Page 90 of Behind the Shadows

My jaw clenched and my pulse thundered in my ears.

“I think he was there that night,” I said. “Uncle Vinny. I think he’s the one who dragged you off. And I think he kept that locket as a trophy.”

She clutched it as though it might dissolve. “If he’s alive …”

“He’s not hiding.” My words were low. Cold. “He’s hunting again.”

She didn’t move or even blink. Holland stared at the locket as if it had started whispering secrets in her sister’s voice. Then her fingers closed around it so tight her knuckles went white.

She didn’t put it on. Instead, she stared at the thing like it might bite her; the chain was made of barbed wire and the charm held a scream.

“Are you going to wear it?” I asked.

She shook her head, barely breathing. “No. That girl wore it. The one who never came home.”

She slipped it into her coat pocket, burying it as if it were something sacred and venomous all at once.

I didn’t push. Some things weren’t meant to be worn. Some things only needed to be survived.

“You’re sure about Vinny?” she asked, her tone quiet. Controlled. Too controlled.

I nodded. “Yeah. She wouldn’t have told me unless it served her. She didn’t want to die alone, struggling for air. She even admitted she was going to die on her terms, but we took that choice away from her.”

Holland looked out the windshield as the sun set and the darkness pressed in.

And then—she fucking laughed, but it wasn’t a soft or sweet laugh.

It was the kind of laugh people made right before they lit a match and set shit on fire.

“She said it like a final confession,” Holland whispered. “Like it was holy. Like her last sermon before starving to death in a house she turned into a tomb.”

Her chest rose. Just once. Then, “Good.”

She turned to me, lifted her chin, and squared her shoulders.

“I hope she dies trying to scream,” she said. “I hope she calls for help and no one comes. I hope she feels the same helplessness she sold us into.”

I didn’t say a word. I didn’t have to because she was right.

“But Vinny …” The muscle in her jaw tightened. She removed the locket from her pocket and stared at it. “He was worse than her. She convinced herself all her work was for God and good intentions. He didn’t need either. He liked it.”

She glanced at me. And I saw it then—the unraveling. The girl trying to hold herself together with a skeleton made of rage.

“I used to dream about him,” she said. “Not my father, who was also a part of it.Him—the Pied Piper. His breath in my ear. His hand on my shoulder. The way he smelled like peppermint and bleach.”

My fingers flexed against the wheel while Holland kept talking.

“He used to quote scripture. While he watched. While he bid on girls like they were cattle.” Her voice dropped to a hiss. “He told me I was lucky. That my red hair made me worth more.”

She stopped and looked down at the locket again. Then she did something I didn’t expect.

She opened the car door and got out. Rain was misting and she stepped into it like a baptism with her head tilted back and eyes closed.

Dog barked once, but he stayed put.

I got out and came around to her, but I didn’t touch her. Not yet.

She spoke without looking at me. “Do you believe in fate, Kip?”