Page 68 of Holy Sinner

“Motherfucker,” I snarl when I see the three of us sleeping. “Who did this?” I turn the photo over and see the shitty little message scrawled in black sharpie.

“I see you. Do you see me?”

“They’re dead. They’ve been dead since they started this game and I’m going to make this shit last.”

Grant hums in agreement. “I can get on board with that. Thinking we find who they’re working with and make them watch each other die. Those photos were waiting for us today. Someone took them while we were in the cabin, left them for us on the top step and I know why.”

“Why? How do you know there’s more than one of them?” I stare down at the photos in my hands. Kit is my world. Someone is threatening my fucking world. The photo of the three of us has me feeling like I’m coming out of my skin, like my bones are too big for the rest of me.

I need to move. I need to hunt. I need to fucking kill the person that did this.

“Getting on top of the cabin without us noticing? That’s a two person job,” Grant tells me and tucks his hands into his pockets. He starts walking towards the cabin and I follow him. We look like two men just out for a walk, maybe a smoke but there’s purpose to what Grant is doing, even if he’s taking care to make it look casual.

“I was out here before Alexia came up the way. I was looking, trying to find a hint of where this fucker went and at first, nothing. But we both know there’s always something. It’s not like they’re a ghost, now is it?”

I stay silent but it doesn’t matter. He’s right. There’s always something. It’s how everyone eventually gets caught. Everyone leaves a trace, some essence of themselves at the crime scene; it just depends if the person tracking them is smart enough to see the pattern. As much as I give Grant shit for being a dumb fuck, he’s smart about what he does. Not as good as me but he can read the pattern of a hunter the same as I can.

“The angle of that photo means they were on the North side of the cabin when they took it. There’s nothing to hold on to there so there had to have been a ladder.”

“Long ass fucking ladder,” I mutter. And it’s true. While the cabins are built to simulate coziness, the bedroom is massive, the ceiling well over forty feet up. It wouldn’t be a normal ladder that someone would use. It would have to be construction grade, the type of stuff that would weigh a ton.

“That's where they put the ladder,” he says and points at the ground. Two divots taunt me when I follow where he points. “Got an uncle who runs a saw mill in Alaska. I used to go spend a few weeks every summer with him. I know a ladder like that is going to take time to move and that’s not even considering the time that Alexia saw Jane.”

“When did she see Jane?”

“At fucking three-thirty am. She left the bonfire everyone was partying at early, that’s the last time Alexia saw Jane before she went to their room and found it covered in corn syrup. Look at the photo again. Look at my right hand. What do you see on the clock?”

I pull the photo back out and look the photo over. Zero right in on where Grant is telling me to look. I didn’t notice it before but there’s a clock—that stupid fucking high tech alarm clock Grant uses. The fucking thing rolls away from you if you don’t turn it off. Three-forty shines bright on the clock face and I raise an eyebrow.

“That’s ten minutes after Alexia saw Jane.” I know the fucker said corn syrup but there isn’t time to delve into that so I stay focused on one crisis at a time. “Elysium is too big for them to make it from our roof to Jane’s room. Ten minutes wouldn't be enough time.”

“No, it fucking wouldn’t be. Not when you factor in the time they would need to hide that ladder and do what they did to Jane’s room. That takes two motherfuckers for them not to be seen. Besides, that’s not touching on what we found in the woods today.”

“This has to do with that corn syrup shit you just said, doesn't it? Don’t think I didn’t fucking catch that.” Instantly I want to punch him. “And what the fuck do you mean we? You didn’t take Kit into the woods, did you?”

“And what if I did? I keep her safe. She’s safe with me.”

“That’s not what this says. I see you. That’s a threat and we both know it.” I snarl and hold up the photos but he waves a hand at me.

“You’re in that photo too or did you forget that?”

“Fuck you.”

“Maybe later.”

“Listen here you little shit-”

“No, you listen. We’ve got two goddamn fuckwads out here grabbing women, shitting out fake blood, stalking Kit and sending us messages like a couple of bitch ass limp dicks. Shit is serious right now and we can’t wait around here like sitting ducks for them to fuck with us.”

He’s making sense so I nod. “I’m with you. You want to go after them then?”

“Fuck yeah I want to go after them.”

“We take the place that’s two hours out from here then. It’s got state of the art security. It’s far enough away that no one is going to be able to spiderman their way onto the roof to spy on us.”

Grant rocks back on his heels and looks towards the cabin. Rain falls in a slant with a gale of wind. All around us the storm gathers strength. It’s going to be hard to see anything past our cabin soon with how fast it is coming down.

“Kit’s not going to like it,” he says.”

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