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Gareth wanted me. He needed me. In a weird way, I think I needed him, too. Even my subconsciousness was trying to tell me that fighting Gareth and the way I felt about him was as pointless as a fight could be.
There was a darkness in me. I’d harbored it ever since I could remember. I’d put all of my focus, all of my time into my art… to the point where I had no time to do anything else. No time for friends, no time to find myself in trouble by doing something on the illegal side of the law. I’d been good, but only because I’d never given myself a chance to be anything but.
I didn’t want to crave Gareth so badly. Hell, I didn’t want any of this. Darkness in me or not, there was still enough sanity in me to know the difference between right and wrong. I didn’t want to be the latter, but being with Gareth made it so easy for me to imagine. Tiptoeing the line had never been harder.
When I woke up the next morning, my sheets were covered in sweat, my skin included. That dream had been real enough to get my body worked up in real time; it was almost like certain parts of me were sore, like my dream had been so real, so vivid that I’d gotten off by unconsciously squeezing my thighs together.
Because it had to have been a dream, right?
Chapter Six – Brianna
Erin wasn’t at school again. Hell, she wasn’t at school all week. Kaity, Angelina, and Cherith had finally all come to the same conclusion as me: something was very, very wrong. It was all any of them could talk about at lunch. Kaity had even gone so far as to swing by Erin’s house on her way home from school Wednesday, and she’d found not a thing. No one had been home.
I didn’t hear anything from Rick, and my mind was too busy reeling with what could possibly be going on to put much thought into searching the Montgomery house for any information he could use as blackmail.
Gareth, for whatever reason, had decided to stay away from me. He kept himself locked in the pool house every day after school and well into the night. I hardly saw him in the house, which was fine. Any time I did see him, he sent me these weird looks, like he was trying to make me feel guilty for suspecting him or something.
And that, obviously, was ridiculous, because if anyone had something to do with Erin’s disappearance, it’d be him. He had the motive and he’d had the time.
It was back to business as usual with my mom, and Alistair… well, he did whatever the hell he did. I tried not to pay too much attention to him.
Any hope that lingered inside me died by the time Friday rolled around and no one had heard a word from Erin. Nothing new on her socials. It was like she was gone, vanished out of thin air, leaving not a single clue as to where she’d gone.
“This is completely unheard of,” Kaity was busy saying, all eyes on her at our lunch table. Even Cherith had stopped reading fanfiction, paying attention to the conversation. “Erin doesn’t do this. I went by her house last night again, and no one answered the door. It was like no one was home.”
“Her parents are always home at night,” Angelina said. Not a single one of them had eaten anything yet, their lunches untouched. It was like they’d lost their appetites, too busy worrying about their friend.
“I know. What if something happened?” Kaity asked.
“What?” It was Cherith who spoke next. “What could’ve happened?”
“I don’t know. A gas leak in the house or something? What if they’re all in there, dead, their bodies decaying while we sit around and twiddle our thumbs?” The possibility Kaity brought up was morbid, but not as morbid as the one I was thinking of.
Gareth knew Erin’s parents would call her in missing, so he took them out, too. Three birds with the same stone. He’d get a hell of a lot of blood out of three bodies, enough to replenish the supply I’d spilled when he’d locked me up in the dark with the chef’s corpse and then some.
Angelina covered her mouth to hide the horror. “Shit. I didn’t even think of that. We should call the police for a wellness check or something. They do that, right?”
“Maybe,” Kaity spoke, nodding along. Her fingers curled into a fist, and she hit the lunch table with that hand. “We should all go to the station after school and ask the sheriff for one.” Her friends all agreed with her, and then her eyes were on me.
“If one of you takes me, I’ll go too,” I said. I was the only one of them who didn’t have a car of my own.
Kaity said, “Good. Maybe we can actually get him to do something if you’re there.” When I gave her a blank look, she added, “The head sheriff is Alistair’s brother-in-law. Well, he was, before his brother died.”
When I continued to look like a deer in headlights, Angelina explained further, “Gareth’s dad was the sheriff’s older brother.”
My stomach twisted into a knot, and not the fun, butterfly-filled kind of knot. No, this particular knot in my gut made me feel sick. Rick was closer to Alistair and Gareth than he’d let on. This whole time he’d been connected to them, and he’d danced around the whole truth of it when I’d asked him point-blank.
Would things ever stop being so damned complicated here?
“I had no idea,” I muttered, trying to hide the truth of my feelings. None of the girls knew I’d made out with Rick at the wedding; no one knew that except us. Just another reason why it had to stay that way. I had the feeling both Gareth and Alistair would freak the hell out if they knew Rick had come onto me like that.
Even if the coming on part was mutual.
We ended lunch with the plan to go to the head sheriff, AKA Rick, directly after school. Kaity told me where she parked, and I’d meet her there. The plan was set; once the end of the day came and I finished up at my locker, I’d go straight to Kaity’s car and, only when we were safely on the road, I’d text Gareth that I’d find my own way home. With any luck, he wouldn’t see me with Kaity—if he did, it’d only put a target on her back, much like the target that had been on Erin’s back.
If only I’d known…
The end of the day came soon enough, and I headed straight to my locker. As I pulled out my bag and stuffed what I’d need for the weekend into it, someone approached me once my locker neighbors were gone.
