Page 55 of Sinister Legacy
The same pillow King slept on.
Mom disappears, returning a few minutes later with a pair of jogging bottoms. “Put these on, dear.”
“The killer was in my room.” My voice is stronger now. I look up at my mom as she holds my pants out. “When will it end, Mom? When will this nightmare be over?”
Her voice crackles with pain. “I don’t know…” Then, weaker, “I don’t know…”
Without looking away from her blue, glassy eyes, I accept the pants and get dressed in silence.
It doesn’t take long for the house to swarm with police.
Officer Wells exchanges a few words with my mom and squeezes my shoulder reassuringly before disappearing upstairs with Officer Riveiro.
* * *
I’m lying on the hotel bed, gazing up at the ceiling, when my phone lights up with a message.
King: Why the fuck are you not at school?
I stare at the message for too long before letting my gaze trail to the large windows. The sky has clouded over, and the gloomy, gray weather matches the emptiness inside me.
I can’t shake the image of Jasper’s severed head. Every time I close my eyes, it’s there. My room is now a crime scene, so Officer Wells set us up at a hotel for a few nights while they scour my room for evidence.
Mom is sitting on the bed beside mine and staring out of the window too, while my stepdad pours a cup of instant coffee.
The teaspoon clinks against the mug as he stands with his tense back to us.
No one speaks.
More messages light up my screen.
Liam: Are you okay, baby? I’m getting worried.
Cassie: Sienna and Amanda said your house is swarmed with cop cars. What happened? Are you okay?
King: If you don’t answer my messages, I’m gonna hunt you the fuck down. Why are there cop cars outside your house?
Madison: Are you okay, babe? We’re all worried about you.
I don’t respond to a single one.
The guilt that festers in my heart is slowly eating me up from the inside. None of my friends are safe until I’m gone. I wish the killer would come after me and end this nightmare.
“I can’t just sit here,” Mom whispers.
My stepdad puts the spoon down carefully on the saucer, then slowly turns and takes a sip. “What are you going to do? Go to work and pretend like your daughter didn’t wake up with a damn decapitated head on her pillow? Are you going to pretend everything is fine? That we’re not displaced in a hotel room while the police dust every surface of the house for fingerprints?” He slurps his coffee, his tie hanging loose. “You’re not a fucking robot.”
With a scoff, Mom gets up off the bed and storms into the bathroom, slamming the door shut. She flips the lock and runs the bath.
My stepdad chuckles bitterly under his breath as he puts the scalding hot coffee down. His eyes land on me and his hand comes to his leather belt.
Like a tiger on the prowl, he stalks up to me and quickly unzips his pants. He leaves them open, and I spot the soft curls that peek through. He’s commando.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” he barks out, and my eyes flit to the bathroom door before I swallow thickly.
Mom could walk out at any minute, but that thought gets muffled beneath the storm of emotions that floods to the surface.
I finally feelsomething.
