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A second line is scratched underneath in rusty, flaking ink.
“It watches me at night.”
Every hair on my body rises when I realize those final words are written in blood. It takes me way too long to realize that someone in the room is watching me, too.
“That's all we found of my boy,” says a voice from behind.
I nearly launch the damn journal across the room, whirling around to find Paula leaning against the doorway in nothing but a towel, her dark strands dripping around her shoulders. “Jesus! Fuck, you're quiet. Trying to kill me or something?”
She advances into the room slowly, gaze trained on the book in my hands. “He was missing for days. When we finally checked one of the mine shafts, that book was all we found. Nothing else.”
Swallowing hard, I let her take the journal. “So, what everyone says at the mill is true, then? He… he wasn't mentally well?”
“My son was perfect,” she snaps. “There was nothing wrong with him until he started working at that godforsaken place. They told him stories that made him hallucinate, turned my precious baby boy into… into—”
A sob cuts off her speech before she grabs onto me and buries her face into my chest. I stiffen, arms hovering awkwardly at my sides while her fingers twist into the fabric of my shirt. She’s warm from the shower, damp skin pressing through the thin cotton, and for a second, I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do here.
Comfort her? Leave? Apologize for snooping through her dead son’s room like some creepy asshole?
My guilt wins out in the end, and I slowly rest a hand against her bare back. “I’m sorry,” I murmur. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”
Paula shakes her head. “Earl doesn't talk about him anymore. Half the time, my husband can't even stand the sight of me. People in town pity me. It's been so goddamn lonely.”
Something twists in my chest. “I know what that's like.”
“You do?” She pulls back long enough to gaze up at me with watery eyes.
“Yes. I mentioned my parents both passed on the same day. It was… well, it was an accident. Everyone back home blamed me and treated me like a monster. That's why I left.”
“And?” she asks, searching my face. “Was it your fault?”
Inhaling deeply, I glance toward the open window. “It was.”
The confession settles heavily between us, weighing down my stomach like lead.
“What happened?”
Old memories claw their way through my head against my permission—blood, my mother's voice breaking in a way I’d never heard before as she screamed my name. The absolute rage I felt, followed by confusion and terror. And I was lost, so goddamn lost, a blackness I'd never felt before swallowing me whole until I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't fucking breathe.
Just as my lips pop open, air pushing out to tell her what happened, to finally speak the words that have been bouncing around in my skull for months—
The front door suddenly slams violently shut.
Both of us flinch. Heavy footsteps follow, boots thudding against the carpet.
“Paula?” a man’s voice calls sharply from below. “Who the fuck are you up there with?”
The sheriff.
Every ounce of blood drains from my face.
Chapter
Six
Benji
