Page 33 of My Wife

What the…

That’s not all. Her lips seem sunken in, and when I make another mistake and lower my head to get a better look, I can tell that the source of the blood on her chin is coming from her mouth.

You know what they say about curiosity killing the cat? In this case, it has Cyn’s stomach churning because, when I gingerly open her mouth to understand why there’s so much blood, I gag and fall backward when I get it.

Her tongue ismissing.

The masked killer must’ve pulled her by her highlighted hair, bared her throat,slitit, and for a little coup de grace, that insane fuckercut out her tongue.

I’ve got to go. Summer Kaye was a bitch, but with all that blood… he did it while she wasalive.

If he did that to her, what is he going to do to me?

As if my fear managed to summon him, right as I pull myself back up, he’s here. He’shere. He steps out of the trees, stalking toward me, and I’m so fucking scared, I nearly piss myself.

Then he says one word, and I think I might have.

“Cyn.”

Oh my God. Oh myGod.

He knows my name.

How does he know my name?

Did he stalk us? Learn everything about us? Discover our dark secrets and decide we needed to die one-by-on on Halo Island?

Holy shit. I thought I was in a horror movie. Have I found myself in Agatha Christie’s infamous murder mystery instead?

It doesn’t matter. I outpaced him this far, and the only reason the killer caught up to me was because I couldn’t bring myself to leave Summer behind.

But I have to. Besides, I can’t help her now. She’s gone, and before the killer can make a break for me, so am I.

DoI go back to the cabin?

I want to. The killer is in the woods, and there’s a chance I can beat him back to the shore. I don’t know if any of the other cabins are locked—or if Madison stayed behind while Summer went looking for the guys—but he had one key. What are the odds he has more than one? Six cabins… I could take my chance.

And just as I’m debating whether I should turn back, I hear a crack behind me and pour on as much speed as I’m capable of.

I keep seeing him behind me. I thought I was outpacing him, but I have admit the reality is he’s fucking toying with me. He lets me see him when he wants to, and after how easilyI stumbled on Summer’s body, I’m thinking that had to be on purpose.

I’m one hundred percent sure I’m right when, about ten minutes—that seem like ten hour—later, I find another body.

Thefourthone.

This one is testing my stomach. I thought it was made of iron. I’ve seen some gnarly shit in my time, and after both Tyler and Summer’s murders, I thought I was numb toanything.

And then I found what happened to Madison Powell.

She’s not in the cabin. Whatever brought the two of them out into the woods to be slaughtered, they came together—and died separately in two very brutal ways.

Madison’s naked. The twisted part of my brain that responds to dark humor—like how, if anyone asks how my mom is, I’d tell them she’s in a box because I got her cremated and couldn’t bring myself to pick out an urn for her—thinks: Huh. She probably would’ve enjoyed knowing that she got to go naked.

Her legs are spread, but they’re the only part of her not touched. I’d like to think the psycho masked killer didn’t stop to rape her before he strung her up, but who the hell knows? She’s naked, her body an ‘X’, with both arms and legs tied between two trees about six feet off the ground.

And her body…

Ribbons. That’s the only word I can think of right know. She’s been stabbed so brutally, cut up so expertly, that hunks of flash are spilling over like fuckingribbons. Maybe she was wearing clothes before the killer got to her. They probably got sliced to bits as someonepeeledher apart.

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