Page 21 of He Sees You

I move through the forest like water, avoiding the patches of snow that would crunch under my boots, stepping only on exposed rock and fallen pine needles.

The approach to the tree is the most exposed—fifteen feet of open ground where he could spot me if he looked down.

But Roy's never been prey before.

He doesn't know to check his six.

Doesn't know that the apex predator in these woods isn't the black bears or the coyotes.

It'sme.

The tree is easy to climb.

White pines grow their branches like ladder rungs, and I've been climbing these since the Lockwoods brought me here at fifteen, trying to "rehabilitate" their damaged adopted son with nature and classical music.

They had no idea they were teaching a killer to move through his hunting grounds.

The Lockwoods.

Even thinking their name brings the taste of copper to my mouth.

Richard and Patricia Lockwood, pillars of the community, generous adoptive parents who took in two broken children.

Everyone thought they were saints.

No one knew what happened in that house once the doors closed, once the curtains were drawn.

Juliette was eleven when they adopted us.

I was thirteen.

Old enough to understand what was happening, young enough to be powerless against it.

Richard liked to say he was "preparing us for the harsh realities of the world."

Patricia liked to watch.

Sometimes she'd play the piano while it happened, Chopin nocturnes floating through the house while Richard taught us about pain.

They're both dead now.

A gas leak, the investigators said.

Tragicaccident.

Juliette was already at Columbia when it happened, and I had an alibi—a camping trip with witnesses.

No one ever suspected that I'd rigged their house six months earlier, waiting for the perfect cold night when they'd close all the windows and go to sleep believing they were safe.

They were my first kills, though I didn't touch them.

I didn't need to.

Death doesn't always require hands-on violence.

Sometimes it just requires patience and planning.

My hands find purchase on the rough bark, and I ascend in silence.