Page 154 of Cruel Pleasures

Deeper and more paralyzing the second time it travels my spine.

I didn’t leave the window open. It was closed just a moment ago.

“Archer! Ryu!” I call, poking my head into the hall.

They answer me from downstairs, sounding almost endearingly eager. They mention coming up to grab my bags, but I shake my head and mutter, “Never mind. I’m not finished yet.”

Padding back into the room, it’s then that I notice what else has changed in the quick moment I stepped away for my toiletry items.

Lying in my suitcase, placed neatly among the rest of my belongings, is the knife.

The sharp blade stained with dried blood that had made me think I was losing my mind at the Hurst Manor. The murder weapon that had been used on Talia Weinberg and Quincy Mercer.

How could it have possibly gotten here?

I’m not sure I can describe the perturbed feeling washing over me. It’s pure shock mixed with unease and a belly of sudden nerves.

The curtain ripples again and I see it—the silhouette of someone standing behind the vaguely sheer floral fabric.

I’m not alone.

But it’s not because of the grief and depression that’s been pressing down on me every waking moment. It’s not because the two men who are obsessed with me have been stalking me once again. It’s because the person I’ve spent months looking for lurks just out of view like she has several times before.

The night on the dance floor at the Sunset Isle. The afternoon I’d spotted her in the window, and then again when I chased her to her room. When the Hostess was about to run me through with a shard of glass…

She’d appeared almost like a figment of my imagination. So elusive that I questioned my sanity.

But I wasn’t losing my mind. I was right all along. She’s real. She’s still alive.

“I know you’re here,” I say. “I know you’ve been watching me.”

The silhouette doesn’t answer. The wind speaks for her, light soughing sounds that trickle in from the open window.

“It’s you,” I say, taking a step closer. Two steps turn into three, then four as I make my way toward the window and reach for the curtain. “Girl, where the fuck have you been? How could you ghost me?”

I wrench the curtain aside, half angry and half relieved, and then discover how wrong I’ve been.

The face I find myself staring into is one I’ve seen before. But it’s not Lyra’s.

Her dark eyes gleam in delight and a manic kind of smile twists onto her lips. She steps forward and I step back as I notice the blood marring her mahogany complexion.

Fresh blood.

The rest of her is as equally as disconcerting, from the tangled cloud of curls to the grungy, unwashed clothes that hang off her slim frame. It’s like staring at some warped, dark mirror version of Lyra.

“Who are you?” I ask, so stunned I speak in a whisper.

To my surprise, she holds out her hand as if we’re in some sophisticated professional setting and she hasn’t just broken into my bedroom. It’s then when I notice in her other hand, she’s clutching an old wrinkled copy of the Easton Times. One of the main front pages printed about the Cleaver and his reign of terror on the city.

“The name’s Jael,” she says. “I’ve been following you for a very long time. I’ve been looking for my sister.”