looking anywhere else, and study the house that I’ve never seen inside. It’s emptier than my house. The living room is completely empty.

The kitchen is stark. Not a single thing left out on the counter. The chair I’m sitting on is a fold-out chair that matches one other, next to a cheap card table.

That’s it. Besides the single picture taped to the refrigerator.

A pink piece of construction paper with scribbles from a three-year-old. I fixate on it to ignore the fear shaking my body.

“She’s asleep, but I can take you to her,” Jack says as he comes back into the kitchen. “But I really need you to tell us what happened.”

“Who is us? Who are you, people?”

He kneels in front of me again. “I was going to tell you everything eventually, I swear. Especially after the things I found out tonight.”

I glance over his head to the tense body language in the room. The other men are looking at each other like they can’t believe he said that.

“Tell me what?”

“The Scotts are doing very illegal things. It was my job to uncover what I could and take them down.”

I look at the black mask still gripped in his hand, and back to his face. The eyes that I’m so familiar with are filled with sorrow as he looks at me.

“I thought you worked for them…” I murmur just to him. “I thought they hired you to watch me.”

His eyes flare with disbelief as he shakes his head. “No, baby.”

Just hearing him say it brings a fresh wave of tears to my eyes. I needed to know for sure that he didn’t betray me like that, and he seems to understand my relief.

“I would never work for monsters like them,” he assures me gently.

I glance around at the terrifying men in the room. How do I know these people aren’t monsters too?

I’m too empty inside to know what to believe… All I want is my daughter, but she’s safe, and I can’t ignore what I saw earlier.

“There were people trapped in the basement,” I tell him, choking back a sob. My shaking hand comes to my mouth because I’m barely holding it together.

His hands go to my knees, and I accept the comfort because I’m desperate for it, but I know I don’t have room to break down.

This night isn’t over.

“Tell us everything. From the beginning,” the man behind him in the horrifying devil mask says.

So I do. My arms cling to my waist as I explain going over there because of the kitten, and how Avery ran away from me. Going into the basement and exactly what we saw. I gloss over the interaction with the guard outside the cellar doors only because I can’t stomach speaking about it yet, and end with my leg being caught in the bear trap.

“I saw your garage light, and I made Avery run. I didn’t know if I was ever going to see her again,” I cry inconsolably. “I didn’t know if you’d find her, and I didn’t know if I could trust you once you did.” Jack doesn’t flinch at my admission; he just rubs my back until I start to catch my breath again, and I can finally sit back and wipe my face.

But once I look at him, I see the agony my story is causing him written all over his face. The tension in his normally serious face is radiating down his neck and shoulders, even though his hands are gentle where they hold me.

“A bear trap would have nearly amputated your leg. It was likely something a little less… Effective,” the voice comes from the other side of the room and a new audience member.

This man is also wearing all black, and his mask is like Jack’s but… not at all at the same time. His balaclava is a skull. Slightly distorted, and filmy like an X-ray image over his face, anatomical to his actual bone structure.