Page 53 of Heart of a Killer

“Ew! That fucking stinks, Leland. You’ve been coming down here with the doctor?”

“It’s Alex, but yeah.”

“Um, yeah, when the fuck are you going to explain that shit to me?”

Skylar speaks up from behind me. “Maybe once we get out of here?”

“Good idea. Step one, get the fuck out of here. Step two, find out when the fuck you became Alex. Got it.”

Alex—that’s going to take some getting used to—leads us down the stairs. There are ancient silver tubs lining the center of the room, and a chair with straps sits in the back corner. What the fuck? He was old-school torturing Alex down here. I’m glad I killed that asshole; he deserved every bit of pain I gave him. The basement is shrouded in darkness, with only the light from the hallway penetrating it. I can’t tell where Alex is heading until he opens a door that blends in with the wall.

“Come on.” He gestures for us to follow.

“Do you even know what’s down there?” I press.

“No, but do you want to stay here instead?”

“Uh, no, thank you.” I guess beggars can’t be choosers when attempting to escape a mental hospital after murdering their doctor.

“That’s what I thought,” Alex says.

He starts down another set of stairs. Skylar and I follow behind him down into the dark, dank unknown. I’m not sure anyone has been here in years, but thankfully, orange lights faintly illuminate the stairs. Several of the bulbs are dead or broken. There are spurts of time where I have to hold on to Skylar’s shoulders to ensure I don’t miss a step.

Once we reach the ground level, a sloshing perks my ears up. Skylar squeals, and I immediately discover why when I’m met with an icy-cold chill. Water hits my ankles, and a shiver runs up my spine. This must be an old drainage pipe underneath the city.

“I think we should take a right,” I suggest. The only logic behind this is that I favor the right to the left inallsituations.

But Alex shuts me down. “No, we are going left.”

“How do you know?” Skylar asks.

“Because...” Alex crouches down to look closer at the water. “You see the flow of the water here? It isn’t stagnant. It’s moving downhill. Which means it’s moving toward an exit point.”

“Okay, that makes sense.”

Skylar seems satisfied, and I’m just here for the ride at this point. Get me out of this fake hospital.

20

Skylar

We’ve been walking this tunnel for what feels like hours, all silent except for the sounds of sloshing water. None of us seem to want to talk; for once, I’m reveling in the quiet. I’m still trying to process what I saw Brie do. The way she skinned the doctor’s manhood. The memory of it sends a shiver down my spine.

Just, wow! Don’t fuck with her. She’s crazier than Alex.

The stench of sewage has subsided—or maybe I’ve just grown accustomed to the smell. The most annoying aspect of the tunnel now is the water. My slip-on patient shoes rub on my ankles with each step, and my feet start getting itchy. I’m almost positive they are worse than raisins.

“Hey, do you see that?” Brie points ahead to a black lump.

“Yeah. What is that?”

“I don’t know,” she whispers.

We continue walking, approaching it, because it’s in the way of our exit. Alex throws his arm out in front of us when it begins to move. My heart beats out of my chest so hard that I hear the blood rushing in my ears, but my eyes have another plan in mind. They travel along his forearms, admiring his muscles and prominent veins, causing me to bite my lip. I shake my head as we inch closer to the strange thing in our path.

Skylar, get it together; this is not the time to fantasize about your half-brother.

Small bodies are moving together, almost writhing in a mass.

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