Page 86 of The Invite (The Massacre Ball #1)

Nessa

My chest feels hollow.

Like I’m dead inside.

I don’t know what to feel.

Shouldn’t I be relieved? Victorious? Hopeful? Something? Anything but feel this desolate hole inside my ribs. A restless energy makes my skin itch.

I need a shower to wash off the memories of tonight.

I lift my head from Augustus’s back as he slows down the bike. I make out my street as he turns toward it. My house looming in the distance. When he pulls into the driveway, I bite down the urge to request he keep riding.

Something is soothing and therapeutic about Augustus taking me for a ride. I feel untouchable, strong, and optimistic.

Once he kicks the stand, I slide off the passenger seat and take off my helmet.

He mirrors my actions with a masculine grace, giving my heart a kickstart, telling me I’m not dead inside. Like I was feeling from the moment we stepped out of the castle. Its enchanting beauty forever transformed into a horrific nightmare.

Neither of us says a word as we climb onto the porch and unlock the door. Once we’re locked inside, I throw my arms around him and greedily inhale his stormy scent. Even though it has the lingering smell of the blood we spilled tonight.

Three lives I’ve taken.

I’ve become what my monsters yearned for me.

A killer.

Hoisting me up with one arm underneath my ass, Augustus takes me into the living room and heads for the couch. Lying down with his head resting on the arm, he keeps me on top of him and massages my spine in lazy circles.

“I need to check on Scarlett, honey,” he says after a beat. “Then I’m all yours.”

A selfish voice inside me says to ask him to stay. Before I act on it, I force myself to let him go. Besides, I need alone time to sort out the other dangers in my life.

Only then will I completely be his.

I straddle his lap as he sits up. Before hopping off, I quickly seal my lips to his.

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with me?” he asks once I pull back.

“I might have saved her but she still doesn’t like me, August,” I tell him sadly. “Right now, she just needs her brother by her side. Take care of her and then come back to me.”

“She’ll come around one day, you know.”

“I know.”

Kissing me deeply, he rasps, “I love you so much.”

“I love you more, my devil.”

Before leaving, he gives me another long look of pure longing as though it physically hurts him to leave me. “I’ll be back soon.”

As soon as the door shuts behind him, I’m off the couch and running upstairs to find the burner phone. Inside my bedroom, I stroll into the bathroom and yank open the drawer under the sink. I frown, finding it empty. I swear I hid it in her—

“You won’t find it in there, love.”

I jump at the sickly-sweet voice, conjured straight from my nightmares.

But the endearment makes me freeze and my limbs go numb. Brutal memories assault my brain. I attempt to push them back into their cage. I need to if I have a chance to make it out alive.

Except my system malfunctions. My brain screams at me to move, but my feet—they don’t move an inch. Facing her, seeing her, will make my nightmare real.

Debolina.

Or more fittingly…

“Is this any way to greet your mother , Tyra?”

It jolts me out of the shock and I jerk my head up, meeting her eyes in the mirror. They are the exact replica of mine. The difference—hers are dead. Like staring into a black void.

I swallow when they crinkle in the corners.

The years on the run haven’t been kind to her. Once upon a time, she used to glow like a regal queen with a natural blush on her sharp cheekbones. Now, her face is dull and her cheeks are sunken like someone drilled holes into them.

Coming up to me, she takes my chin between two bony fingers and whips me around with an unbending pressure. Her touch is akin to thousands of worms crawling all over my skin, poisoning me one inch at a time.

Slamming me hard against the marble sink, she regards the contours of my face.

It’s like I’m trapped in the body of a little girl, unable to fight her back.

“Let me see how you’ve been all these years, oh deceiving daughter of mine.” Her voice is soft as a petal while her grip is punishing. “Eating well, aren’t you? While your mother has been begging for scraps.”

How is she here?

They were supposed to catch her.

Why did I let myself hope they would?

“Wondering how I am here instead of in cuffs? I can hear your mind whirring,” she taunts, checking me over from head to toe. I realize she’s searching my body for hidden weapons or if I’m wearing a wire.

How can she know about the lead?

Did someone snitch?

“Gosh! How na?ve you still are, love. The lead Michael was bragging about? I put it there. Did you think you or the FBI would be so lucky to find me sitting at a cabin and waiting to arrest me?” Her lips curl in disgust as she squeezes my jaw, trying to crush it into pieces.

“When they storm in there, they’ll find no one.

And while they search everywhere with their tails tucked between their legs, you and I are going to reacquaint. ”

Trap.

It was all a trap and we all fell right into it.

As it all clicks into my brain and the horror etches across my face, my mother smiles triumphantly.

“No!” I heave in a rush. My knees threatening to give out.

“Then you had to go and make enemies with the wrong people.”

“What?”

“I’ve been watching you since the news of you whoring around with that boy spread everywhere.” She cackles triumphantly. “His mother and I seem to share a same goal. You… dead.”

She knows Elizabeth?

“It didn’t take her long to find out who you are, Tyra. She put a hit out on you and I know she meant it for me.”

Elizabeth wouldn’t go this far, would she?

I don’t want to believe it but deep down, I know it’s the truth. As tears spring to my eyes, my mother’s eyes light up.

“You’re so pathetic. I should’ve killed you the second I got pregnant. Instead, I listened to your father.” I gasp when she slaps me across the face before forcing me to look at her. “You were supposed to be like us. You. Ruined. Everything.”

Adrenaline powers through my veins out of nowhere and I shove her back.

She trips backward, not expecting it.

I whip around and run.

“Ahh!!” Something hard smashes against the back of my head, sending me tumbling to the tiled floor.

A ringing pain radiates down my skull as my forehead cracks against the ground. Moaning in agony, I turn over and the last thing I see is a vase coming at my head.

Then nothing but pitch-black darkness.

Augustus

I perch on Scarlett’s bed and stare at her sleeping form. The pain meds have knocked her out. Running my hand down the length of her arm, I lift her top slightly at the waist to check the wound. The bandage is two to three inches long.

“I called Dr. Ren over,” informs Maverick from the other side of the bed. “She’ll recover in a few weeks. The blade didn’t penetrate too deep or damage any nerves. He’ll come over in five days to remove her stitches.”

I cover her stomach. “Is something going on between her and Kaid?”

Maverick’s features pull taut at the question. A visible tic in his jaw as his eyes go impassive. “Not that I know of. His reaction caught me off guard too.”

Now that Nessa is safe and sound at her place, I’m able to focus clearly on the things I missed. Scarlett hates Kaid’s guts. They’re always at each other’s throats, intent on destroying the other. Despite it all, there was trust reflecting in her eyes when he picked her up.

Was it a one-off incident or is there something more between them?

“I ran into Bertha,” says Maverick. “Said someone dropped mail off for you. She left it in your room.”

I stand up. “You’re staying with Scarlett?”

“Yeah.” His eyes soften as he glances at her. “I’ll take care of her. Go to Nessa.”

Nodding, I press a kiss on Scarlett’s temple before exiting.

Curious about the mail since I didn’t order anything online, I stride to my bedroom. Inside, I find a thick manila envelope on the bed. There’s no return address on it, making me suspicious. Tearing it open, I turn it upside down and throw the contents out on the mattress.

My throat closes up when a black envelope glares back at me. The red letter ‘A’ taunting me with its ugly sight. I rip out the note tucked inside.

Your girlfriend is a liar.

Xoxo,

A.

What?

Tossing it aside, I pick up the photos spread out in a mess, along with cutouts of headlines from a local newspaper of some hillbilly town. I realize I’m staring at a copy of crime scene pictures.

In a dingy basement.

Could it be?

Time stands frozen when I take in the close-up shot of one of the dead bodies slumped on the ground. It’s Nessa’s father lying in a pool of his own blood. I recognize him from the family picture Nessa has at her place.

Didn’t she say her parents died in an accident?

I flip to the next photo and the earth beneath me shakes as I gaze at a young and slim guy chained to a metallic chair. Dead with a single gunshot wound to his forehead.

Johnny.

There’s no doubt in my mind that I’m staring at the aftermath of Nessa’s captivity. This is where she was held. However, the injuries on her ex-boyfriend’s corpse doesn’t look like the work of an immature killer.

The tragic story Nessa told me plays in my head. It’s like I’m seeing bits and pieces of it, but when I’m putting it together, the puzzle isn’t quite fitting right.

Shouldn’t it be one of the killer’s bodies besides Johnny’s rather than her dad’s?

What am I missing?

What did she lie about?

Is Anonymous fucking with my head from beyond the grave?

Flinging the photos aside, I lunge for the photocopy of the newspaper. When I read the headline, my entire world tilts.

Two High School Teenagers Were Captured and Tortured by Local Couple.

One of the victims is their own sixteen-year-old daughter.

Below it is the same family picture of Nessa with her sitting in between her parents. I read the names written in small letters in a caption.

Daniel Bloom (Father). Tyra Bloom (Daughter). Debolina Bloom (Mother).

The next breath explodes out of my lungs at the truth.

It wasn’t random burglars. It was her parents who found her that night with Johnny. It was them who kidnapped and kept them hostage. All because she broke their rules? Is that it?

But why would she lie about her name? I understand hiding her identity from the world. From me too, though? That’s a punch to my heart. After everything, she couldn’t trust me?

“No,” I sigh. “I will not doubt her.”

There must be a reason she didn’t tell me.

Something on the floor catches my eye. I bend over to grab it, realizing these are more pictures that must’ve slipped from the bundle. When I turn over the first, I stumble back a step.

For a second, I think I’m hallucinating.

Nessa sits on a chair in the teachers’ lounge with a man in a suit kneeling before her with his hands on her knees. While a stoic Detective Arjun stands to the side.

Fuck. That’s why she was late that day.

She was talking to them behind my back.

Why?

I hope to find the answer in the second picture. However, it raises even more questions. Along with raising the hair on my neck.

It’s my mother passing an envelope to none other than Debolina Bloom in a decrepit building.

What is she doing with her?

I’m so fucking lost connecting why they’re meeting, when it hits me that Nessa’s mother is still alive.

Or did Nessa lie about that too?

Did they catch Debolina or not?

Christ! Did my mother know all along who Nessa was? A dangerous thought trickles through the questions running rampant in my head.

If Debolina is alive, I wouldn’t put it past my mother to tip her off that her daughter, who she let live, is right in this town.

Damn it. My girl is far from safe.

I pull out my phone and dial her number. It’s only been an hour since I left her place. She doesn’t pick up. Rather than trying again, I open the app and play the live feed of her house.

“No!” A broken sound rumbles from deep inside my chest. The phone almost slips from my grip as I take in the scene in her bedroom.

My girl sits on a chair.

Bound and unconscious.

While her biggest trigger towers right in front of her.

As though her mother can sense me watching, she turns and looks straight into the camera hidden in a corner.

She smiles .

I blink, and the feed goes down.