Page 87 of Forbidden Flesh

“I was home, but you didn’t answer my question.”

“You don’t know.”

“What? I’m not following.”

He pulls out my phone, and I look at the news article.

ANOTHER OHIO STUDENT DEAD

It says Jacob Macnab was found dead in the woods, four miles from campus. His body was mutilated.

I look up, handing him his phone back. “He plays football.”

“He was also at the diner with Zack when you ran out crying. Do you know him?”

“No,” I lie, but I think I do.

He was with Zack that night. He said it when that girl claimed to have screwed Valen the same night he said he was loaded. I don’t remember how, but I know he was one of them.

“Is there something you need to tell me, Melody? You can trust me, baby. I need you to tell me what you know.”

“Where were you last night?”

He looks at his phone.

“Home with Azriel finishing school.”

My phone vibrates in my back pocket. I take it out and see it’s a text from Rose.

Rose: Come to my dorm room.

Melody: See you in five.

“I gotta go. I need to see Rose. What did that crazy priest say?”

“Nothing.” He shakes his head and pockets his phone. “He didn’t say anything. He was waiting for you to finish and said you ran out like the booth was on fire.”

The guy is a liar, but I don’t tell him that.

I pocket my phone, and then it goes off from another message.

I pull it back out and open it.

Valen: Don’t go inside the church without me. It isn’t safe.

I look up. “I’ll meet you outside of Drury Hall in an hour,” he says, nodding slowly.

“Hey,” Rose greets me when I walk in.

“Did you hear about the Ohio student turning up dead?”

“Yeah, but that’s not what I wanted to talk to you about,” she says with a slight frown.

“What is it?”

She pulls out her phone, scrolls through it, and hands it to me. “I was looking online through social media and found these. It doesn’t make sense because of the dates. I couldn’t make sense of it.”

I scroll through screen shots of pictures of me at a party, but these are dated three years ago. I was still in high school. I keep scrolling, and I see Madison with me in one of them. I hated that we looked different. We don’t look related at all, but I stop scrolling when I see one of Valen and me.

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