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I was in the woods again. Shadows. Yellow eyes. Demons.
Everywhere.
I saw them everywhere.
I stood in the doorway and stared at Beatrice.
She sat up in bed, her eyes out the window, her hair pulled back in a bun. She looked exactly the same as she did in the mountains—like she had no reason to live. The flowers were in my hand, the ones I bought with Benton’s money. My knuckles tapped against the open door.
She turned her head to look, the lifelessness fading when she recognized me. “Constance?”
“Thought I’d stop by.” I carried the vase to the table at her bedside. “Just to see how you’re doing.”
She looked over my appearance, like I looked worse than she did. “Why are you still wearing that?”
I was in the white jeans and sweater because I’d been up all night. I could have bought some clothes, but that wasn’t a priority at the time. “I just…haven’t had time to change. How are you?”
She planted her hands against the mattress and cringed as she pushed herself up. “Terrible.”
“Stingy on the pain meds?”
“No. But they wear off quickly.” Her hands rested on her stomach as she stared at me, her eyes tired.
“At least you never have to go through this again.”
“But the damage is done.”
My eyes studied her face, my mind taken back to that conversation we’d had on her bed.
“I’ll never live a normal life, not with these scars.”
“Not right away…but in time.” I had been in the midst of a mental breakdown last night, but I somehow felt better talking someone through their own breakdown. She gave me something to do, something to focus on. Making someone feel better made me feel better.
She stared ahead, dismissing what I said.
“How long are you here for?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’m staying with Benton for a while.”
“Oh.”
“It’s just for a couple days. Then I’ll need to figure out what to do next.”
I had no idea what to do with my life. Ballet was my life, but now I could never go back. Not because of the scars. But because of the memories. I’d never look out into that theatre without imagining those skulls sitting in the auditorium. Besides, that would be the first place Forneus would look.
“What about you?”
My eyes looked out the window, the sky already dark because winter had come. Daylight was short, sunlight fleeting. “I…I’m not sure. I’ll go to the police later…”
“You really think that will do anything?”
“I have to try. After what they did to us…to you…and the girls who are still there.”
“It doesn’t hurt to try, but don’t expect anything.”
My eyes shifted to hers. “Why do you say that?”
“From what little I know of Benton’s old career, that’s not what the police are for. They worry about grand theft auto, homicides among regular people, petty crimes…not big players like Forneus.”
“I refuse to believe they would just look the other way about this.”
“Then give it your best shot.”
“What are they going to do? Just say I’m crazy?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time a woman was told that…”
Beatrice didn’t seem concerned about the girls we’d left behind. Benton didn’t either. Didn’t even want revenge for what happened to his daughter and her mother. Was I the only one who couldn’t let this go? The only one who cared about the girls who were still there? The girls who would replace Beatrice and me?
Or was it because I would never be safe…until Forneus was gone.
I sat across from the police officer at the precinct, telling him everything that had happened. “I filed a report a couple months ago when the guy was following me. You can talk to the officers about that. There wasn’t anything they could do at the time.”
He sat in his chair, staring at me, his chin propped against his closed knuckles.
“He’s either going to come back for me, or he’s going to find someone to replace me. So, this isn’t over for me. And until that place shuts down, it’s just going to continue. They believe we’re angels so they torture us, but they also deal acid or something…” My eyes narrowed as I stared him down. “Why aren’t you writing this down?” He didn’t take a single note. At least the first officers had.
“I got the gist of it.”
“If you get the gist of it, why don’t you have a reaction?” I needed this guy to help me, so being difficult wasn’t in my best interest, but sometimes you had to be difficult to get shit done. “Because any normal person would have a reaction right now. The press would be all over this…a cult that worships women as angels…carving their backs…”
“Instead of going to the press, you should go to a publisher. Because this is a great story.”
“Story?” I glanced around the precinct, seeing officers answering phones and going about their schedules. Handcuffed criminals were escorted inside, receptionists grabbed coffee. “You think…you think I’m making this shit up?”
