Page 111 of Hunting Pretty

If only I could remember more. More about him. His name.

If I had that, I could do my research, dig through records like any good journalist, and find out whom he’d killed and why.

But of course, Scáth, or whatever the hell his name really was, had no interest in giving me that.

He hadn’t even told me his real name, for God’s sake.

Why was he so hell-bent on keeping me in the dark? Why did he need to hide everything?

But one thing was clear: he’d killed for me once. And last night, he killed for me again.

And now he was acting like none of it had even happened.

My mind raced, questions crashing into each other. Was he messing with me? Lying straight to my face? Or was this part of some twisted game, to keep me off-balance, to erase any evidence in a message trail?

Either way, something was seriously wrong with him.

He was dangerous. There was no denying it anymore.

I swallowed hard, my mouth dry, my hands trembling as I realized the weight of it.

I couldn’t just let him walk. Right?

But then—Shit!—did he take back the evidence? What if he had covered his tracks?

I scrambled for the dresser, yanking open the drawer and pulling out the jewelry box, my pulse thudding in my ears. With shaking fingers, I pried it open.

To my relief, the vile contents were still inside, staring right back at me.

I shuddered and snapped the box shut.

The jewelry box felt heavy in my hands, the small object rolling against the edges every time I shifted. I stared down at it, my mind racing faster than I could process.

This was my proof—my key to bringing him down.

I have to turn him in.

I had to tell someone. What I knew. What I remembered.

I’d tell Ebony once she got home—she’d know what to do. She always knew what to do.

But as I held the box tighter, the gravity of what I was about to do settled over me like a weight I wasn’t sure I could bear.

A sudden period cramp made me drop the box. It fell in among my blankets.

I clutched my stomach and let out a cry.

Fucking period.

Ebony had prescribed me pills for the pain, but I knew from experience that I had to move fast. My pain pills were in my bathroom in the medicine cabinet.

Gasping for breath, I clutched my dresser to steady myself on my feet. I turned toward the bathroom.

But as I took a step forward, another cramp doubled me over, stealing the air from my lungs as if I’d been punched in the stomach. I collapsed to my knees as white-hot pain laced through my belly.

Fear twisted with the pain of my cramp to make me nauseous; this one was going to be even worse than usual. And ‘usual’ was fucking hell on earth.

I felt the emptiness of the mansion swell out around me. I felt the loneliness of crying out and no one caring.

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