Page 22 of All the Things We Buried

TWENTY ONE

DORIAN

I sat in the basement, staring at the photo of the chosen ones. Ezekiel, Vivian, Lenore, and I. A green background. A gold frame. Smiles stretched across our faces like we were some happy family.

But we were anything but that.

The wall where the old black phone used to hang was open now.

I had to cut it myself. Behind the drywall, I found eighteen bodies, crammed like forgotten dolls.

Faces I recognized from the missing persons flyers taped up after the robbery.

Salt circled them and masked the stench, dried their skin until it looked paper-thin, enough to see the carved letters, identical to the ones Lenore carved to her skin.

But none of it matters now.

She’s gone.

And I’m the one left to bury what’s left.

She was broken. More than I ever was.

After a few pulled nails and some shattered ribs, Ezekiel finally confessed.

He took her when she was just three. Said he and his wife couldn’t have children.

At first, she was meant to go behind the wall, like the others.

But his wife got attached. Too attached.

She built that room upstairs just for her.

What she didn’t know was that the room had already been there. And it had changed. It always changed.

For Ian and me, it was a hiding place. For Lenore, a playroom. For Ezekiel’s wife, a nursery. Now it is something else. Now it breathes. That room is the house’s lungs, ghosts.

Lenore built her walnut men out of loneliness. She made a dollhouse and brought it to life with real teeth, gluing them in one by one as marble for the floors. Vivian kept it alive. She fed it. She made the dolls for Lenore like a ritual. Sewing hair from dead people into dolls’ heads.

One big, fucked-up, stitched-together family.

Vivian always had someone to take care of. And the kids they took, the ones who drank her tea, they didn’t last. Overdosed. Every one of them. Because the tea was laced with oleander leaves, poison from her sister Rose, back in La Maddalena.

She said the sickness ran in the family. That kind of poison doesn’t just live in plants. It lives in blood. In bones.

She talked about it too much. Now she doesn’t talk at all.

I keep her tongue, dried now, hanging on the same hook they used to torture others.

And me? I did things too. I brought them more poor souls. Thought if I gave them enough, they would let Lenore go.

But you can’t free what’s already broken. You can’t rescue someone shattered because when you try, they fall apart. And I was the one who caught the pieces and bled on everyone.

You can’t fix the broken. But you can learn to love the cracks.

You can’t glue someone back together and expect them to be whole. The fractures stay. The scars stay. Nothing broken is perfect.

And I never wanted perfect anyway. I just wanted her. Scars and all.

But if I wanted to save myself, I had to let go. I had to leave, just like she left me.

Gloomsbury Manor chooses the broken ones.

The people who are already one step into the grave, not because they’re dying, but because they’re decaying.

The house picks its ghosts carefully, traps them, feeds on them.

Everyone who got stuck here had something dark growing inside.

Something that had been growing from the start.

And I was all alone, in the place where dark things bloom. Where everything we buried stayed behind. Roses in full bloom, and underneath them, rot. A graveyard dressed in petals.

Nagi hissed against my neck. She hadn’t left my body since the night I almost died. Maybe she was scared too. Or maybe she just wanted to make sure that the next breath I took was the last.

But that’s just me, right? I was always the crazy one.

And you shouldn’t touch the crazy. Because once you do, crazy touches back.

Cameron came. They had Sophie’s funeral last week. He kept it quiet, just like I asked. I promised him half of the robbery money, and today, I paid my dues.

“You good?” he asked, eyes fixed on me.

“Yeah,” I said, pulling the stack of cash from the bag. Next to it sat a white mask, the same one I used that night. Stained with dirt now.

I looked at Cameron and said, “You can have all of it. But you need to find some people for me.”

He chuckled nervously. “All of it?” Then he looked at me. “Man, are you sure?”

“Yes,” I said, pulling every last bill from the bag. It was the first time I had counted it. “Five million.”

“F-five m-m-million...”

“Yes.” I nodded.

I sat down and stared at him. “You’re going to find Lenore. And a few others I need here. No matter how long it takes you. Bring them all. One by one.”

I swallowed hard. “Lenore last.”

I closed my eyes. “I also need a death certificate.” Then I opened them and continued, “I want her to think I died. Along with her father and my mother. Get this house in her name. But make her sign a clause. She has to stay here for one year before she inherits it.”

Silence stretched between us.

“If it takes years, let it. If it takes months, let it. Let the house fall apart. Let me rot inside it.”

I looked down at the floor. “Some things have to rot before they can bloom again.”

“That’s deep,” he said, stuffing the money into one of his bags. “You know she’s your stepsister, right?”

“No,” I said. “I don’t carry the same last name.”

“I can fix that,” he said. “You can be a Thorn.”

“So be it.” I met his eyes. “I was no one anyway.”

“Okay,” he said. “Consider it done.”

He stood up, the bag of money slung over his shoulder, and headed for the front door.

“Dorian,” he said, pausing just before he left. “You know you can’t bury everything, right?”

“I know,” I said, laughing softly.

But I can bury people.

“Alright,” he muttered. “I’ll call when the first job’s done.”

As soon as the door closed, I locked it behind him. Then I turned and walked upstairs, back to her room.

Her scent still lingered on the walls. I could still taste her on my lips. I could still feel how her body trembled for me. And once again, my heart betrayed my brain.

“I will destroy you, Lenore,” I said to the mirror. “I will be the last thing you see. The last thing you taste.”

I walked to her bed and lay down. Pressed my face into her pillow.

“But you will be the end of me.”

I sat up. My voice cracked.

“You were the end of everything I ever wanted to be. You crushed me.”

“You left me. And all I can hear in my head is your voice, repeating the same words — I promise. I promise. I promise. ”

“What did you fucking promise , huh? You’re not here. You’re not even near.”

“You’ll be sorry. Sorry, you shattered my heart. Sorry, you broke me apart. Sorry you left.”

I took a long breath.

“You’ll be sorry I came back. And you’ll be sorry I said—“

“I promise.”

“I fucking promise you that.”

The voices in my head surged again, louder now. Closer.

They’re here.