Page 84 of Falling Too Late

I opened the box closest to me.

Right on top, light pink sheets with a character printed on them.

Bloody, pink sheets.

I swallowed hard, my stomach rolling. Sickness rippled through me, and I had to take a deep breath to keep from throwing up. These were Wren’s sheets.

I let the anger seep in, creating a wall for the nausea to beat against but get nowhere.

I moved to another box and opened it. The box was full of pictures, all of Wren smiling. It looked like she was on campus in her college days. Pictures of her and Juni. Pictures of her through a window. I recognized the building, the house on the corner. He had been watching her theentire time.I opened box after box. They were all filled with her. Clothes that had to have been from when she was little.

I realized then that Kevin was obsessed. It had been a convenient thing for him in the beginning and something he grew to obsess over. He had been watching her for years.

I wanted to bring him back to life just to kill him again. What I gave him had been a mercy killing. It was too quick.

Another wave of guilt hit me. Sixteen-year-old me trying to kill her monster and failing. If I had succeeded, things could have been different.

She never deserved what they did to her.

I pulled out my phone and shot Foster a text.

Where is she?

The response was immediate.

Gym.

I dropped the pictures back into the box.

I needed to lay my eyes on her. I needed to see she was fine. That she was in one piece.

I clenched my fists at my sides, but I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I kicked the box to the back of the unit, grabbinganother and chucking it across the room. Grabbing anything I could get my hands on and ripping it apart. A guttural roar bubbled out of my chest and ripped up my throat.

She was just a little girl, and her mother sold her to a monster.

They.

The word echoed in my head again, in her voice. I could hear her say it like it was yesterday.

My chest heaved and I wiped my hand down my face, exhausted.

I was so angry. I was angry with her. Angryforher. There wasn’t a thing I wouldn’t do to ensure that every last person who’d ever laid their hands on her was obliterated.

Even I should be on that list, for failing her.

Twice.

Dead wasn’t enough.

But I had to find out who these other people were, and the only way to do that was to confront Wren.

It was time.

“I can send someone here to clean up this mess and take it to the warehouse if you want,” Ezekiel said. There was no emotion in his voice. Just a statement. He didn’t react to the episode he just witnessed.

“Fine,” I bit out.

I closed the unit, not bothering to lock it, given the padlock had been cut. Once we were in the car, Ezekiel made a call, talking in another language, while I drove us out of the place.

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