Page 86 of S.O.S. Billboard

Shit.Again, with the creepy voice.

“Who won’t like it, O’Shea?”

There was something seriously fucked up being revealed.

“Grannie,” O’Shea whispered the name as if it were taboo. “You shouldn’t be here, Cedric. She’ll punish you, too.”

Fuck.O’Shea thought Billboard was Cedric. And her grandmother…? What the hell had the bitch done?

Billboard wanted to growl, but he also didn’t want to scare O’Shea, so once again he toned it down.

“Honey, your grandmother isn’t here, and you’re all grown up now. Cedric is at home with his wife. Remember? They have twins on the way?”

O’Shea blinked.

It was a start, so Billboard kept up his patter.

“And I’m right here beside you. I’m Billboard. I’m the one who’s supposed to be holding back secrets, but I guess you have some of your own, huh?”

She let loose a small sob, and it nearly broke Billboard’s heart. What had happened that his woman was so broken inside.

“Baby, I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you. I promise. Now look at me. Please.”

Her ravaged face turned to his, and she whimpered. “I’m not supposed to talk to anybody.”

“It’s okay,” Billboard assured her, thinking fast. What was it his therapist did when Billboard was too lost in an old horror-loop to function?Right.She made him reveal what was going on in his mind.

“What are you seeing, O’Shea? Where are you?” he asked.

“It’s dark.” She trembled violently. “The closet is always dark.”

“You’re stuck in a closet, O’Shea?”

“Uh, huh,” she mewled in her little girl voice. “Grannie put me here.”

A closet.And her grandmother had put her there? What the fuck?

“Can you stand up and find the doorknob, O’Shea? Can you let yourself out?” Billboard almost didn’t want to hear her answer.

“I can’t. I’m in the cage. It’s locked. I can’t…I can’t…” she broke down and wailed.

“It’s okay, O’Shea. It’s okay,” Billboard tried to soothe, and it was killing him that he couldn’t get to her, and wasn’t sure exactly what to say. Was he making things worse, or better? The jury was out, so all he could do was continue to reassure her. “I’llhelp you get out of the cageandthe closet, O’Shea. Mizzay and everyone on the team will help you, too, when they get here.”

O’Shea’s tear-stained eyes turned to his. “Why do you keep calling me O’Shea?” she simpered. “I’m Karen.”

Shit, shit, shit.This was bad. He’d never heard her refer to herself as Karen before. It must be the name she’d had in childhood; one that she’d clearly abandoned.

“You might have been Karen, once, but to me, you’ll always be O’Shea,” he promised her. “Do you remember when and why you changed your name?”

Maybe he could move her brain forward in time.

“I…hate Karen,” she said, vehemence suddenly overtaking her fearfulness. “I don’t want to be named for her. I don’t.”

“Who were you named for, O’Shea? Tell me.”

“Her,” she snarled. “My grandmother.”

Well, that answered that.

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