Page 14 of Antihero (Tregam’s Fractured Souls #3)

I can’t answer, can’t think. Her gasps grow sharper, faster with her movements, and she straightens more, grinding harder so that I feel myself push that bit deeper, feel her clamp around me. She said I won’t choke her again this time. I’ll prove her wrong about that.

She gasps in shock when my hand closes around her throat, up close against her chin.

I could stop her now. Indeed, she hesitates, perhaps expecting me to.

But I don’t stop her, and then I can’t hold it back any longer, can’t resist the tightness, the pulsing of her silken muscles as she rides herself to climax on me.

She’s gasping, seeming almost surprised, like giving up even this bit of control wasn’t what she came here for.

Paige cries out, grinding fast and violent, jolting on me.

Enraptured by every moment and nuance of that, I’ve no choice but to let myself release too, spilling hot inside her.

My hand tightens around her throat at the intense peak.

A peak that stretches out, toeing the line between pain and pleasure, and leaving me lax when it finally subsides.

For a few blissful milliseconds as clarity returns, we stare at each other. Then, anything like post-coital bliss is snatched away. I scrabble for the knife she dropped somewhere by my shoulder, but by the time I get it, Paige is off me, the door swinging closed at her back.

I flop back onto the bed, breath spent, the complacency of orgasm settling me back as my pains make themselves re-known. But even with my stinging shoulder and my aching ankle, my mind is oddly peaceful, already stuck replaying the last half hour.

She’s well and truly burrowed into my head now. Even if I’m never touched by her again, I’ll still think about tonight. And not in the way I should—as a trespass, a violation. But as a refuge, something rousing and near otherworldly. Something I want again and again.

I run a hand back through my hair, letting a breath hiss out.

“Well,” I say to myself. “Fuck.”

***

Charlotte looks like she hasn’t slept again.

Beth is practically singing in the halls.

If she recalls our conversation in her doorway, suspects me in any way, she doesn’t show it.

They found a body matching Declan’s description, floating near the marshes, though most of it was gone.

They’re trying to figure out the cause of death.

It’s been two weeks since the night of the club, two weeks since the Wraith’s last kill. In a rather annoying twist, I’ve slept like a baby ever since. I still have the nightmares, of course, but they’re so commonplace they hardly count anymore.

Her words come back to me every morning, accompanied by recollections of what she was doing while she said them.

You need someone to hunt… someone to save.

Any further thinking on that occasion usually results in needing to pump myself until the overpowering urge to go to her home and bend her over goes away.

That she might be right about me only makes it all the more frustrating. Because I do feel more alive, more awake each day, like there’s colour even on this grey island. Colour in me again.

Charlotte stifles a yawn as I sit across from her in this room of velvet furniture and dark blue walls. Maybe I should let her do her job today.

“I see your injuries have been healing up. How did they happen again? You slipped?”

I know she’s got the answer in her notes. She probably just doesn’t believe it.

“Yeah, I’d been drinking.”

“Mm.”

My shoulder is still wrapped, my ankle better except for the occasional twinge. No crutch or sling, anymore. “I’ve been wandering the island more, actually, going further afield.”

“Oh?”

“I’ve been wondering about the island’s history.

” That much is true. There’s plenty of it, maybe more than what’s commonly known.

Something tells me the Wraith’s motivations are tied to it, and finding answers to one might solve the other.

I’m well and bitterly aware that I’m proving Paige right by hunting her and her victims, finding purpose in it.

Purpose and distraction. I was dying, being just John.

Now… I feel the spark in me again. Maybe I was fooling myself to think I’d find it somewhere else. “This institution’s history.”

“It’s true that Eternal Light used to be a… less gentle place for the clinically insane.”

“More insane after their stay, reportedly,” I say flatly.

There have been rumours about what happened inside Eternal Light.

Neglect, beatings. Strange and cruel ‘cures’.

But as far as anything concrete, the island has tried to move away from that, to leave it all in the past. Maybe the Wraith is trying to keep it in the present.

Charlotte shifts. “…Yes. There’s no denying White Rock has a dark history.”

“What about the orphanage? I’ve seen the ruin on the eastern tip. What happened to it?”

Charlotte peers at me. "I used to work there." My eyes widen. I open my mouth, but she holds up a manicured finger. “I'll tell you. But give me something first.”

My lips close. I hold her eye but don’t agree or disagree yet.

"Tell me who you've lost.” She's watching me closely. I've never mentioned losing someone, but she's either a good guesser, or here, everyone has lost someone.

"A sister,” I bite out.

She nods slowly, like this was the only possible answer. "How?"

"Murder."

A slightly raised eyebrow. "In Tregam? One of the serial killers?"

I almost laugh. "Yes, I lost her to one of those." And that’s it. The thing I can’t face, and can’t escape. What I did.

A pause. “The orphanage," she starts, and I let out a quiet, tense breath as the subject moves on, “It burned down about a decade ago, maybe more.

A home for girls, children sent out of Tregam mostly, and a couple of other places, too.

It was one of the last homes like that to exist. We're always a bit behind here. "

"How did it burn down?"

"Why do you feel guilty about your sister's death?"

I keep myself from biting the inside of my cheek. The question makes me angry.

She presses. "Do you avoid thinking about her? Do you see her sometimes?"

Yes, and yes. I see Cass. In turned-away strangers, in their straight, pale blond hair.

When we were children, she had such fine, soft and fair hair that light seemed to burn right through it.

One of our foster 'mothers' chopped it once, claiming it cost too much to wash, that it looked too dirty. It was never Cass' pride after that.

Charlotte straightens, not needing my answer, probably already knowing it. "It shut down because an investigation found that a high number of the girls were ending up at Eternal Light—more than reasonably expected, even among displaced kids."

I peer at her. "You worked there?" Maybe she has a guilty conscience of her own.

"I did. I was young, and I had very little to do with the children.” Here, she hesitates.

“I just saw them on arrival. That’s it,” she says the last part with finality, and I know better than to press, even if I don’t quite believe her.

It seems obvious to me that a psych would’ve had a greater role with the orphaned children who were sent on to a mental institution.

I give half-answers for the rest of the session, distracted, writing it off as fatigue from my injuries. Worry curls cold in my chest.

Because if the Wraith is targeting people associated with the asylum, and maybe the girls' orphanage too, and Charlotte has ties to both…

Charlotte could very well be on Paige’s list.

***

I go straight from Eternal Light to the library at Feston, making the hour or so climb halfway up the slope of the mountain by foot.

The town differs from Kidswal in just about every way.

The two streets are narrower, with cars lining the sides.

Customers for the small boutique shops come mainly from the large houses, verging on mansions, that dot the surrounding estates.

The rich part of the island, almost directly north from Kidswal, which I can see from my now elevated height when I turn and look beyond the drop of the road.

The library doubles as the home of the council records, and judging by the look the teenager manning the desk gives me when I ask to access the school and orphanage records, I can assume no one asks for those very often.

Unfortunately, the school records are closed unless I can prove I’m looking for my own child. But the ones for the girl’s orphanage are open, because there are no parents searching for them.

It’s a binder that has ‘White Rock Home for Girls, 1980-1993’ printed on it in block letters across the front. The last records kept before the orphanage burned down a decade ago. The laminated edges have worn and are peeling up at the corners.

I skip to the back of the book towards the later date range that I need, and I find several pages of large, grainy photos in a sepia tone. Group photos of fifty or more girls lined up. The book is heavy and dusty, the names printed in tiny cursive that I’m forced to squint to see.

I’m looking for her name. It seems inevitable that I’ll find her here, sorry as I am for that.

But while I’m trawling through for her, I almost miss another one, near the end of all the pages.

The face catches my eye. At first, I think I’ve found Paige.

Except, as I look closer, I see the name of Molly, and the age- a couple of years older than Paige, if the estimated date of birth is anything to go by.

Molly Morgan.

To go with Paige M.

I frown at the tiny black and white face. She can’t be older than twelve in the photo, and like the other twenty or so children in the picture, she’s not smiling.

I think I’ve found Paige’s sister.

The question is, what happened to her?

***

Paige