Page 94 of Hollow

Chapter 30

Flint

Death has a particular stench. Not just the metallic tang of blood painting the moonlight silver-black, but something deeper. Older. A reminder that we’re all just walking meat sacks with expiration dates.

Viktor Bastian’s expiration date came about twenty years too late, in my opinion.

I stand over his body, the garden statue still clutched in my hands, its smooth stone surface now slick with blood and matter. My chest heaves as I try to catch my breath, adrenaline making my vision too sharp, too focused.

“Is he...” Briar’s voice comes from somewhere to my left, barely more than a whisper.

I force myself to kneel beside Viktor, pressing my fingers against his neck where a pulse should be. Nothing. Just cooling flesh and the unmistakable stillness of death. A moment ago, this man was breathing, thinking, threatening.

Now he’s just... meat.

“He’s dead.” I sound strangely calm to my own ears.

I look up at Damiano, still struggling to breathe after nearly having his windpipe crushed, then at Briar huddled against the stone bench, blood trickling from her split lip where Viktor struck her. The moonlight makes her nightgown glow unnaturally white, like some kind of fucked-up ghost bride. And between us lies Viktor, a spreading pool of darkness seeping from his shattered skull.

Three dead Bastian brothers. One for each of us to carry.

“We need to move.” I drop the statue with a soft thud on the gravel beside Viktor’s body. “Now.”

Damiano nods, rubbing his bruised throat. “Same place,” he manages to rasp.

“Jesus Christ.” A hysterical laugh bubbles up from somewhere deep inside me. “Why not? It’s already turning into a fucking family plot.”

“Stop.” Briar comes across stronger than I expect. She rises unsteadily to her feet, but there’s something hard in her eyes when she looks at Viktor’s body. “We need to think this through first.”

“What’s there to think about?” I gesture to the corpse between us. “Another Bastian brother, another grave. Tradition at this point.”

“Flint,” Damiano says in a broken whisper, but it stops me cold. “She’s right. This is different.”

“How?” I demand, anger surging through me,hot and welcome after the cold shock of what I’ve done. “This piece of shit was going to rape her. Would have killed you. Probably me next. What’s different?”

“There’s a high chance people know he’s here,” Briar says quietly. “At the party, he was talking to Locke. People saw him put on the mask and leave. We can assume people knew he was coming after me.”

The truth of her words hits me like a second blow. Shit. She’s right. Viktor wasn’t some random partygoer like Liam, disappearing into the night unnoticed. He’s the head of security at The Vault. Everyone saw him tonight.

“Fuck.” I exhale, running a blood-streaked hand through my hair. “Fuck!”

“We stick with the truth,” Damiano says, his voice still raw. “As much as we can.”

“Which is what?” I snap. “That I caved his skull in with a garden statue?”

“Self-defense,” Briar says firmly. “He attacked me. You both saved me.” She gestures to her torn nightgown, the blood on her face. “It’s not a lie.”

Damiano and I exchange a look over Viktor’s body. She’s not wrong. If we’d called the police right now, explained what happened, we might actually get away with it. Self-defense is plausible. The bruises forming on her wrists, the defensive wounds on her arms, the state of her clothes—they tell the story without us having to say a word.

But there’s Liam. And Erik before him. Too many bodies for coincidence.

“They’ll start digging,” I say, voicing what I know Damiano is thinking. “Literally. If we involve the police on a possible murder investigation, they could search these grounds. Find the other graves.”

Briar’s head snaps up, her eyes widening. “Graves? As in plural?” She looks between us, realization dawning on her face. “You buried Erik here too? In the maze?”

Damiano and I exchange a loaded glance.

“Yes. Near the north corner. It’s why I knew this place would work for Liam. The soil composition, the plants that grow best...” Damiano says.

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