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“Hello,” I say, drawing his attention to me and away from Riggs, whose imposing figure presses against my back.
“Ah, hi. Delivery for Alayna Morgan? It needs a signature,” he mumbles, dropping his gaze to the ground and handing out a small machine.
Grabbing the stylus, I quickly sign my name and grab the box from his hands. He turns on his heel as quickly as he can and books it the fuck away from us. Looking up at Riggs, I see his angry face on as he stares after the kid.
“Come on, Big Guy. Let’s go see what Rachel sent me,” I hum, stepping past him back into the house.
In the living room, I grab my keys from my back pocket and slice open the tape on the box. Rachel packaged this really well, making me wonder what she would send. She didn’t mention anything when we spoke two days ago, but it may have slipped her mind or she wanted it to be a surprise.
Rhys and Adam walk in the house, the two of them hollering to see where we are. I yell back from the living room before pulling open the flaps of the box. The three guys start talking behind me, something about the notebooks that catches my attention just as a weird black material does. There’s a smell coming from the box, one that immediately sets my stomach on edge. With shaking hands, I start moving some of the packing peanuts aside. The realization of what’s in the box hits me like a ton of bricks, causing me to gasp and fall back as I see the two eyes sitting on a bed of black hair.
The guys all move towards me at once, my hyperventilating and shaking keeping me from explaining what’s going on. Even if I wasn’t freaking the fuck out, I don’t think I could get myself to say there’s human fucking hair and what looks like bloody fucking eyeballs in the motherfucking box. Riggs pulls the box towards him and loudly curses when he gets a glimpse of what I saw.
“What the fuck is in the box?” Adam snaps, rubbing a hand up and down my back as Rhys takes the box from Riggs.
“It looks to be hair and what I can only assume is fresh eyeballs.” Rhys speaks calmly, his cop face on. Riggs is almost green in the face, his head shaking back and forth as if to get rid of the image. If that works, I’ll be shaking my head like my life depends on it. That image is going to be seared into my brain, otherwise.
“This is so fucked up,” I whisper, leaning back into Adam. “What the fuck do we do?”
“We’re going to have to call the police for this,” Rhys says, taking control over the situation. “This is human remains and they need to be involved now. I will go do that and take this out of here. You guys just sit tight for now, I’m sure we’ll have to answer some questions.”
We’re all silent as Rhys walks out of the room, the messed up gift in his hands. Riggs falls back onto the couch as Adam and I get comfortable on the floor. It seems like it would take a lot of energy for Adam to get up right now and I don’t want to put him through that.
“He’s escalating even more,” I whisper to no one in particular. “Someone out there is dead because of me.”
“No,” Adam snaps, moving my face with a gentle hand to look at him. “This is on that sick fucker, not you. You didn’t do anything, this is all on him.”
“He’s right,” Riggs speaks up. “This is the actions of a seriously messed up individual and none of his actions fall on your shoulders.”
Shaking my head, I drop it into my hands, pulling my knees up under my chin to make myself as small as possible. Logically, I know it’s not my fault and I didn’t do anything, but logic doesn’t always relieve guilt. The raw, emotional side of me feels like this is at least in part my fault. He lashed out at someone else over the fact that he doesn’t have me. That’s a lot of weight to have resting on my shoulders.
“My logical and emotional brain are at odds on this one,” I murmur, a choked sound coming out at the end. “Why does shit like this follow me around everywhere I go?”
“I don’t know, Lay.” Adam shrugs beside me, his tired gaze finding my own. “I think we all ask ourselves that question, though. It seems like the bad shit never ends.”
Rhys walks back in without the box, a grim look on his face. “They’re on their way. We’ll need to probably hand over all the notebooks and letters from the storage facility as well so we should go make photocopies for ourselves. Having worked with this department, I don’t have complete faith in most of them to figure out who’s behind this before more people get hurt.”
Riggs jumps at the chance to do something, grabbing the backpack that Rhys and Adam brought in not that long ago. I haven’t even had the chance to ask what they all found before more shit hit the fan, this time in the form of human remains. Rhys comes over, holding out a hand to help me up and then doing the same for Adam. Adam stumbles a bit, causing both Rhys and I to quickly steady him.
It feels like no time at all before the knocking starts at our door. Rhys heads over to let in the two detectives responding to the case. Thankfully, neither of them are Jarrod James. It does make me wonder where he is, maybe washing the blood of his latest victim off his hands?
A tall woman walks into the living room, levelling her gaze at me with a professional smile. She has long brown hair pulled back into a tight ponytail and a grey pantsuit that fits her perfectly. She doesn’t look much older than mid-thirties with a soft olive complexion.
“Alayna Morgan, I’m guessing,” she addresses me, holding out a hand to shake.
“Yes, that’s correct.” I wave awkwardly from the couch, not ready to be touching someone when I’m already feeling anxious.
“My name is Detective Kelly Barrows. Is it okay if I ask you a few questions?” She moves to sit on the loveseat, crossing her legs and pulling out a notebook.
“Of course,” I answer, pushing myself up and away from Adam. It’s not that I don’t appreciate his support, it’s that I need to do this part on my own.
We talk for a while, the detective asking basic questions about who I think may be behind this, why they would be targeting me, if I had anybody with a grudge, and so on. Most things are a big fat fucking question mark for me. Obviously I won’t be mentioning Rhys’ ex-partner when we have absolutely no proof whatsoever and as for the rest, I have no fucking idea. Up until coming here, I pretty much just kept to myself all the time.
When Riggs walks back in she turns her questioning to him and I’m left to get lost in my thoughts. My body feels numb, like I can’t quite wrap my head around what’s happening. It’s processing through my brain on dial-up, each image and fact sinking in every ten minutes or so. When it all uploads, I’m sure I’ll break down again, but for now, it’s all just moving in slow motion.
It’s honestly only half sunken in what’s happening right now. It feels like a fucking nightmare, something that would only happen in my head while I’m sleeping. Really, I should stop being so fucking naive about all of this. Nightmares aren’t just in your sleep, they’re living all around us every day. They infest the world, invading our lives. Real life is riddled with monsters worse than we can imagine. If anyone knows that reality can be so much worse than your nightmares, it’s me.
Chapter Twenty-Two
