Page 75 of Behind the Shadows

I stopped, pressing a fist hard against the wall, teeth bared, trying to breathe through the white-hot panic blistering in mychest. The room was suddenly too small, too loud, and too quiet all at once.

“She’s just …” I blew out a heavy sigh and rubbed my aching forehead. She’s the only thing holding me together.

“Where would she go?” Death asked. His tone was careful now, grounding, like he was trying to keep me tethered to the floor. “You know her better than anyone. Where could she be?”

I blinked hard, a pulse of heat flashing through my head. And just like that, the wrong memory slammed through me. Not now. Not now. But it came anyway.

Flash —

A red-haired girl, crying in the dark.

Hands holding me down.

Words as soft as a hymn: “Some sins are born in the blood.”

I staggered, my palm dragging down the wall, and my throat tight.

Death was in front of me in a blink, gripping my shoulder. “Kip.”

“I’m fine,” I said between gritted teeth.

“You’re not,” he said calmly. “And if she’s out there, we need you sharp, not spiraling.”

The faintest thread of vanilla drifted through the air—soap, clean skin, sunlight on bare shoulders—Holland, or the memory of her, or maybe I was fucking losing it.

Dope stood slowly, clicking his tongue. “Man, you’re half in love and half in a psychotic break. We need to lock this shit down.”

I pushed off the wall, dragging a shaking hand over my mouth.

“I need to find her,” I said hoarsely. “Before this gets worse.”

Dope focused on his keyboard. “Sit down, asshole. Let’s figure out where she went before you break your own goddamn skull.”

Death squeezed my shoulder once before letting go.

And for a moment, just a moment, I thought I heard her voice inside my head, soft, trembling: “You’re not a monster.”

Dope’s fingers flew over the keyboard, the dim light from the monitors throwing green and gold across his face. His jaw worked from side to side, tongue poking his cheek in concentration.

“Hold up,” he muttered. “I’m scraping the old directories on this computer while I’m looking for the location of Holland’s phone.”

Death dropped onto the couch beside me, elbows on his knees, watching me from the corner of his vision. “Take a minute,” he said quietly.

I dragged in a sharp inhale, chest tight, fists clenched on my knees. My whole body itched to move—to run, to drive, to hunt—but the rational part of me, the part that still gave a shit, stayed rooted. For now.

Dope let out a low whistle, his attention traveling across the screen. “Holy shit. You remember those old chat logs we pulled from the threads a few minutes ago?”

I looked up sharply. “Yeah. Why?”

“Guess whose IP is stamped all over the admin files?” Dope smirked, sharp and humorless. “Dear old Lily.”

A crack split down the center of my skull, or maybe it was inside. “My mother?”

“She wasn’t just playing sidekick, man. She was fucking running the whole goddamn thing. I’ve got timestamps, login credentials, payments—she built the damn house.”

He turned the monitor toward me, his jaw tight, his expression dark. “And I’ve got archived message threads. Look.”

My gaze snapped to the screen. I froze.