Page 21 of Letters to the Lost

Positioning Keyon in the trunk, not wanting him too banged up before we can talk to him, I make sure he’s secure enough before getting back into the driver’s seat, the others already ready to go.

The drive back to Kelvin’s house is a breeze until about five minutes before we get there, the sound of someone kicking the side of my trunk and muffled yells coming from the back of the SUV making me groan.

“If he damages my car, I’m going to kill him,” I moan.

“Can I kill him anyway?” Dominic pipes up, his knife glinting from the back seat as he twirls it between his fingers, the newly etched emblem making my lips twitch. My Princess still hasn’t gotten to see it yet, and I cannot wait until she does.

“No, you can’t just kill him for no reason,” Sebastian sighs “Even if I want you to since I still have his drool on my shirt.”

“But he had something to do with that camera getting into Autumn’s room, so he deserves it.”

“We don’t know that yet Dominic.”

As they both bicker, I look into the passenger seat where Tobias sits looking out of the window. He hasn’t been the same since he found Autumn, he’s been reserved.

“You ok man?” I ask him, flicking my eyes over to look at him.

“Honestly? Not at all. I can’t get the image of her in that water out of my head. I also keep playing the what-if game. What if I never went to check on her? If we all gave her space all night like we have every time after she’s had therapy trying to respect her boundaries.”

His eyes taking on that faraway look, remembering how he found her in that water. I don’t think any of us will ever be the same after this.

I walked into the bathroom today to quickly grab something I had left in there and I felt like my knees were going to give out when I saw the bathtub. It was empty and the room was now spotless, with no signs of what she tried to do. But it didn’t matter to my brain, all I could see was her blood-stained water covering the floor and her lifeless eyes staring back at me. Shaking those thoughts away, I look back to Tobias, making sure to keep my eyes on the road. Keyon’s muffled shouts still sounded from the trunk.

“She’s alive, that is all that matters now. I get it man, I do. But dwelling on what happened won’t help,” I tell him.

“I guess so,” he mutters before looking back out of the window.

Managing to get a thrashing Keyon into the basement without knocking him out again proves to be a challenge, but a few head knocks on passing doorways on our way to the basement quietens him.

“Where do you want him?” I grunt wanting to get this started.

“On the chair.” Dominic nods to the singular metal chair in the room, something he had made to be unbreakable so there is no chance of escape.

“Are you going to tell us what we want to know? Or do I have to ask nicely?” Dominic goads a now restrained Keyon.

A garbled chuckle sounds from Keyon, a smirk kicks up his mouth as he eyes us all.

“What’s the point? I’m a dead man anyway,” he says despondently.

“Well yes, but you can be a dead man quickly or we can drag this out,” Dominic says while brandishing his knife from his pocket.

“You won’t do anything of the sort, you are just boys playing gangster,” Keyon spits, his saliva just narrowly missing Dominic’s shoe.

“We’ll see,” Dominic seethes, anger blazing in his light blue eyes.

Dominic walks over to the black matte table next to the wall, his tattooed fingers trail over the tools laid out in front of him, pausing on the hawksbill forceps. His usual mischievous demeanor disappears, his eyes turning lifeless, his breathing steady.

Any signs of the boy Autumn fell in love with has disappeared as he prepares to get the information from Keyon by any means necessary.

“How many teeth do you think I’ll have to remove before he finally gives up the information we need?” Dominic asks us, “Shall we place a bet? The winner gets the next date with our girl.”

“No bets Dominic, just get what we need. We’ll be in the sitting room, let us know as soon as you get it,” Tobias says, his tone unsteady. None of us love being around our friend when he’s like this, he becomes unpredictable and while I’m sure he wouldn’t hurt one of us, there is no guarantee.

When he’s far enough off the edge, Dominic doesn’t see people, he sees problems that only his knife can fix.

He becomes the demon that Mrs. McKay claims he is, the one before us bigger and scarier than anything we’ve ever seen from him. The man in the chair put our girl in danger, could have been the one to place the cameras and that’s earned him death.

The only question is when?

---