Page 4

FOUR

AMETHYST

Afterimages of JakeRake69’s death mask haunt my mind as I reach the front door. I close my fingers around the lock, wanting to fling it open, but cold air swirls around my skin, reminding me that I’m naked.

Shit.

It was just another hallucination. There’s no way in hell JakeRake69 could have survived getting stabbed in the neck and buried, only to climb out of his grave, break into my house, and crawl into my bedroom closet to die.

It doesn’t make sense. This must be a figment of my imagination.

My memory is so screwed up that I barely even remember the last time I took my pills or even ordered a new prescription. Every ounce of attention has been absorbed by my social media presence and my relationship with Xero.

And the book.

Seeing Jake was just a trauma response. It happened one time at boarding school when someone broke into my room. For days afterward, I kept imagining my creepy doppelg?nger had found a way out of the mirror. Not to mention the hallucination that pops up every time I try to hookup .

“That’s right,” I say to myself. “It’s just my messed-up brain.”

With a deep breath, I walk down the hallway, assuring myself that the creaking is just my feet moving over the floorboards, and climb the stairs. Intrusive thoughts float to the top of my mind like bloated corpses. What if it isn’t a figment of my addled mind and JakeRake69’s body is real? I can’t drag him back to his grave in the middle of the morning, and my muscles are still shredded from last night.

Jake came to kill me because I’d publicized my relationship with a mass murderer. He said bitches like me who wanted to fuck killers instead of high-value men were begging for death.

I reach the top of the stairs, realizing that Xero didn’t call me this morning from the exercise yard, and my heart sinks into my empty stomach. Tears sting the backs of my eyes at the reminder that he died believing he’d been ghosted. He probably thought I’d been using him to gain online clout.

After his mugshot went viral, hundreds of women tried to reach out to him at Alderney State Penitentiary, thinking they had a chance with the Angel of Death. That’s what they called him because of his blond hair, blue eyes, and chiseled bone structure. He had the kind of masculine beauty that belonged to a Michelangelo statue.

Those other women never saw past his masculine beauty, overlooking the brutal murder of his stepmother and brothers. I was one of the few people who saw a kindred spirit. The way he tore out their hearts was poetic.

I creep along the upstairs landing, passing a portrait a fan made of him in charcoal, and return to my bedroom. Sunlight streams through curtains I’m sure were closed, illuminating my bed. The family of antique dolls who usually rest on the nest of pillows lie strewn across the floor, and there’s no sign of Jake.

Just to make sure, I fling open the walk-in closet and turn on the light. The mini chandelier springs to life, lighting up the antique wardrobes I painted black. There’s no sign that anything has been disturbed.

So, the sight and feel of that cold, heavy corpse was in my mind, as was the loud thud .

This is my first compound hallucination.

I really need to get some new meds.

The doorbell rings, making me flinch. Now is not the time for visitors. There’s a trash bag downstairs filled with sanitary products, still soaked in Jake’s blood, and I don’t even know if I’ve gotten rid of the smell of bleach. The bell sounds again, and I shudder. Whoever is outside is either persistent or knows I’m pretending to be out.

When my phone rings, I swallow back a scream.

With a silent prayer to the patron saint of murderers, I slip out of the closet, creep out of the bedroom, slink into my study, and peer out of the window to see who’s calling.

It’s Myra, my cheerleader, oldest friend, and literary agent, wrapped up in a tattooed little package. She lives downtown and wouldn’t normally drive all the way to the suburbs without informing me in advance. Paranoia roots me to the spot, and I answer the phone.

“Hello?” I whisper.

“Open the bloody door,” she says. “I’m outside.”

“Oh. Sorry!”

In all the excitement about yesterday, I’d forgotten she said she was coming to visit to offer a shoulder to cry on after Xero’s execution. Swallowing down the lump in my throat, I slip on a black kimono, fasten its belt, and rush down the stairs.

Myra stands on the doorstep, holding a bottle of champagne. The morning sun shines down on her red hair, reminding me of the blood that spilled on the kitchen floor. Today, she wears a pinstripe, burgundy corset that accentuates her perky new implants. She wraps her arms around my neck, aggravating my bruises and making me wince.

“Happy birthday,” she squeals.

My eyes snap open. I’d almost forgotten I just turned twenty-four. “Thanks.”

She draws back, her brows pulled together in the frown she makes whenever she’s trying to gauge my mood. “And congratulations?”

“Not really.” I stand aside, letting her in. As she walks toward the kitchen, I yelp. “Lounge. ”

Pivoting, she walks into the front room. It’s one of the few spaces in the house that doesn’t overlook the Parisii Cemetery, instead facing onto a street of townhouses. Its walls and ceilings are black, as is the furniture, with the only pops of color coming from a gilded mirror over the fireplace that matches the chandelier.

Myra plops down on a leather sofa. “You’ve already gotten two million views.”

It takes a few heartbeats to realize she’s talking about the video I made last night when I read out Xero’s letter. The views mean nothing to me now, a hollow victory in the face of my betrayal.

“Oh.”

Her face drops. “Sorry. Of course, you wouldn’t be pleased.” She pats the seat. “How are you holding up after the execution?”

Shuddering, I cross the room and run my fingers through my curls. The backs of my eyes grow hot. My lips tremble as I force out the words, “I wasn’t there.”

She rears back, her eyes widening. “You left after the wedding?”

The accusation in her question hits like a punch to the gut. Pressure builds around my sinuses, and my eyes prick with tears. How the hell can I say the words out loud?

“I…” I swallow over and over, trying to push back a surge of guilt and grief and regret. “I couldn’t go.”

“Amy. Don’t tell me—” she clamps a hand over her mouth. “You jilted Xero?”

All the emotion I’ve been holding back pushes against a dam, trying to release. I breathe hard, holding back a sob, but the weight of my choices forces me to sink into the seat.

It will sound so callous, spending months sharing my deepest secrets and darkest desires with a prisoner on death row, building up a bond that became our lifelines, only for me to leave him at the altar. The thought alone is suffocating, and I’m drowning in a sea of self-loathing cowardice.

“You don’t understand,” I rasp.

“What happened? ”

“I had everything ready. The outfit. The cake. The toys… Then I made the mistake of checking my mail.”

Myra takes my hand. “What did you see?”

“An envelope.” My throat thickens, and I suppress a shudder. “It contained a photo of me as a child, strapped to a gurney with a mouth guard between my teeth and electrodes pressed to my temples. They were all over my body, and I was naked.”

Her eyes widen. “What did you do?”

“I called the police. They questioned me for ages, demanding to know when the photo was taken. When I told them about my missing memories, they acted like I was lying.” I exhale a shaky breath. “By the time I got to the prison, the woman at the door wouldn’t let me in.”

“But you had special permission!”

Guilt claws at my lungs, turning my breath shallow. Xero made a huge sacrifice to arrange that wedding, and it all went to waste. “I was only a few minutes late, but that was enough for the guard to ruin our first and last real-life meeting.”

“Did you at least call his phone?”

My eyes brim with tears. “I did, but who knows if he ever got my last message.”

Her brows pull together. “Oh, Amy. I’m so sorry.”

I stare at my lap, hating myself for being distracted, hating the traffic for slowing my journey, hating that stupid prison bitch who smirked in my face, letting Xero die thinking his love for me wasn’t reciprocated.

“Are you sure it was you in that photo?” she asks, changing the subject from my failure.

Part of me is relieved she's not pushing about last night, but the question stirs a new wave of anxiety. I open my phone and scroll to the photos app, where I show her the picture I took of what I received. It’s so disturbing that I can’t bear to look.

She stares at the image for several tense seconds before saying, “This is AI.”

“What makes you think that?” I ask.

She switches to the web browser, taps in a few words, and brings up a picture of Jack Nicholson. “Does that look familiar?”

I shake my head .

“It’s from One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest. Someone must have used AI to create an image of you at…” She scrolls back to the offensive image. “How old are you there, nine, ten?”

“No idea, but it’s not AI.”

“How would you know?”

“It has the exact location of my scars.” I point at the horizontal line running from the left side of my waist that disappears into my midsection and then the deep line running down the length of my belly on the right.

Myra gasps. “I didn’t know.”

“That’s because I’ve never shown them in public,” I mutter.

“What do you think is happening, then?” she asks.

I tilt my head, letting a curtain of blonde curls flop down over my left eye. My early childhood is a brick wall of nothingness. It’s like my life began a few weeks before I turned eleven, yet I could read, write, perform math, and recognize my parents.

“That photo is real,” I reply. “What else but electric shock treatments could wipe out the entire memory of my childhood?”

“But you said there was a car accident?—”

“That’s what my mom and dad told me, but this photo says otherwise.”

“Have you called them?”

I exhale a tired sigh at the memory. “They were the second people I called, after the police.”

“Why did you call the cops?”

I reach across and scroll to the next photo. “Because there was a note in the envelope, saying that my time was up and I would scream on some table.”

“What does that mean?”

I hold my breath, shake my head, and stare into my lap. Anything to avoid looking her in the eye.

“Amy?” she asks.

As much as I want to confide in Myra about what happened after the police left my house, I can’t. Telling her that I killed a man would make her an accessory to murder, and I can’t let that happen again. I learned that painful lesson the last time.

When we were students at Tourgis Academy, I made the mistake of confiding in her about my relationship with Mr. Lawson, the predator who taught us music. I was so impressionable at the time and wasn’t getting attention from Mom and Dad.

He filled that gaping hole in my heart and took advantage. Months after things got sexual, my period stopped, and he invited me to his apartment one Friday night for a special dinner. The next day, I found out he’d tricked me into taking an abortion pill.

I didn’t understand what was happening until after I’d collapsed with painful cramps and started hemorrhaging. I begged him to call 911 but he said I would be fine in the morning. He only spoke up after I thought I was dying and tried to call Mom for help. The following week, I asked him to meet me in the roof garden to talk.

Let’s just say he fell to his demise.

Everyone believed Mr. Lawson’s death was a suicide until Myra called her sister, Martina, for advice and swore her to secrecy. At the time, Martina was a law student, and she promptly reported me to the police, leading to my arrest in the middle of Biology.

What happened next was a shit show that would have gotten me sent to jail if I hadn’t been thirteen. Mom and Dad got Dr. Saint to help me plead insanity, I got expelled, my juvenile record got sealed the day I turned eighteen, and I learned a painful lesson about keeping quiet.

“Amy, are you okay?”

I raise my head and smile. “The police took the photo and letter as evidence and warned me not to distribute it online.”

“As if you would,” she replies with a huff. “What I don’t understand is how a troll could have tracked you to this address.”

“What makes you think it was sent by a troll?” I ask.

She shakes her head. “You’re right. I keep assuming it’s AI. But if it’s a real photo, one you can’t remember, you need to speak to your mom.”

My throat tightens. Myra keeps her family at a distance. Her parents disapprove of everything she does, from her career in publishing to her gig at the Wonderland fetish store. Yet they’re desperate to welcome her back to the fold.

For as long as I can remember, my parents have just wanted me gone. It’s why they made me board at Tourgis Academy, when I could have gone there as a day student and traveled by bus, and why they bought me a house on the other side of town.

I make them uncomfortable. Dr. Saint says it’s survivor’s guilt because I was the only one who got injured in the car crash. Now that this photo has come to light, I think that explanation is bullshit.

“So, how’s the book going to end?” she asks, trying to distract me from the picture.

My shoulders sag. That’s an excellent question. One I’m incapable of answering. “No idea. I hadn’t thought past the wedding and the execution.”

“How do you feel about including the reason why you didn’t go?”

I wince. There’s no way I’ll allow the whole world to know I can’t remember my childhood, especially if it involves electric shock treatments. “That....” I shake my head. “Myra, I can’t.”

She sighs. I hate disappointing her, but my lack of memories are a festering wound. When I agreed to write a true crime love story based on my relationship with Xero, I knew I would have to include a little background on myself, but I don’t want to open my life up to even more scrutiny.

Jake was probably the one behind the photo and had sent it to derail my plans to marry Xero. When that didn’t deter me from leaving the house, that’s when the slimy bastard must have decided to attack me on my doorstep.

I thought I’d safeguarded my privacy. Myra arranged for my mail to be sent to her assistant, Kayla, who forwarded it to a mailing service, which forwarded it to me. Jake shouldn’t have been able to track my whereabouts without getting the information from Myra or Kayla.

“Why don’t we celebrate when I finish the manuscript?” she says.

“Thanks.” I force a smile at her attempt at encouragement. “Hold on while I put the champagne away.”

I take the bottle into the kitchen and open the fridge. The red velvet cake I ordered for Xero and me to enjoy after the wedding has a hole in its side and is covered in white streaks. It almost looks like someone stuck their dick into it and came all over its surface.

Resisting the urge to run my finger over the white substance and check its salt content, I place the champagne in a bottle rack and shut the door. If I can hallucinate an entire corpse, then a ravished red velvet cake is hardly a stretch.

When I return, Myra is already standing. “Something’s happened to your account.”

I cross the room and take my phone, only to find myself signed out of the app. When I enter my username and password, I squint at the error notice.

“What does it say?”

“Account banned for community guidelines violation,” I mutter.

“What? Why?”

I navigate to my email, where there’s a message waiting for me from the app. “Shit.”

“What now?”

“I’ve been expelled from the creator fund, which means I won’t get paid for all those viral videos.”

“Call Gavin,” Myra says. “He’ll get you reinstated.”

I roll my eyes. Gavin works for the app and could help me in seconds, but everything about him makes me cringe. All three of us were at Tourgis Academy together, but we only have contact via Myra. He’s a regular at her fetish store and maintains their e-commerce site. He’s harmless, but his desperation to practice BDSM bleeds into every conversation.

“Let me at least try contacting support,” I mutter.

“Too late,” Myra says as she’s halfway out of the door. “I already texted him to come tonight at eight.”

Shit.

I’m about to protest when my second phone rings. It’s the one I use exclusively for text messages and conversations with Xero. Leaving Myra to let herself out, I jog upstairs to where I left it on my bedside. Only one person has that number, and he’s dead.

My heart pounds as I approach the nightstand, where it has stopped ringing and instead buzzes with a message. Xero must have sent it from his cell before the execution, where there wasn’t any reception. Now that he’s dead, the prison must have moved his personal effects to an area with coverage.

I unlock the phone, my fingers trembling. My breath hitches at his last words.

It is devastating to discover that our entire relationship was a sham, all for the sake of writing a bestselling book.

“What?” I whisper.

The next message pops up.

And the woman at the mailing address you gave me wasn’t even you.

My jaw drops. Did he get a last-minute pardon? I shake off that thought. Xero was caught red-handed—quite literally. Police had burst into the house while he was tearing out his stepmother’s heart. If he had escaped prison, Myra would have said something. It would be all over the news.

The next message says:

After the execution, I went there to find her wearing my mother’s locket.

A photo pops up of his tattooed hand, holding a silver necklace with a heart-shaped pendant. Xero sent it to me, but I never received it. We thought it had gotten lost in the mail. What’s it doing with Kayla?

I message back:

Are you alive?

He replies with:

How is that even possible when you ripped out my heart?

I reply:

How are you doing this?

Seconds later, he writes:

Electromagnetic radiation.

“Helpful,” I mutter.

Do you want to know what else I found?

Ignoring his question, I switch to the browser app and look up Xero’s execution online. According to every major media outlet, Xero was pronounced dead at 6:05 PM. A few articles mention leaked footage of Xero frying on the electric chair.

Another message takes up the top of the screen .

You said my last gift got lost in the mail. I found it on her nightstand. Did I ever tell you what we do to thieves in prison?

Moments later, there’s a picture of a woman with one side of her hair bleached blonde. She’s bent over a desk within a room decorated with Xero memorabilia, her brown eyes streaming with tears, and her thin lips wrapped around a big black sex toy. Its entire length, save for the base and suction cup, looks like it’s lodged down her throat.