Page 118 of The Unravelings

Maybe she’s not dead.

Maybe it’s all a ruse for us to find her and bring her back from the brink of death. Yes. That’s it. She’s not fucking dead. No way in fuck would anyone in this goddamn town dare to touch a hair on her body like that.

I have to find her. Get to her. Bring her back to our home and nurse her back to health. Then I’ll never let my sister go through that again.

I’ll save her.

She’s not dead.

The pictures flash through my brain on repeat. It’s something I’ll never be able to unsee or forget about.

“We have to go to the fucking Greenwood Hotel.” I stand tall, heaving my breath, and reeling myself back in from the brink of disaster. I may be Malic the fucking Maniac, but I must hang by this thread of fucking sanity until I see her again.

She’s not dead.

“Greenwood Hotel?” Wilder asks, wiping at his eyes. “Why?”

“Whoever did this wanted me to fucking see it,” I say, smoothing down my shirt and quieting the voices running rampant in my mind and begging for retribution, blood, and lots of death.

“What?” he asks, looking at the pictures again. “I don’t understand…” He trails off, shaking his head. “How can you tell?”

“It’s right here hidden in plain view,” I say, gesturing toward the phone. “Greenwood Hotel.”

Wilder blinks at me several times and then looks through the pictures again, trying to prove me wrong. But he can’t. I’d recognize it anywhere. The shitty sheets and ugly artwork hanging from its walls. The floral comforters.

It’s all there in plain sight.

“This is our new home for the time being, Malic,” my egg donor says with a grin, shoving me inside an outdated hotel suite and shutting the door behind us, blocking out the light spilling in.

I blink several times when a lamp clicks on, and the entire room lights up.

“And I’ve got a special place for you.” She smiles, taking me by the shoulder and leading me to a dog cage at the edge of the room. “You’ll be a good boy, won’t you?”

My limbs lock up as I shake the memory from my brain.

“I know what room she’ll be in, too.” Every word I say pulls me further from humanity and deeper into the darkness, especially with the realization of where Meredith will be lying.

If she’s still there.

Whoever posted these photos of my sister’s death will meet an end they won’t come back from. I’ll string their body up for the entire world to see. But not before I find out why this is all happening. The organs. The deaths. My fucking sister. It’s all connected somehow; I have to figure out how and by whom.

34

Wilder

A sinking feeling grows wider in my gut, like a black hole, the longer I stare at Malic and his unchanged facial features. Fuck me. Everything about him has ceased to exist since he looked at those pictures of Meredith on SlamApp.

He’s retreated—his mind going into a void I can’t pull him out of. He sees me. Hears me. Moves with me as I instruct him to get into the fucking car so we can find Meredith and possibly save her. We won’t know for sure what’s happening if we don’t fucking move. Now.

“Mal?” I say in a steady voice as I turn the car on. Peering over at him, he blinks several times, robotically putting on his seat belt. It clicks into place, and he falls back into the chair, staring ahead. No words fall from his lips, but he tilts his head. “We’ll find out who did this, okay?” My words come out soft, with a hint of vengeance woven through.

Because we’ll find out who did this, and we’ll fucking end them for ever touching his sister.

The only response I get from Malic is the curling of his fingers. No words, again. But at least I know he’s still alive inside his mind and not rotting away.

Although I can’t decide which side of Malic I like better. Quiet but deadly, with a stare that could kill a stranger from a thousand feet? Or loud and boasting threats of ball removal? It’s a toss-up, honestly. But there’s one thing I know for sure. This side of Malic is going to be the biggest fucking challenge of my life.

Why did it have to be Meredith? Couldn’t it have been anyone else? A stranger. A bad person who deserved it. I really hoped she’d had enough of this place and ran away without a goodbye. A shitty exit? Yes. But it’d be better than this bullshit of her being posted on the fucking internet for everyone to see.