Page 69 of Deception

Hers.

Perhaps this was the room Olive dreaded seeing the most.

Because this room would remind her of the last normal year of her life.

By the time she’d reached sixteen, she’d known her family was anything but normal. But living here and being with Jason represented a sweet time in her life, nonetheless.

After leaving Oasis, her family had been murdered.

Life as she knew it had been over, never to return again.

The house back in Indiana . . . it had been torn down after four people were murdered there. No one wanted to live there after what had happened. So Olive had never revisited the memories there—not that she’d want to.

This was the first time she’d ever gone back to one of her childhood homes.

She wasn’t sure this was such a good idea. But she wasn’t turning back now.

Olive swallowed hard and opened the door to her room.

Her lungs tightened again.

It was almost like this place had been left as a shrine.

She clearly pictured herself sitting on her bed doing her nails. Listening to Taylor Swift. Talking with Jason on the phone.

Her mind kept getting swept back in time, filling her chest with a distinct bittersweet feeling.

Then another creak sounded.

The next second, a shadow lunged at her from the darkness.

CHAPTER 38

The figure threw Olive against the wall.

Pain reverberated through her shoulder. But she didn’t have time to think about it. She only had time to act.

She gripped her gun, starting to turn it.

Before she could take aim, the man—she was certain the figure attacking her was male—slammed her hand into the wall.

The gun slipped from her grasp and clattered to the floor.

No!

But it was too late.

Now her only choice was hand-to-hand combat.

Before the man could slam her into the wall again, she twisted. Tried to get a good look at him. But the man wore a ski mask that obstructed his features.

“Who are you?” she asked.

He only grunted and lunged at her again.

This time, she moved out of the way, and he smashed into the wall.

A picture crashed to the floor, the glass shattering into large shards.

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