Page 13

Chapter 12

Trey

Ned Miller’s property is eerily silent, tucked away in the mountains off a winding, narrow dirt road.

Took longer to get here than I expected. About halfway through the trip, the gray sedan that followed me off campus was still behind me. Couldn’t have been a puck bunny—no way any of them wanted to ride my dick that badly. After some unnecessary turns and nearly getting myself lost, I finally shook them.

Definitely not paranoia anymore. Someone’s following me. Since the start of the semester, it seems.

Can’t be my father. He has better shit to do, and he’d hire someone to tail me before he lifted a finger to do it himself. Someone else is keeping an eye on me, and I better figure out why before they link me to a few corpses. Or Juliet. I won’t let her suffer more than she already has.

Frosty air nips at me as I swing my car door open, my face shielded by my mask. Hunting knife on one hip and pistol holstered on the other. Beneath my fleece, my chest itches, the name my little demon carved into my skin beginning to heal. JULIET . I hope I wear the scar of her name forever.

Snow flurries fall in lazy spirals from the white sky, blotting out any other color from this cold, monochrome world. Different planet up here in the mountains. In Diamond, the air is still warm enough for sweaters and hoodies.

My boots crunching over the thin layer of snow is the only sound as I near the two-story, ramshackle farmhouse with a shed nearby and a chicken coop around back.

Juliet didn’t breathe a word to me about her plans, and I wouldn’t have known she was here if I hadn’t tracked her phone. She turned it off halfway through her journey, remembering that cell phone signals could place her in the area the day Ned Miller and Brandon Williams wind up dead. Luckily, I knew there was only one place she could be headed.

Now where the fuck is she?

Gloves protect my hands from the icy wind and prevent me from leaving my prints as I circle the house, pressing up against the windows to peer inside, to strain to hear a confrontation.

Nothing. The only sign of life inside is the ignited wood in the fireplace and the smoke puffing out of the chimney.

A chill drifts down my spine and I spin around. But there’s no one out here with me. No sign of Juliet or the men she’s here to slaughter.

She shouldn’t have fucking come up here on her own. She might’ve been able to handle Craig at a carnival when he was drunk out of his mind and didn’t suspect a masked carnival worker would actually hurt him, but ambushing two grown men in the middle of nowhere is in another league.

The chicken coop is dark, a tall, patchy fence surrounding the little home to protect the vulnerable birds from the predators of the night, but the place hasn’t been used in years.

This isn’t a home—this is a hideout.

In the darkness, indents in the snow catch my eye. A closer inspection tells me they’re definitely prints.

I’m no expert and it’s nearly impossible to make them out clearly in the dark with the snow still falling, but they sure as hell don’t belong to a deer or a human. At best, a dog’s paw prints, maybe a coyote. At worst, a bear.

My chest clenches. Juliet . Where the fuck is she? Doesn’t she know that she shouldn’t go wandering onto some psycho’s property without telling anyone where she’s headed?

If those motherfuckers think they’re going to lay a single finger on her, I’ll rip their hands from their bodies before stuffing them down their throats.

I don’t bother sneaking anymore—I rush past the house, past the front porch with its roof nearly caved in, and to the dark, silent shed.

When I peer through the window, the interior is so dark, I almost can’t see anything.

Shadows slowly start to morph into shapes. A deer hanging from the rafters, head down. A bucket on the floor with a drain nearby to clear away the blood. A workbench with a long knife, gloves, and bones.

A flash of movement at the center followed by a shout?—

In a wooden chair about two sizes too small for him, a man is limp, arms hanging down. Blood oozes from somewhere, pooling on the concrete floor beneath him.

Which one is he—Ned or Brandon?

Someone in a white dress and a neon-pink mask, the twin to my own, holds up a bloody knife.

My chest swells with pride and my smile grows beneath the mask. My little demon.

The man in the chair wails, “Who are you?”

“You know who I am, Ned. You know why this is happening. Now, I’m going to remove your fingers and toes one by one unless you tell me what I need to know. Where the fuck is Brandon?” Her cold demand makes my heart thump.

So Brandon isn’t here. Did Craig give her false information, or did Brandon manage to take off before she got here?

My hands curl into fists. This wasn’t supposed to happen. We were supposed to find both of them here, kill them both and find the final man who hurt her that night. The man who killed her friend.

Now Brandon is missing and who the hell knows where he went. Who knows if we’ll find either of them.

Ned lets out a pathetic moan. He can’t even face his fate like a man because he isn’t one. He’s less than human. He’s scum. “I don’t know!”

“He was here.” Juliet paces in front of him, her pink mask and white dress out of place. Eerie. “So where the fuck is he now? You know.”

Ned shakes his head with great effort, tears and snot running down his face. Did she drug him? Or has he lost enough blood to grow this weak, to struggle to move? I love that she’s rendered him this fucking useless before I even showed up. Maybe she was right—maybe she really doesn’t need me. Maybe I underestimated her.

“No,” he whines. “ No , I don’t, I swear. I didn’t do anything wrong!”

She scoffs. “You didn’t violate two underage girls?”

He stiffens, and the tears start flowing. “I didn’t! I wouldn’t hurt anyone.”

“They always love to deny it.” Juliet shakes her head. “Some take their vile secrets to the grave with them. But I know your secrets, Ned. And you’re not getting away with it.”

Sobs wrack his shoulders now as he struggles to keep shaking his head. “I didn’t touch any of them.”

Any of them . My jaw clenches. He’s still in denial, but he’s already incriminated himself.

Juliet quits her pacing, focusing on his face, melting like candle wax with drooping jowls. A predator who’s gotten away with his crimes for a lifetime. “How many girls were there, Ned?”

“I didn’t—” His protest dies on his lips when Juliet stabs the knife into his thigh, yanking it out as his screams nearly shatter the dilapidated shed and blood seeps through his worn jeans.

Eerily calm, she returns to her pacing as he writhes, his blood dripping from her knife. Mixing with the blood stains of every animal he’s ever slaughtered in here. “I know you did. I was one of them.”

His drooping, weathered face is ghostly pale now. He’s losing blood quickly, and he won’t stay conscious much longer. But she was smart—stabbing, not slicing. A severed artery would have him bleeding out in minutes. A stab wound will cause internal bleeding. A slower, drawn-out death. Gives her time to extract the truth from him in his final moments. To make him feel a fraction of the suffering he inflicted on each of his victims.

“This is the last time I’m going to ask you nicely to tell me where Brandon is.” Juliet grazes the tip of her knife over his knuckles. “Which do you choose: keep your finger, or your secrets?”

Fresh tears spring to his eyes and his whimpers fill the shed again. So pathetic and infuriating, I want to rip out his tongue. “Please?—”

She brings the knife down, Ned’s screams echoing off the walls and covering the sound of bone being severed as a finger hitting the floor.

While he continues screaming, Juliet sighs. “This could be over so quickly for you, Ned. You wouldn’t have to suffer like this if you’d just tell me what I need to know.”

He’s panting to the point of hyperventilating, and when he stays silent, Juliet brings the knife up again.

“Franklin!” Ned screeches, eyes round and wild. “He’s in Franklin!”

Juliet drops the knife slightly but still keeps it raised above her shoulder. “In Massachusetts?”

“Rhode Island,” Ned bleats. “He...he said he could blend in more in a city.”

Ned pants, chest heaving as the blood loss makes him struggle to remain upright.

My hands nearly puncture through my gloves when I clench my fists. That motherfucker got away. We’ll have a hell of a time finding him in a city full of people.

Juliet stares at Ned silently, assessing whether to believe him. “Give me the name of the other man who was there that night. The one in the other room. Who killed the girl I was with.”

Panic fills Ned’s eyes. “I don’t know! I swear!”

She tsks, shaking her head and turning her back to him. “That’s a shame.”

Is she leaving to let him bleed out slowly? Or to find another weapon? Something more fun than a knife to end him with.

Before I can figure out what she’s got planned, Ned pushes to his feet with the last of his strength and grabs a meat cleaver off his workbench.

My heart hits the ground. “ No !”

Both of their gazes dart to the window, spotting me. Juliet whirls just in time to find Ned closing in on her, cleaver raised in the air.

He was fucking faking it. He wasn’t nearly as weak and defeated as he let her think.

I race around the back, to the only door into that miserable fucking place of death and decay. My footsteps are muted by the pounding in my ears.

Inside, through the decrepit wooden walls, Juliet screams.

No. No, no, no . He can’t get his hands on her. He can’t use that meat cleaver on her or?—

Once the door is in sight, I sprint faster than I ever have in my fucking life.

Five feet, four feet, three, two?—

A hard thud and a sharp blade punctures the wooden door, stopping me in my tracks.

The fucking meat cleaver.

I shove through the door, nearly tearing the thing off its hinges.

Juliet is on the floor, scrambling away from Ned hobbling toward her, mask off and eyes round with fear.

My little demon, afraid of nothing.

Terrified.

Her mask is across the room. So is her knife. He must’ve knocked the weapon out of her hands when she screamed.

“Stop.” Despite the fear and adrenaline coursing through my veins, my pistol is steady in my hands.

Ned turns, a snarl on his ugly face. He’s not going to survive this. Even if he managed to kill us both, those wounds are a ticking clock. But he’ll do whatever he has to do to take us down with him.

He takes a single staggering step toward me before I pull the trigger.

For a second, I’m not sure I shot him, despite the high-pitched ringing in my ears. Until he presses a hand to the seeping wound in his abdomen. The bullet embedded in the splintered wood behind him.

He shrieks, the bloodcurdling cry of a dying animal as he sinks to his knees.

I charge past him and drop down next to Juliet, examining her for any injuries. “You’re okay. You’re okay now.” I hold her face in my hands as the tears pour and murmur every word to her that I wish someone had said to me after my father’s beatings, after his girlfriend’s assaults, after my mother’s death. “I’m here. You’re so fucking brave. Strong. Beautiful. I’m so proud of you. You’re not going to let him stop you. He’s nothing—you’re everything.”

She nods, eyes shining. I help her to her feet, and she limps as I guide her toward the door. That motherfucker hurt her. I’m going to make him suffer as much as I can in his final moments.

“Wait for me in my car. Turn it on, get warm. I’ll be out in a minute to check on you after he’s dead.”

As soon as I nudge her toward the door, I turn back to Ned bleeding out on the floor. I may be too late. He’s already slipping in and out of consciousness, screaming on and off through the waves of pain.

Juliet charges past me, black and crimson hair flying behind her. The meat cleaver raised high in the air. “Tell me you love it, Ned.”

His scream is cut short when she brings the cleaver down on his neck.

The heavy thud is followed by the sickening, dull thunk, thunk of his head rolling slowly until it comes to a stop.

Above him, Juliet’s chest heaves, meat cleaver limp in her hand. Dripping with his blood.

A few seconds of silence tick by before she rounds on me, and for a moment, I brace myself for her to charge me with the meat cleaver next.

Until she drops it and launches at me, throwing her arms around my neck as I lift her and squeeze. She’s so soft and warm in my hands, but strong too. Brave and powerful and insane. I’m obsessed with every crazy bit of her.

“Thank you,” she murmurs into my neck.

I clutch her to me as hard as I can, never wanting to let her go again.

That was too close. Way, way too fucking close. I almost lost her, and I’ve never been more afraid of anything in my life. “Anything for you.”

When she finally retreats from my hold, her brows furrow and she smacks my arm. “What the hell are you doing here anyway?”

“Saving your ass. And helping you get rid of a body.” I nod at the dead man at her feet. “I want in.”

She tosses the bloody meat cleaver onto the workbench with a clatter. “In on what?”

“On finding the rest of them. And making them pay.”

Her eyes roll. “I already told?—”

“You nearly got killed.” My sharp tone silences her. “You obviously need me.”

She crosses her arms, chewing her lip as she mulls this over. For the first time, she doesn’t protest. She knows I’m right. She would’ve died tonight if not for me. If I hadn’t tracked her here, if I hadn’t protected her, she’d be dead. She can’t do this alone, and she doesn’t have to.

“I’m not letting you do this alone anymore.” I close the distance between us, hands landing on her hips. She’s forced to crane her neck to meet my gaze. “You’ve found your devil, little demon. You’ve found the black heart that matches yours. We don’t have to set the fires on our own anymore. We can burn it all down together.”

Her eyes shimmer, and I swipe away a tear that trickles down her cheek.

“We’re in this together. You and me now.”

“Together.” A little smile slips across my demon’s perfect mouth until she finally nods down at the corpse at our feet. “So what were you saying about getting rid of a dead body?”