Page 49 of Kings & Chaos

EMMA IS GONE. LEAVE IT ALONE.

I heard the sharp intake of my own breath, my gaze focused on the only words that mattered.

Emma is gone.

I dropped the piece of paper like I’d been burned and stared down at it.

Rock put his arm around me. “Fucking assholes. Who even reads magazines anymore?”

I stuffed down the maniacal laughter that rose in my throat. The letter didn’t say Emma was dead — it said she was gone — but my eyes snagged on that single word.

I knew what it meant, could feel the intention behind the words.

I’d always guessed she was dead, because no matter what my mom said, I knew Emma wouldn’t leave without telling me, but seeing it spelled out with creepy mismatched magazine letters was like a slice to my heart.

“There’s something else,” Oscar said, reaching into the box.

He looked at an object in his hand, then set it down on the stack of pictures.

I shrank back from it: a thin yellow rope tied with red ribbon.

“Is that… my hair?” I almost choked on the words.

Neo picked it up and held the bundle of gold next to my head. “Definitely the same shade.” He turned away and paced to the window. “Motherfucker.”

My head was buzzing, blackness encroaching on my vision the way it did when I stood at the edge of the quarry.

Rock crossed the kitchen to the sink and ran water into a glass, then returned and set it on the island front of me.

I took a drink on reflex, surprised that the cool water actually did clear my head a little.

He squeezed my shoulders. “This is fucked up. Do you want to sit down?”

I shook my head. I wanted… I didn’t know what I wanted. I guess I wanted to go back to the way things were before.

Before Emma disappeared and before my life was defined by her disappearance.

No, even before that. Back to when my dad was still around and I had been stupid enough to think that everything was okay.

I fumbled for one of the chairs at the island and Rock pulled it out for me so I could sit.

Neo pushed the pictures toward me. “Is there anything that jumps out at you about these? Anything that might help us figure out who this asshole is?”

I picked up the stack of pictures.

Me at Syd’s the one and only time I’d gone with Rock.

Under that, an image that made my face burn: the back of Neo’s body, against the Maserati, my hair just visible beyond his shoulder.

Then, me in the cafeteria, laughing at Claire.

Me, walking across campus with Oscar, my hair blowing across my face.

Me, standing at the edge of the cliff at the quarry, my back to the camera.

Me and Rock in the hot tub, Rock’s head between my thighs.

Me and Rock at Cassie’s Cuppa, clearly having an intense conversation.

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