Page 25 of The Blood we Crave: Part Two

As if that alone wasn’t enough, another girl had shown up at Black Sands Cove. A tourist found the severed arm resting in a lounge chair, with a single rose, a neat little bow, and a message carved deep into the flesh.

Can you catch a ghost?

This killer is good. They’ve successfully avoided arrest, possibly due to the fact the police are too busy pinning it on Thatcher, but it doesn’t take away from the facts.

That they are good.

Smart. Precise. Clean.

An eerie chill snakes down my spine, and it has little to do with the movie. I know it’s physically impossible for Henry Pierson to return to Ponderosa Springs. That it was someone else, someone involved with the Halo.

But I know everything about the Butcher of the Spring. Leaving roses was not from the original killings, but everything else has been. The body parts left in the open with bows and messages for the police to find. No other remains recovered. Women of all ages and backgrounds.

I know it isn’t him. But sometimes, my mind likes to tell me it is. Late in the night, this overwhelming feeling of déjà vu would overtake me. Like he was coming for me, and just like my mother, I’d be his very last victim.

Fate tying up loose ends that should’ve been cut years ago.

“Shit!” Sage lets out a tiny scream, making me jump, and I turn towards the screen to see one of the side characters being dragged off-screen by something very large with nasty claws.

I let out a breath, reminding myself that tonight none of the other stuff matters. Tonight, it’s just this. The unhealthy snacks and scary movies. Jokes and laughter. It feels like a balm against our tired souls.

We aren’t victims. There is no debauched sex ring or killers running amok. We’re just girls in college, experiencing life the way so many others do. It’s these moments, just like this, that make it all worth it. That remind me how badly I want us all to make it out on the other side.

So that these moments turn into a lifetime.

“You’re such a chicken shit! You picked this movie,” Briar laughs, throwing a jelly bean in her direction. “I thought weed was supposed to mellow you out?”

“I told Rook that new stuff makes me paranoid as fuck.” She hides behind her hands, giggling as her red hair falls in front of her face.

The high from the pre-rolled joint (thank you, Rook) still lingers in my bones, making me feel heavy yet weightless, as if my limbs weighed a ton but could still take flight if I jumped.

I’m not a huge drug or alcohol user, but weed is nice for nights like these. A way to forget, to put the world outside on pause and exist in the now.

The sleepy phase starts to trickle into the back of my mind. All the euphoria and laughter from earlier, the random food cravings, are starting to catch up, and my eyes grow heavy.

We only return to the movie for a few silent seconds before Sage is speaking again, probably in hopes of breaking the ominous vibe the movie is throwing across the room.

“Sooo,” she hums, scooping the bottle of strawberry vodka up from the floor, “I know we said we wouldn’t talk about the elephant in the room. But I’m a nosey bitch.”

Briar perks up from the couch, like she’s been waiting for our bold friend to make the first move towards this conversation.

“What do you mean?” I ask dumbly, spinning my candy between my fingers.

“She means, what’s it like living with Count Dracula upstairs,” Briar answers, wiggling her eyebrows suggestively. “Does he sleep in a coffin?”

Warmth spreads to my face, and suddenly, the burning fire feels a little too hot. I’ve always been fine chatting with them about Rook and Alistair—it’s fun, but I’m not the girl at the slumber party with boy gossip.

I’ve never even been the girl at the slumber party.

“It’s not really that different from living alone,” I say, trying to sweep the situation beneath the rug. “He doesn’t come out much. We barely see each other.”

He has nightmares, I want to say. Horrible nightmares that I can hear from the hall, in my room. The bed creaks beneath his terror, and he shouts nonsense into the night.

But I don’t think he’s even aware of them.

“I don’t blame him.”

“Hey!” I laugh, smacking Briar’s leg.

---