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My heartbeat was hammering in my ears and my head felt lightheaded.
“You did take care of her, didn’t you?” My own voice was breathy now, courtesy of how the way too small dress was cutting off my oxygen. Any minute now, it was going to split open and ruin how this was going.
He grinned then, in that way that the Demon did. When he was especially proud of a kill.
And my heart broke. It shattered and shifted and changed. Because I knew what he was about to say.
“Of course I got rid of that…slut. She was obsessed with you.” His smile changed to a grimace of disgust. “I caught her outside your window, spying on you. She wanted you. I couldn’t let that happen.”
A sob was caught in my throat. I wanted to scream, to fall to the ground…to reach out and choke him and rejoice as the light left his eyes.
“How did you do it?” I asked. And it was like another person was speaking, someone who was dead inside, someone who was completely unfeeling, who was talking about a stranger’s death and not the best friend I’d ever known in my life.
He moaned, biting his bottom lip like he was about to cum just from the thought of it.
“I grabbed that bitch from your window, broke her neck and strangled her, and then I threw her under her own porch. The ground was frozen, if you remember. I couldn’t bury her or do what I wanted. But it was actually kind of perfect. To think of her family looking for her all these years, and then she was there all along. As soon as it began to get warm, I actually buried her under there. Didn’t want the smell to get noticeable.” He snorted. “I’ve watched her house every time I’ve been in town, and her mother still thinks the lesbian is going to come home.” His hand shook in mine as he laughed coldly at the thought of Sophia’s mother suffering while her daughter was buried feet away from her.
I was finding it hard to think at the moment, to remember what my plan had been to get out of here. I’d spent months trying to prepare myself for this moment—when it was confirmed that I was never going to see my beautiful, vivacious friend again. But I hadn’t really comprehended what it would feel like to know for sure.
There was a ringing in my ears as waves of grief flowed through me.
“Delilah?” His voice cut in, and I tried to force a smile, something to hide the heartbreak living in every cell of my body.
“You must really care about me. To always be watching out for me.”
Bentley looked very satisfied at my comment, squeezing my hand. “You have no idea how much I care,” he murmured, before straightening in his seat. “Oh, I have a wedding present for you.”
He squeezed my hand once more before letting go and hopping up from his seat to stride across the room. I took the time to look frantically for anything close by I could use as a weapon since he’d definitely notice if I lunged for that knife under the arch monstrosity.
A seam popped in my dress and I winced, my attention flicking back to Bentley as he opened up a drawer, creepily humming again as he did so.
I was tempted, at that moment, to just give up. Maybe I should piss him off and let him kill me. As much as the logical part of me tried to say I wasn’t responsible for what he’d done to Sophia, every other part of me believed I was.
After all the sins I’d committed in my life, there was none quite so heavy as Sophia’s death. Had he done it quick so she only had to be afraid for seconds? Had she struggled? Was she all the way dead when he’d pulled her under the porch? Or had she just laid there, alone and cold in the dark, waiting for the end to come?
I’m so sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.
Apologies crashed through my brain, drowning everything around me so I was only faintly aware that he was coming back towards me, carrying something.
Bentley dropped a box on the table, and my gaze flicked to it as he opened the lid with a flourish.
I was so twisted with guilt that it barely registered that there was a man’s hand inside the box. And when I did take a closer look at it, it only took a moment to realize that it was Carrie’s hand, the corpse I was supposed to dig up for the Sphinx. Because of course it was.
Laughter erupted from my mouth, so loud and uncontrolled that tears fell down my cheeks. Some for me, but mostly for Sophia, but all tangled and at odds with the crazy giggles falling from my mouth.
He frowned as we locked eyes, and then he slammed his hand down on the table.
“I think we’ve had enough catching up,” he murmured, sliding the lid back on the box. “I think it’s time we start the ceremony. You seem a bit…out of sorts.”
The suspicion was back in his voice, but honestly, it was hard to care right then. And as he pulled me up from the chair and my zipper popped open in multiple places…I was thinking maybe everything was turning out exactly how it was supposed to.
Because there was no way that I was going to walk out of this ceremony alive.
I was going to get everything I finally deserved.
Chapter26
Aurora
