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“Are you okay, baby?” Lincoln asks, raising his eyes and my body relaxes.

“Yeah. Just tired.” I lie so easily. That must be hereditary, too. Lincoln goes back to his grading, and I go back to my search. I spend the next half hour desperately searching for him. I check local hospital records, nearby school’s…anything to hint he existed.

It’s like Mikael Peters died the day his mother did. There is no record of him anywhere that I can find, and Lincoln only has an online footprint as an adult.

Those tiny moments I’ve had with him.

Mikael. It’s always been Mikael behind those eyes.

So handsome, so fucking damaged, so utterly psychotic because of what my father did to his mother.

“Three years old,” I whisper so softly. Why was a three-year-old boy watching that unfold? What kind of mother would do that? Where was he before Lincoln emerged?

My heart explodes for both of them. For Mikael and the life he didn’t get to experience, and for Lincoln, for the life he got to live but won’t get to finish.

“Summer, what’s wrong, pretty girl? You look upset.”

When I look up at the screen, Lincoln’s watching me. He quirks his head, and I quickly work to control my emotions.

“Lincoln, my life really is in danger, isn’t it?” I ask him as all color drains from my face.

His silence sends pins into my heart, and a few seconds go by before finally, he says, “More than you’ll ever know.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-FOUR

SUMMER

“Summer…” Dani’s voice cuts me off from my daydream as we walk through the crowd on the quad the next day. People are bustling everywhere, trying to get to their next classes. It’s a dreary day, as it always is this time of year as the seasons turn. The sandstone walls blend into the trees, which merge into the sky. “Are you even listening to me?” I blink a couple of times and shift my attention to her.

Dani and I made up last night after I spoke with Lincoln. I banged on her door until she opened it. She was still fuming mad at me, but understood I was safe. I asked her about Xander, and her face went white. I know something happened between them because I heard about it, but she isn’t giving me anything.

“Yeah, I’m listening,” I tell her. And I was listening until Lincoln appeared in the crowd, wearing a wool jacket and tight pants that should be criminal, and my heart hollowed out. He stopped to talk to a student and has been entirely focused on her for the last five minutes. His eyes meet mine for only a moment when he catches me watching him.

I cried on Dani’s lap for an hour about how wrong it was to be dating our TA and knew I needed to break up with him. I also confessed I’ve never felt this way about anyone. She listened and rubbed my back like a good friend, even though I’ve been a shitty friend to her. I didn’t tell her what I was truly upset about, or the fact my clock was ticking, and Halloween was two weeks away.

I just cried it out.

Dani’s been talking about how on edge everyone is with a potential copycat killer on the loose and how Cali still won’t speak.

It’s because she can’t speak, I want to cry out but keep my mouth shut instead. The news is eating this up, and Cali still isn’t saying a word to anyone about what she went through in that basement.

Trauma can have a profound impact on the human mind, rewiring the brain. Thankfully, Mikael didn’t kill Cali, but it seems she might have been better off if he had.

Mikael and Lincoln ensured her silence. I saw firsthand how scary they are when they are working together. It’s possible, with Mikael’s irrationality and Lincoln’s wits, that they truly think they are a god. I’ve certainly experienced things I can’t explain.

Dani continues, watching me watch Lincoln, “I think it’s for the best if you stop seeing him. Not only could you get in a lot of trouble for sleeping with your class TA, but I’m convinced Xander’s family is behind everything. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was behind Cali’s disappearance, too.”

She’s wrong, but not entirely wrong, I guess. “Why do you think that?” I ask, the lies once again spewing out. Cali never saw me, I remind myself. She heard me, but she never saw me.

Deny. Deny. Deny.

Dani blinks at me with hard eyes and stops walking. I’m not the only one who’s changed this semester. Dani has, too. I can’t put my finger on how, but she’s too caught up in all this. She’s too close to the truth. If she stays focused and doesn’t cause trouble, she will graduate like most people and leave with no issues. But it’s Dani we’re talking about, and she’s the most headstrong person I’ve ever met. And she’s hell-bent on clearing up her father’s name.

“I went digging around the house,” she says, and my stomach tightens. When Dani digs around, she always finds the dirt. She keeps her gaze on the stone ground beneath us. “Xander found me in his room.”

“And what did he do when he found you?”