Page 302 of Love Bites

“Would you like me to dish up your plate?”

As I looked up at him, he split into two Wolfgangs. I blinked him back into one. “Whoa. That was weird.”

“What?” Two Wolfgangs asked in unison.

I blinked again and rubbed my eyes. When I opened them, the twins were still there. “Something is wrong with my eyes.”

“What is it?”

The world turned on an axis and began to whirl. I reached for the table and missed, listing away from both Wolfgangs. “I’m a little dizzy.”

“Violet.”

I shook my head, trying to clear it, and made myself tilt further. “I think I need to sit down.”

“You are sitting.” The Wolfgangs squatted next to me.

“Oh. Then I’m in …” my eyelashes felt like tiny anchors. So heavy. My lids plunged. “Trouble.”

The chair bucked me off. My head thumped on the floor.

There was pain, dim in the shadows. Then darkness.

* * *

Something was stabbingme in the neck.

I moaned. Everything was muddled, echoing, dark.

I leaned my head to the side, stretching. Pain! Shooting into my brain.Jesus!Inhaling sharply, I gagged.What was that rancid smell?

I opened my eyes, blinking as my pupils adjusted in the flickers of dim light, and stared across a table … at the stitched-shut eyelids of a corpse.

Sucking in a gasp, I choked on the underlying stench of what must have been decaying flesh.

I tried to look away, but my watery eyes devoured the dried face—skin stretched tight across cheekbones, two holes that used to be the nose, lips sewn closed. Tangled blonde hair was matted against the small skull.

Panting, my tunnel vision widened. I now saw corpses on either side of me, tied to their chairs, just like the one across the table.

Cramps buckled my stomach.

The small one on my left was losing its blonde, wavy tresses in clumps, its bony skull visible in several areas. The skin resembled flat, tan-colored jerky; the eyes also sewn shut with what looked like black fishing line; the nose missing; the lips sealed with black cross-stitches.

I gulped down a wave of nausea clawing its way to the surface.

The corpse on my right appeared to be fresher, the skin not as withered, the long, straight blonde hair pinned back with barrettes. Another young girl. Her eyelids sewn, her nose shrunken in, and lips thin in death under the sutures. Just sleeping. That’s all, just sleeping, I told myself; and this all was a very bad dream. It had to be.

Then I recognized her. The last picture I’d seen of her had been black-and-white. The wordsMissing Girlacross the top of the page.

My heart thumped hard in my chest, hammering in my ears.

No!My gaze darted to the other two mummified girls, my memory matching clothing descriptions, my brain finishing the puzzle.No! No! No!

Somebody was screaming.

A hand crammed a rag in my mouth, and the screaming stopped.

I tried to sit forward, to free my voice. A sharp pang in my shoulders stopped me. I whimpered and tugged at my hands, which were tied behind my back.

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