Page 92

NINETY-TWO

AMETHYST

I stare at the crime board, not knowing what the hell to think.

Scraps of paper hang on the wall, showcasing splintered pieces of my past. From the missing person reports, it looks like Sparrow and Wilder disappeared after leaving a college party with an unidentified drunk girl.

The dates line up with the weekend Mom and Dad burst into my dorm room and whisked me straight into 13 Parisii Drive. There’s a prescription pinned to the board for a variety of drugs with complex pharmaceutical names. The signature at the bottom belongs to Dr. Saint.

Palpitations pound through my chest with a force that reaches my fingertips. The question isn’t whether I killed the brothers or even why. It was probably self-defense or righteous retaliation—same way I dispatched Mr. Lawson. I can’t remember them because Dr. Saint plied me with enough drugs to wipe out the memory.

My gaze wanders to the notes scrawled in writing too psychopathic to be legible. The author of them hates me with an intensity I feel in the inner workings of my gut. How have I never seen these?

Did Xero intercept these letters?

Did Xero write these letters ?

If so, why would he arrange for the first of them to be sent before the wedding and not after? I shake my head. He couldn’t have. The handwriting doesn’t even match what I know of his penmanship, nor does it sound like anything he’d ever put down on paper.

If he isn’t the acrimonious author, then why are the notes even in my crawlspace? And those terrible pictures… I can’t bear to look at them, and not just because they depict a child suffering the worst kind of torture. They give me vertigo. It’s the same jumping-off-the-dive-board sensation I get that prevents me from staring at my face in the mirror because I can’t bear to look at the reflected monster.

My breath shallows, and I turn my back to the board. Maybe there’s a perfectly innocent explanation. Maybe the person behind the first threatening letter and photo sent more, and Xero’s people intercepted them at his command.

I nod, my chest loosening.

Xero wouldn’t fuck with my mind for kicks… Would he?

But he would do it for revenge.

Xero built an entire complex of chambers and even a control room so he could have somewhere to relax while he doled out a cocktail of torture, gaslighting, and mental abuse. Hell, a few feet away from this space is a secure prison where he kept a quartet of men he transformed into a human centipede.

If Dale and his cohorts hadn’t broken into my house to spoil his fun, then that torture room would have been occupied by me.

Realization squeezes my lungs, and I double over with my forearms resting on my thighs. What’s the difference between being stuck here with Xero and being in the clutches of X-Cite Media? One of them wants me dead and defiled while the other wants to imprison and torture me for eternity.

Shivers seize my skeleton. I want to fall to my knees, but I’m afraid I’ll never be able to rise. Gripping the edge of Xero’s chair, I ease myself up to standing and sit at his desk.

“What would Rapunzelita do?” I mutter.

One, she’s fictional. Two, she blacks out and wakes up to find her problems solved. Three, it’s not even a full moon.

I glance across the surface of the empty desk, my gaze skimming the monitors broadcasting all corners of my home. A slight figure exits number eleven with a trash bag and disappears out of range. Judging from the black hair and glasses frame, I imagine it’s Ezekiel. Does that mean Relaney’s also out of jail?

My fingers drift toward a drawer, and I slide it open, finding a bottle of chloroform and a manilla dossier. I pull it out and spread it open, uncovering a selection of letter-sized photos. The first is of a group of boys sitting on tiered benches. They’re all dressed in gray t-shirts, matching shorts, and sneakers, looking to be from the ages of ten to fourteen.

Standing behind them are stern-looking men in black, who appear to be either teachers or camp counselor. My brows crease. Is this Xero’s child assassin facility?

The next photo is of a family whose faces I mostly recognize. The blonde woman is Xero’s stepmother, Bianca Greaves, and the two older boys look like younger versions of the brothers Xero murdered. So, the man must be Xero’s father.

I compare his face to the group photo, finding him standing in the back among the adults.

“Wow,” I whisper.

The other photos in the dossier are of the same man at social events, shaking hands with dignitaries and posing with people I don’t recognize. Tuning out, I shuffle through until I spot a picture of the man outside a nightclub with someone who resembles Dad so closely that I flinch.

It’s a less beaten down version of Uncle Clive, which must have been taken before he went to prison. Dad didn’t have that slight overbite, while Uncle Clive’s is still visible through his scraggly beard.

But how the hell would a man like him know a monster like Xero’s father?

“Because Mom said a vigilante mob tracked him to his new address and set fire to his house,” I murmur to myself. “No one does that without a good reason.”

And Mom is housing a man connected to a monster who turns little children into killers?

Shit.

Now I regret making Xero set her free .

This place is turning me claustrophobic. I need to get the fuck out.

I leave the room, making sure to avoid looking at the crime board, and walk to the shelf separating my crawlspace from Mrs. Baker’s. I fumble around its panels, looking for the lever Xero pulled to activate the door, but all I find are raised screws.

Typical.

Next, I climb the ladder leading up to the cupboard under the stairs and push on the access hatch, but it’s jammed. Tilting my head, I search around for a knob, a lever, a handle… Anything I can use to release the trap door, but it remains closed.

So, I’m his prisoner.

Grinding my teeth, I descend back into the crawlspace and trudge to the bedroom, where I left all the items I took from Mom’s house. Xero won’t get away with keeping me here as his toy, no matter how much he claims it’s for my protection.

First, I send a string of angry texts. When he doesn’t reply to them, I sit on the edge of the bed and open the photo album.

What if Xero really is out to get me? I’ve read stories about antiheroes romancing the daughters of men they want to destroy. It’s not a stretch to think he’s employing the same tactics. Maybe Xero is trying to get to Uncle Clive through me.

I shake my head. That doesn’t even make sense. Xero must have seen Uncle Clive all those times he haunted me while I was hiding out at Mom’s. He had multiple opportunities to snatch his father’s associate, but he was too busy sucking my fingers and edging me until I passed out from frustration.

After sending another barrage of texts, I crack open the photo album and look through the pictures again. They’re exactly as I remember—a timeline of Dad’s childhood, adolescence, his marriage, and my birth.

I stare at younger pictures of Mom, and it’s just like looking in the mirror, except without the queasiness and trauma. Mom’s hair is the same dark brown as mine would be if I hadn’t dyed one side black and bleached the other.

She doesn’t age much over the years, but toward the end of the album, she looks strained. The last photo is out of sequence with the others, because she’s at least six months pregnant .

It’s taken from one of the dinner parties she loves to host. I don’t remember any from our previous house, but the dishes in these photos look elaborate. Mom probably made them all by herself, because she’s the kind of control freak who won’t allow outside help. It’s no wonder she appears so drawn.

My gaze lands on a picture of one party, where Uncle Clive sits at the table with a stern-looking date with severe black makeup. Next to him is a man I recognize from Xero’s photos with the same strong jawline as my stalker but deep blue eyes.

It’s Xero’s father.

One photo of Uncle Clive and Xero’s father might be an unfortunate coincidence. Two is a disaster. If my murderous instincts and missing memories are in any way related to their friendship, then Uncle Clive might have to escape yet another house fire.

The door opens, and Xero steps in, his features softening. “I told you not to wait up.”

I stand so abruptly that the album falls to the floor. All the conclusions I drew from my sleuthing evaporate into the ether, replaced by the objection to being his prisoner.

“Why have you locked me in the crawlspace of my own home?” I snap.

Xero’s eyes narrow. “Is that any way to speak to the man you love?”

I huff a laugh. “How can I fall in love with a man who locks me up in a basement like a psychopath?”

His expression doesn’t even flicker because all I’m saying is the truth. He wants to cage me up like a pet mouse or a bird with broken wings to use for his sick pleasures.

Crossing the room, he picks up the fallen album. “Ungrateful little ghosts who mouth off get punished.”

I step back, my brain catching up with the fact that I’m trapped in a confined space with Xero Greaves. Now probably isn’t the time for bravado, since I’m no match for a trained killer.

“At least explain why I can’t leave.”

“Because I’ve just worked out the person who wants you dead.”

My breath catches. “Is this about X-Cite Media? ”

He places his hands on my shoulders and grips them tight, as though communicating the seriousness of his words. I stiffen, my pulse ratcheting up to eleven. What the hell can be worse than a group of snuff movie makers?

Xero.

In a minute, he’ll grin down at me and say it was him. That he’s the one who wants me killed, and I fell headfirst into his machinations. Now that I’m trapped and unable to escape, he can lacerate me at his leisure.

“Who is it?” I ask, my voice trembling.

“Do you remember those men I made you interrogate?”

“Yes,” I whisper. “Why?”

“One of them mentioned a man named Delta, who gave the order to capture you for the studio.”

My chest tightens. My throat dries. My mind screams at me to run. “Who is he?”

“My father.”

“Okay.”

His eyes widen. “You’re not surprised?”

I shake my head. “I went into your little control room, which is extremely creepy, by the way, and found photos of him with your stepmother.”

Most men would get defensive about their secret stalker rooms containing pornographic pictures of their obsessions, but Xero just nods along and encourages me to keep going. The man is shameless.

“After that, I looked at my album and there was a photo of him in my old house.”

“Where?” he barks, making me flinch.

“Last page.”

Xero releases my shoulders and tears open the photo album. His gaze settles on the array of dinner party pictures. A look of pure disgust contorts his features, and he lets out a low, menacing snarl that sends shivers down my spine.

“I hoped it wasn’t true,” he says.

“What difference does it make?” I ask. “He trains innocent children into assassins. You murdered his family and made me the leader of your fan club. It makes sense he wants to kill me in revenge.”

“The man I spoke to tonight says that Delta has been out of action for a while. Instead, his wife is calling the shots.”

“Your stepmother?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “The woman he married after she died.”

“Okay.” I nod. “Who?”

Breaking eye contact, he turns his head away from me, as though uttering this woman’s name is too heinous.

Silence stretches, and my suspicions mount. Why would a man like Xero, who doesn’t give a shit that I found his creepy room of souvenirs, shrink away from answering a simple question? My mind spins through everyone I know, but I come up with nothing.

“Xero,” I say, my voice hardening. “Who is your new stepmother?”

“A woman named Dolly, who he says…” Xero inhales a deep breath. “He says Delta’s wife looks like you, but older.”

I laugh. Mom might be a lot of things, but married to an insane, child-corrupting psychopath who runs a network of criminal enterprises? No. Xero has to be joking.

When his expression doesn’t change, my smile falls. I shove him in the chest, but it’s like trying to move a wall. “This is bullshit. Where’s your proof?”

He reaches into his leather coat, pulls out a phone, and scrolls to the video app. There’s a naked man attached to a lie detector, talking about Delta’s wife, Dolly. I want to fast forward over the part where he fails to recognize my name before realizing the man questioning him is Xero Greaves, but I force myself to continue listening.

When I get to the part where the man says I’m related to Dolly, my heart stutters to a painful stop.

Mom wouldn’t want me dead just because I’m younger. She just wants me gone because I’m a burden and a drain on her finances. Every year, my behavior gets more and more unhinged. My public, online relationship with Xero was bad enough, but I started hinting that I’d killed another man. That, plus the sex tape, was probably the last straw .

I grind my teeth, my nostrils flaring. It sounds so far-fetched, but what do I really know about Mom? She’s controlling, willing to cover up murders, would drug me indefinitely, and won’t stop threatening to send me to an institution.

Xero places a hand on my shoulder, but I’m too far gone to take comfort in his touch. There has to be more to Mom’s animosity than wanting to get rid of a burden.

Every instinct in my body screams at me to go back to Mom’s house and throttle her until she spills the truth.