Page 49
I can’t see much else from my vantage point, however, I’m positive there isn’t anyone up here. Not anyone alive, anyway.
“Let’s go,” I whisper, making my way towards the room, gritting my teeth as the smell worsens.
As soon as I breach the entrance, I stop short, causing Jay to collide into my back.
On the floor is a massive pool of dried blood, a dead man lying directly in the middle of it. He’s bloated, well into the process of decomposition.
“Jesus, fuck,” Jay mutters, as we both stare down at the stranger, disgust curling our faces. Dead bodies don’t bother me, but their rot will curdle the strongest stomach.
Immediately, I notice dry bloody footprints leading from the corpse and toward the doorway we’re standing in. Grabbing my phone, I click on the light and follow the footprints down the hallway and toward the second staircase.
“Female,” he says, confirming my thoughts. I get closer, taking care not to step in the blood. “You think they’re Addie’s?”
“Most likely,” I murmur. The prints are tiny and barefoot. Unless they took other females alongside Addie, I doubt they’re anyone else’s.
I sweep the corners of the room, locating several cameras pointing in different directions.
“Cameras,” I call out, stepping around the blood and farther into the room. Those will confirm whose prints they belong to.
My heart pounds as I take in Frankenstein's lair. Several machines are set up, a long metal table with a copious amount of instruments, and a bed with a blanket laid haphazardly across it.
“He’s been dead for several days,” Jay observes. “Shot in the head. From the back.”
I listen to him prattle on about his death as I scan every inch of the room.
“Let’s follow the footprints,” I mumble, my brow pinched as I try to piece together what could’ve happened.
Following close behind, Jay and I make our way back down the hallway and up the second stairwell. The landing opens directly into a studio apartment. Straight ahead, the entire wall is all glass, giving the room incredible natural light. A massive bed is in the middle of the area to my left with a small kitchenette to the right, dishes still in the sink and now attracting flies.
In the back corner of the apartment is a white tiled partition with a shower stall behind it.
The footprints lead all the way to it, and in the corner is a bloody hospital gown, dried and wrinkled now.
I stare, trying to process what the hell happened.
“Somehow… she was involved with that man’s death. And then it looks like she walked up here and showered,” Jay concludes.
I shake my head, coming to the same conclusion. Fury is seeping into my vision, casting everything in red.
“Either she or someone else shot him from behind,” I surmise. “Most likely someone else if she was covered in his blood and then had to shower it off.”
“You think she was in front of him?” Jay questions curiously.
“Or under him,” I grunt, hands beginning to shake as images of Addie being attacked by the man downstairs flood my head. Whatever he was attempting to do to her, it was bad enough that a human trafficker had to step in and kill him for it.
My hand goes flying into the nearest wall, breaking straight through it. Like a malfunctioning robot, I cock it back and drive it through a second time. And a third, a fourth, a fifth, before Jay’s hands wrap around my arm and using my momentum, yanks me backward. I stumble, and we both come close to falling from the force.
“Snap out of it, dude,” he barks, sweat gathered across his hairline.
I growl and roughly shake my head, like a lion shaking off a hit to the head. My knuckles are split, droplets of blood dribbling on the cement floor.
“We’ll have to clean up any traces of your blood,” he mutters.
“She could’ve been hurt,” I clip, ignoring him. I’m ready to storm back downstairs and beat the shit out of a dead man. Torture him in the worst imaginable ways, despite him not being able to feel a damn thing.
Fuck. So badly, I want to tear through whatever veil separates the dead from the living, reach in, snatch his soul back out, and make him wish he never had one.
Every muscle in my body is locked tight and brimming with tension.
Table of Contents
- Page 1
- Page 2
- Page 3
- Page 4
- Page 5
- Page 6
- Page 7
- Page 8
- Page 9
- Page 10
- Page 11
- Page 12
- Page 13
- Page 14
- Page 15
- Page 16
- Page 17
- Page 18
- Page 19
- Page 20
- Page 21
- Page 22
- Page 23
- Page 24
- Page 25
- Page 26
- Page 27
- Page 28
- Page 29
- Page 30
- Page 31
- Page 32
- Page 33
- Page 34
- Page 35
- Page 36
- Page 37
- Page 38
- Page 39
- Page 40
- Page 41
- Page 42
- Page 43
- Page 44
- Page 45
- Page 46
- Page 47
- Page 48
- Page 49 (Reading here)
- Page 50
- Page 51
- Page 52
- Page 53
- Page 54
- Page 55
- Page 56
- Page 57
- Page 58
- Page 59
- Page 60
- Page 61
- Page 62
- Page 63
- Page 64
- Page 65
- Page 66
- Page 67
- Page 68
- Page 69
- Page 70
- Page 71
- Page 72
- Page 73
- Page 74
- Page 75
- Page 76
- Page 77
- Page 78
- Page 79
- Page 80
- Page 81
- Page 82
- Page 83
- Page 84
- Page 85
- Page 86
- Page 87
- Page 88
- Page 89
- Page 90
- Page 91
- Page 92
- Page 93
- Page 94
- Page 95
- Page 96
- Page 97
- Page 98
- Page 99
- Page 100
- Page 101
- Page 102
- Page 103
- Page 104
- Page 105
- Page 106
- Page 107
- Page 108
- Page 109
- Page 110
- Page 111
- Page 112
- Page 113
- Page 114
- Page 115
- Page 116
- Page 117
- Page 118
- Page 119
- Page 120
- Page 121
- Page 122
- Page 123
- Page 124
- Page 125
- Page 126
- Page 127
- Page 128
- Page 129
- Page 130
- Page 131
- Page 132
- Page 133
- Page 134
- Page 135
- Page 136
- Page 137
- Page 138
- Page 139
- Page 140
- Page 141
- Page 142
- Page 143
- Page 144
- Page 145
- Page 146
- Page 147
- Page 148
- Page 149
- Page 150
- Page 151
- Page 152
- Page 153
- Page 154
- Page 155
- Page 156
- Page 157
- Page 158
- Page 159
- Page 160
- Page 161
- Page 162
- Page 163
- Page 164
- Page 165
- Page 166
- Page 167
- Page 168
- Page 169
- Page 170
- Page 171
- Page 172
- Page 173
- Page 174
- Page 175
- Page 176
- Page 177
- Page 178
- Page 179
- Page 180
- Page 181
- Page 182
- Page 183
- Page 184
- Page 185
- Page 186
- Page 187
- Page 188
- Page 189
- Page 190
- Page 191
- Page 192
- Page 193
- Page 194
- Page 195
- Page 196
- Page 197
- Page 198
- Page 199
- Page 200
- Page 201
- Page 202
- Page 203
- Page 204
- Page 205
- Page 206
- Page 207
- Page 208
- Page 209
- Page 210
- Page 211
- Page 212
- Page 213
- Page 214
- Page 215
- Page 216
- Page 217
- Page 218
- Page 219
- Page 220
- Page 221
- Page 222
- Page 223
- Page 224
- Page 225
- Page 226
- Page 227
- Page 228
- Page 229
- Page 230
- Page 231
- Page 232
- Page 233