Page 52 of The Beautiful Dead

All I knew was that my grandparents had died five years before I was born and that around the same time, Mom cut ties with Brielle. Completely.

The whitewashed building loomed tall and sterile, swallowing what little light remained in the sky. Domino’s SUV faded into the shadows, invisible from the care home, as I followed his instructions to a back entrance. It led through the gardens—a small, overgrown seating area abandoned except for the overflowing ashtray perched on a side table. Flowers spilled from cracked pots, their petals curling inward as night settled.

A cold wind stirred through my hair as I stepped up to the glass doors and tried the handle. Luckily, it was unlocked, and I slipped inside, shutting the door behind me with a quiet click.

Darkness blanketed the room. It took my eyes a long time to adjust, pulling shapes from the shadows—a sitting area, its worn-out couches and wingback chairs arranged around a dead fireplace. A flat-screen TV hung on the wall, powered down, its black screen reflecting the dim emergency lighting overhead.

The air was thick with antiseptic and something cloying, a sweetness that clung to the back of my throat, stubborn and nauseating. I moved carefully, my footsteps a whisper against the polished floors. The staff barely spared me a glance—I had learned how to make myself invisible, how to move through spaces without drawing attention.

It didn’t take long until I found the staff room near the end of the hall. The patient list was tacked to the wall next to the kitchenette, displaying names and room numbers. My fingers traced down the page until I found her. Angelica Cain – Room 213, Second Floor.

A floor plan was pinned beside it, showing the entire layout of the facility—including which staff members were assigned to each section and their scheduled breaks. A quick glance told me exactly what I needed to know. The two nurses on Mom’s floor were due for their break in the next five minutes.

Moving swiftly, I navigated the halls, counting my steps, keeping my breathing controlled. The building felt like a vacuum, as if sound barely carried past its walls.

Something nagged at the edges of my mind, a loose thread that I couldn’t place. I replayed my conversation with Arti at Denny’s, picking it apart, stitching the pieces together. Then it hit me. Arti wasn’t on shift tonight. His name was listed under the staff attending the conference—alongside Brielle and Brock.

A cold prickle ghosted down my spine as questions spiraled in my mind. Why had he been at Denny’s? Why had he said he was checking in on me?

The realization sent a cold spike through my chest, my pulse stuttering against my ribs. No one in this town was who they said they were. Not Brielle. Not Arti. Not Kyran. Not the staff who walked these halls with pleasant smiles and careful hands.

I didn’t know who I could trust—who was lying, who had their own agenda. It suddenly felt like everyone had an ulterior motive, a hidden piece of themselves they kept just out of reach.

Everyone except Domino.

He had never pretended to be anything other than what he was—a monster. A man who thrived living in the dark. A man who ended people’s lives without a trace of remorse, who kidnapped people from cemeteries and kept them in gilded cages. The irony wasn’t lost on me. I had more faith in the devil I knew than the ones who hid behind masks.

A soft shuffle of footsteps echoed down the hall. I tensed on instinct at the top of the stairs and spotted an open closet door. Just as one of the night staff rounded the corner toward the stairs, I slipped inside, pressing my back against the shelves stacked with linens and spare medical supplies.

The rhythmic click of his shoes against the polished wood floors sent a pulse of static through my veins. Each step sounded slower the closer he got. Measured. I held my breathas each second stretched into another like time was bending and distorting. Eventually, the sound faded, swallowed by the next floor.

A quiet sigh slipped from my lips. I didn’t waste another minute and raced down the hall to where mom’s room was on the map. The door to Room 213 stood at the end of the hall, her name scrawled in blue ink on the chart hooked beside it.

Name:Angelica Cain

Age:41

Condition:Critical

A red hashtag was stamped in the top right corner, a tiny detail that set my teeth on edge. The unease I’d been feeling since I stepped into this place curled tighter, twisting into something more suffocating. A warning light was flashing in the back of my mind, too urgent to ignore.

The handle to her room was ice beneath my fingers. I turned it slowly, the door groaning softly as I pushed it open. Mom’s room was dark, swallowed in muted shadows except for the glow of the heart monitor beside her bed. A steadybeep. Beep. Beep.Was the only sign she was still alive. I stepped inside and held my breath. My eyes darted over the room, cataloging every machine, every wire, every tube tethering her to life. That’s when I saw it—the ventilator.

Thick blue tubes had replaced the oxygen mask I’d grown so used to seeing. They snaked down her throat, forcing her body to breathe, her chest rising and falling in a slow, mechanical rhythm.

My breath hitched. My stomach clenched, and bile coated the back of my tongue.

Why hadn’t Brielle told me?

More importantly, why hadn’t sheaskedme?

I was listed as Mom’s medical proxy. No decision should have been made without my consent. But they hadn’t called. Hadn’t even let me see her for three weeks. Excuse after excuse, lie after lie. I clenched my fists, the heat of fury breaking through the numbing fear.

This wasn’t right.

Nothing about this was right.

I stepped closer, swallowing against the tightness in my throat. She looked… smaller. Sunken. Her once-thick, dark hair had thinned even more, strands of dull gray fanning across the pillow in messy tangles. Her skin had lost its lingering warmth, turning pale beneath the sterile LED glow.

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