Page 79 of The Blood we Crave

“Whether you’d like to admit it or don’t remember, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “You have her to thank for your talent and desire to play. Every day, I watch you become more and more like her. I’d like to think she would love the man you have become, Alexander.”

“Somehow, I think that’s a lie, May,” I say, knowing no mother could love a son who’d done what I have. What I crave to do.

“I still love your father,” she says. “We love our children despite the bad. Every day, I mourn the loss of my little boy. It pains me to know what he’s done, but I still love him.”

The click of my door closing echoes inside my chest, once again absorbed by the silence like always, leaving me to ponder if playing the piano was simply my mind chasing the mother I never knew and had helped bury.

all these wicked games

FIFTEEN

lyra

“So besides him having bad blood with James, we have nothing else tying Conner to the Halo or the murders?” Briar asks me.

Frustration is evident in her usually calm voice. I tuck the phone between my ear and shoulder as I peer through the open tiled space, checking beneath each of the eight stalls to make sure I’m the only person occupying the upperclassman shower house.

I nod, even though she can’t see it. “I told you guys everything he told me. I didn’t have time to ask him anything else. Someone depositing a limb in the courtyard like a psychotic Easter Bunny rudely interrupted me. It couldn’t have been Conner anyway—he was with me the entire time before the leg showed up.”

When I’m sure that it’s only me hidden away inside here, I deposit my bag onto the sleek white counter, careful not to let it slip inside one of the many sinks. With maximum effort, I toe my yellow rain boots off, pieces of mud knocking off them and onto the floor as I do.

“Sage says that Rook thinks it’s Easton. Won’t entertain a thought of anyone else.”

I huff out a laugh, “Rook blames him for fucking climate change.”

If it was possible, he’d blame Easton Sinclair for every bad thing on the planet. It’s not like I blame him; Stephen’s son had never been a nice guy. A toxic, manipulative golden boy with a misogynistic streak a mile wide.

He’d not only put Sage through living hell, but he’d harassed Briar early on, and Gods knows he’s been battling his ego against every single one of the boys since he could fucking talk. So like his father in the way they have to make sure everyone is aware that they have the biggest dick in the room, completely unaware that we all know they bust too quickly and couldn’t find the clit with a compass.

“Let’s be honest,” I continue. “Rook’s just looking for an excuse to burn the other side of his face off. He has no actual proof other than that. You heard about the other body they found yesterday. Do we really think the guy who almost threw up during a frog dissection our sophomore year of high school could murder someone?”

After struggling with trying to wiggle out of my pants for far too long, a light bulb finally dings inside of my brain. I slide the phone onto the counter, pressing the speaker button so that I can undress without having to be an acrobat.

“As much as I hate that fucking prick, I don’t think he has the guts to leave a woman’s torso on the front steps of city hall, even if he’s doing his daddy’s bidding.”

Two body parts from two separate people, within a week apart. It makes my stomach curl, knowing whoever is doing this has a mission, one that I can’t shake is tied to us.

“Haley Townson.” I say her name softly, a whisper of remembrance, “She was graduating valedictorian this year. That’s whose torso it was. This killer, he doesn’t care about being discreet or hiding. He wants us to know him.”

It would’ve been much easier for this unknown threat to go after someone with less popularity, a woman or girl that would draw less attention to their actions, but they are purposely going after targets with status.

They want to be caught. They want us to know we are the final target of these killings. If the bodies weren’t enough, the latest message scrawled across Hayley’s belly was.

I’ll only stop if you do.

Stop looking into things. Stop killing people on their payroll.

It’s a pendulum swinging lower and lower by the section. Either let it slice into you or give in. Either way, people are going to die, whether by the hand of a copycat murderer or sold into sex slavery.

Neither sits well with me, and it feels like this constant weight of picking the lesser evil.

I’m pulling my shirt off my head, leaving me in nothing but a bra and underwear, when Briar catches me off guard with her next question.

“You don’t think it’s Thatcher? Copying his dad’s technique? It would make the most sense—”

“No, it wouldn’t,” I interrupt, my eyebrows furrowed, watching my face fall in the wall-length mirror in front of me. “You can think what you want about him, but the last thing he would do is put the boys at risk. You have to know that. Regardless of who his father was, he would not do that to them. Leaving random body parts around would do nothing but bring unwanted attention. So no, I don’t think it’s Thatch. You shouldn’t either.”

He’s also too precise and too talented to sling his work out in public, but I can’t say that. I promised him I wouldn’t say anything about what he told me or showed.I’d given him my word, and his extracurricular activities aren’t my secrets to share.

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