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A glimpse of my naked profile from that night as I stripped down to shower, shivering at the thought of seeing him again.
That one hits the hardest, turning me into a hyperventilating wreck, sucking on my own chest in awful rhythm.
The photograph goes jittery in my vision with the force of my trembling fingers.
Roger. It had to be!
He was there, watching me in my most intimate moments, and now the wonder and happiness is so—
Tainted.
I feel tainted.
A wet splatter hits the photograph. For a second, I think it’s the tears overflowing my eyes—fuck this entire night—until it hits me.
It’s red.
A thick, ugly drop of red, staining the picture, obscuring my naked breasts as I turn away from the camera.
Then another falls, striking the scattered photographs on the mat like a rusted rain.
Another and another and another, a sickening splatter of unholy blood falling down from—from—oh God!
I don’t want to look up.
But I can’t stop myself.
Something terrible and invisible cranes my head, cranking it back like I’m a puppet. I can’t stop how it pulls my strings even as my heart, my shivering hurting body scream no, no, no!
I blink away the tears blurring my vision as I stare at the eaves of the porch overhang.
Right on time for the biggest shock of my life.
Roger Strunk’s corpse has been laced up against the underside of the overhang, his entire body gutted and hollowed out like a butchered pig.
His bulging blank eyes stare down at me with the same ugly accusation as the emptiness in Emma’s dead stare.
You.
I’m dead and it should have been you.
The horror hits me in the head like a concussion, jarring my whole body.
I only have one second to struggle, to process this, to fail so miserably before the world starts reeling.
A scream tries to claw up my throat, but never makes it out.
Everything is distant and muffled and so far away.
That invisible puppetmaster of my own blinding emotion wheels me to the side, jerking me back into the night.
Before I understand anything, I pass out dead on my porch.
18
Red Haze (Lucas)
Fuck, shit, and damn.
I never should’ve let Delilah go home alone.
I’ve barely made it back to my place before the call comes in.
Another dead body at that little blue house.
This time, there’s no doubt it was murder—and the victim?
Delilah’s ex-boyfriend.
What the actual fuck.
I’m out the door in a flash, not even bothering to change into my uniform. All I can think about is Delilah.
If she’s hurt, if anyone threatened her, if she’s okay after stumbling on another corpse.
If she threw herself into a bad situation because of my big fat fucking mouth.
Too many ifs.
My heart is a tangled nest of thorns.
Whatever the fuck’s going on here just got ten times worse.
When I pull up to the house, every squad car in town lines the sidewalk, lighting up the night in whirling blue and red carnival colors.
Yellow tape circles the fence like a deadly bow on a gift no one asked for.
Everyone’s here but Chief Bowden—go fucking figure.
Micah, Grant, Henri, all of them roaming the scene in uniform.
Henri photographs something by the front door while Grant paces the property with a flashlight, muttering into his radio and throwing down evidence markers. Micah, he’s talking to a small and ragged Delilah.
Her hair is a mess like she’s scratched it raw, or shaken it into a wild mane.
The moment I see those smears of crimson on her bare arms, staining the dress I just ripped off her hours ago, I bolt from the car, my gut vibrating pure regret.
“Lilah?” I gasp, nearly vaulting over the fence. “Did he hurt you? Did he—”
Her head comes up sharply, silencing my words.
It’s not half as bad as the look plastered on her face.
It stops me in my tracks and rips the words from my throat.
She stares at me like I did this.
Like it’s somehow my fault.
The hurt that knifes through me is a force of nature, hoisting me up and body-slamming me back into the pavement.
“Stay away from me,” she whispers, her voice trembling—and she edges around Micah, putting his tall put-together albino ass between us. I can’t blame him for looking puzzled, his pale eyes worried as he stops scratching things down on his notepad. “Sorry, I don’t... I don’t want to talk to him, Officer Ainsley.”
I must have the damnedest look on my face.
Because the look Micah gives me is the same sympathy you show a puppy in a kennel when you can’t take it home.
“She’s not hurt, Graves,” he tells me. “She fainted and landed in some blood. Maybe you should go talk to the captain and take a look at what we’ve got?”
Fuck.
I don’t know what to do.
What to say.
What I could ever give up to hold my shattered heart together.
Does she trust me so little after that fight?
Did one shitty dumb omission on my part annihilate whatever fragile faith she ever had in me?
