Page 47 of The Hanging Dolls (Zoe Storm #1)

FORTY-SIX

Travis had always felt a gnawing unease when it came to Ryan.

The late-night phone calls, the secretive behavior, the friends he never introduced to his father—everything about Ryan screamed trouble.

But Travis had always chalked it up to teenage rebellion, a phase that would pass with time.

He was refusing to believe the worst, secretly hoping that if they didn’t look at that bad thing it would go away. But he couldn’t do that anymore.

Tonight that unease had turned into a full-blown knot of dread in his stomach, and he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong.

It was just past midnight when Travis crept up the stairs to Ryan’s room, his heart thudding in his chest. Ryan was out. Again. He had no idea where he was. Again.

The door creaked open with an eerie slowness. There was a faint smell of sweat in the room, and something else—something metallic and unsettling. Travis hesitated for a moment—he didn’t want to invade Ryan’s privacy. But the worry swallowed that hesitation whole.

He started with his desk, rifling through drawers filled with scribbled notes, broken pencils, and other random things that offered no clues. But then, behind a stack of old comic books, he found it: a small, battered shoebox with the lid slightly askew.

Travis pulled it out, his hands trembling as he pried the lid off. Inside were photographs—dozens of them, haphazardly thrown together. As he started flipping through them, his breath caught in his throat. He couldn’t breathe. This couldn’t be happening.

He plopped on a squeaky chair, blinking at the pictures, refusing to believe they were real. His mind raced, trying to make sense of what he was seeing, but all he could feel was a wave of terror crashing over him.

Questions clamored in his head, making it hurt. How did Ryan… Why ? If anyone found out about this, then everything would be ruined. Travis would lose everything.

The room suddenly felt suffocating, the walls closing in. He began to shake violently, his mind screaming for him to do something—anything—to make it all go away. He stumbled out of the room, his breath coming in ragged gasps as he made his way downstairs to the kitchen.

There, in a moment of panicked clarity, he grabbed a pack of matches from a drawer.

He barely registered what he was doing as he picked up the box of photographs and went out to the backyard, his fingers fumbling as he struck the first match.

It flared to life, and without hesitation, Travis dropped it into the box.

The photographs caught fire immediately, the flames licking up the edges of the images that had haunted him just moments before.

He watched in grim silence as the fire consumed the box, the faces in the photos curling and blackening until there was nothing left but ashes.