Page 69 of Sinister Legacy
“This morning.”
“He’s probably fucking Keira in a bathroom somewhere,” I mutter, picking up my fork and stirring it through the sloppy pasta on the plate.
“No, he’s not,” Ava says, nudging her head in the direction of the football table, where Keira sits on Liam’s lap. The latter is smiling too big, looking far too pleased with himself. Keira is a ghost—pale, distant, and washed out.
Knowing your serial killer father is months away from being executed is bound to have that effect on anyone. Not to mention the brutal murders taking place here in Blackwoods.
My eyes skate to Jasper’s empty chair. His silence still screams loudly, but it’s even worse now that Kit and King are missing too.
Madison walks past in a cloud of fruity perfume, and I circle my fingers around her bony wrist and pull her to a stop. “Have you seen Kit today?”
“Not yet, no,” she replies, eyeing us all before placing her tray down and sidling in beside Ava. She wears silver hoop earrings that brush her shoulders, and her chin-length hair is hidden beneath her bobble hat. I wonder briefly if she ever takes it off.
“Where’s King?” she asks, unscrewing the lid on her apple juice.
Madison is one of the rare girls here at school who flits between friend groups. She fits in everywhere and nowhere all at once. While she’s social by nature, she’s also a lone wolf. And only Keira seems to have made it past her highly erected walls.
Ava leans back in her seat and slides her fingers over one of her braids. “We haven’t seen him since this morning, and he isn’t answering his phone.”
“Maybe he went home?”
“It’s not like him not to tell us,” Kara points out, her eyes watery and wide with silent pleas. “He always lets us know.”
Madison reaches across the table and takes her quivering hand. I follow suit, and we all hold hands in the middle of the table in solidarity. As I look out the window, my heart frosts over. Ambulances and police cars are lining up outside, their sirens falling silent.
“What the hell?” I breathe out, slowly rising to my feet.
Exchanging a look with Ava and Kara, I hurry out of the cafeteria. Something really fucking bad has happened. My gut instinct tells me as much.
As I run down the hallway, shoving my way through groups of students congregated near the front doors, I see King. He’s bloody and unconscious on a stretcher.
The paramedics wheel him out into the gray afternoon and load him into the back of the ambulance.
“King!” I shout, rushing down the front steps and nearly falling on my face in the process. It’s drizzling, but the cold rain on my cheeks barely registers as I stumble into a wall of officers who tell me to step back.
Ava pulls me into her arms, while Kara tries to get answers from anyone willing to divulge what the hell happened.
As the ambulance’s sirens blare to life, Madison’s glassy eyes meet mine. We’re truly stuck in a nightmare with no end in sight. Kara looks visibly shaken up, and Ava lets me go to soothe her, too.
Out of all of us, I was the closest to King. Yes, we fucked from time to time before the dare changed it all, but I considered him my friend. I trusted him more than anyone else.
And now the killer got to him, too?
Is King even alive?
Though we’re not close, Madison pulls me into her arms. She smells of strawberry bubblegum, fruity perfume, and coconut shampoo.
I cling to her fleecy jumper inside her unzipped puffer jacket. “I don’t know what to do.”
She stays silent, hugging me closer, and that’s what I need more than reassuring, soothing words.
Stepping back, Ava looks from Kara to Madison and me. “Let’s go to the hospital.”
“I’m not close to King,” Madison points out, releasing me and throwing her thumb over her shoulder. “I’ll head back inside. See if I can find out some information. Someone must have seen something, right?”
We watch her leave, and then Kara wipes her wet cheeks and says, “Even if we go to the hospital, they’ll never let us see him.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Ava’s voice is thick with conviction as she tightens her khaki wrap coat. “They’ll let him know we’re there for him. For when he comes out.”
