Page 122 of On Edge

I really don’t know what’s going on with my thoughts as I walk over to it. All the things I’ve found out, the emotions I feel are clashing inside me right now, like I’m a walking heavy metal band myself.

Strangely, Nell has been quiet. I haven’t heard from her for a while. I don’t know whether to be worried about that, but I’m too scared to try to find her inside my brain. Because it can’t be right…it can’t be healthy to have a dead person talking back to you.

I’m a bit of a mess when I open the freezer door. I don’t even know what I’m expecting to see inside.

But not Tobias Ragg.

Fully preserved, like he was sleeping and then kind of just fell into the chest with his eyes frozen open, staring at me.

The scream sticks in my throat. I have to clamp my hand to my mouth to stop it spilling out. Then I slam the freezer shut, heart skittering in my chest, veins shooting with adrenaline.

I stare at the freezer.

Oh, my God. Why? Why is the reporterdeadin the freezer?

Did I imagine it? Am I seeing things now? Sometimes I see Nell. It could be that.

Grinding my teeth, I tentatively crack open the freezer chest again. And no, there he is.

But this time I don’t slam it shut. I stare at his blue corpse, trying to work out how he died. There’s this dark, congealed stuff around his neck. Someone slit his throat and then put him here. He was most definitely murdered…I’m going to go out on a limb on that one.

But why? Who would want him dead?

Okay. I need to pretend I didn’t see this. Because the alternative is….

I don’t want to think about it.

Carefully, I close the chest freezer again and then head back up the stone steps. The other passageway is calling to me. I’m feeling too sick to keep searching through tiny airless tunnels. But I may never get this chance again.

The other room is not another game larder. It’s a grooming station with a dressing table, a mirror, and what looks to be a barber’s chair facing it. The walls around it are covered in childhood drawings and photographs of a family; a dad, a mum, and a son and daughter, who look way too happy to be tacked up in this macabre hideaway.

In the center of the room is a dark, smoke-stained brick surround. It contrasts beautifully with the huge fireplace that glows like sunset against stone walls, covered in stone swans.

But that’s not what has me rooted to the spot.

I walk over to the dressing table, where a demon mask is laid out, and a vanity case is propped beside it.

I’m too scared to open it. Especially when the floor creaks underfoot, and I look down. I’m standing on a trapdoor. Its edges frame the barber’s chair I’m beside. I scramble to get off it. I don’t know why, and bump into a chest tucked into the corner by the wall, a kids’ toy chest.

Even though my nerves are screaming at me not to, slowly, I crack it open. I’m shaking so hard as I look inside. But nothing scary jumps out. It’s just rammed full of old clothes. The smellhits me, an unwashed smell, like everything inside hasn’t been aired in years. Looking closer, all the clothing is stained dark.

Nausea swirls in my gut.

Okay, that’s enough.

I’ve seen enough.

My heart is in my throat now. We definitely didn’t have a room like this in our house.

I run to the door. A quick look through the keyhole tells me no one is in the pantry, so I rush back through it and relock the hidden door. It’s only as I get back into the kitchen that I can breathe properly, dragging in breaths like the air is paper-thin.

Kathy is coming into the kitchen, humming away, as I’m hurrying out of it. She glances up at me and then stops. “You do look pale. Are you sure you’re not coming down with a cold?”

“I’m fine.” But my voice sounds high-pitched. She’s going to twig that something’s wrong, but she gives a stiff nod and carries on.

Maybe I always sound like this, a bit panicked and a bit unsure.

Okay, Sage. You need to carry on like nothing happened. Do not let anyone know that you just found a dead body in the freezer and a weird room that you can’t even explain.