Page 47 of Seduce & Destroy

“Are you alright?”

“It’s the chill.” She replied.

I covered her hands with mine. “I just need to get some tools to hang this up, okay?”

She nodded as I let go.

“Father!” I yelled as I halfway skipped down the hallway. “Where is the tool kit?” When I heard no response, I shouted, “Neenan?” Silently, I returned to the living room where Neenan and father were huddled over a particular painting. “What is it?” As I got closer, I saw that it wasn’t a painting, it was an image. It was one of the last group pictures that proudly displayed the union of the Ravencroft and Karstein families.

Father laid a finger on a girl in the second row from the front. My eyes followed the line of women before her. “Oh my god, is that the woman from the painting? She’s so pretty. A great grandmother maybe?” I continued looking along the line, to where I found the youngest girl.

“Get these pictures out of my face!” Father spat.

My heart skipped a beat. “No.” I protested, but I wasn’t entirely sure why. There was something so strikingly familiar about this image.

“It couldn’t be.”

PART II

A very strange agony

Chapter 18

KENNA

Ashift in the air warned me when Laney came back into the room, routinely looking over her shoulder, but the wariness dissipated when she turned her attention back to the painting.

“I need to make this house more friendly, don’t you think? What if we put this beside my mirror? Or wait–no, oh,” She exclaimed. “Wouldn’t it hang nicely above the fireplace!” Her excitement was not all the way entirely genuine.

I looked up at her on a small stool as she fixed a couple nails into the wall. For once taller than me. The house was unusually quiet. I could see the guard conjugate as normal outside on the lawn from Laney’s window. It appeared as a picture of normality, but something was off.

“Hmm.” I responded, wiggling my eyebrows at her, joking. “So, you can stare at me while in bed? I like it.”

“More like you can stare at yourself.” She forced a chuckle and then got quiet. “Can you hold this up for me?”

I stood immediately and held the frame against the wall.

My eyes strayed from the task at hand. I knew Laney was wary of me. In the last couple of days, I felt strange—like an insurmountable canyon was being filled with water, and I was stuck at the bottom. The conversation with the guy in the forest had me on edge. His energy had been inconsistent, unpredictable, and that, with mounting tension on the estate, made me anxious.

“Is there something you’d like to say?” Laney broke the silence.

I stumbled for a response. “Just how beautiful you are.”

She blushed and looked away again, but there was something more she was withholding.

One of the guards from outside the window looked me dead in the eye then, and it made the blood drain from my face, feeling suddenly faint.

“I’m sorry,” I muttered to Laney, feeling as if static flooded my brain. “I need to sit.”

“Are you alright?” Her voice filled with concern.

I dismissed her. “Yeah, yeah, just let me—” I fell into a chair, but as I did a sharp pain ripped through my backside. I searched for the offending item underneath me, and laughed, nervously.

“Kenna,” She jumped from her stool. “Please, don’t open that.”

I shook the box lightly, eliciting a dampened rattle sound. It was a wonder I didn’t squash it when I sat down.

When my thoughts cleared, pleading eyes stared at me. “Please,” she said.