My room has never felt so cold. Unwelcome.
I stare at Wynn’s empty bed and try to smother the ache that throbs in my chest. All I’ve ever sought is pain. I loved pain.
Or at least I thought I did. Now it only festers.
I hate the sting of it. I despise the scars left behind by every foolish thing I’ve ever done. Most of all, I regret my hands. My eyes linger on the scabbed cuts on my knuckles and fingers. The purple bruises that keep getting darker.
I hurt more than myself that day. I hurt her. So terribly I hurt her. I’ve never seen her eyes so consumed with pain and suffering. I’m certain with everything in my heart that I will never do that again.
My bed creaks as I sit up and set my feet on the cold floor, rubbing my hands together to try and bring some heat back to them. They’re always so icy, much like my demeanor.
I lower my head and anxiously rest my hands on the nape of my neck.
My phone dings, drawing my eyes to the lit-up screen.
It’s four a.m. Another text from Mom. I eye the phone. Not quite sure how she got my new number, but I’m sure Crosby has his ways.
Mom:
Your brother is coming to get you.
Please be nice to him. He loves you.
I scoff and toss the phone on the bed. She always chose him, didn’t she? It was always Crosby who needed protection from the world because he was her last son alive. I was dead to her. After Neil, after everything, I was dead to her.
He murdered five of the neighborhood cats and tortured me. Then came here and probably killed those missing patients too. He’s a monster.
The door shuts quietly behind me as I slip from my room. Crosby shouldn’t be coming until tomorrow, but Mom’s text warrants a look. I clench the knife in my hand, preparing myself to kill him once and for all.
The lights are dimmed throughout the estate. Only the guard at the front entrance stays awake through the night. He’s been on high alert since the police haven’t been able to find Crosby. I walk past the guard and he nods at me.
“Out for your nightly walk, Waters?”
I let out a tired chuckle. “Yeah.”
There’s a span of time in which you can learn someone’s name. After that window, if you don’t know their name but they know yours, it’s unspeakable to ask for it. Or at least that’s my own personal rule. I’ve been hoping to get a glimpse of his name tag but I keep forgetting to look.
The grounds are cold. The temperature is well below freezing. November in Montana is more gray and dead than most places are in fall. It’s basically winter already. Frost coats the grass and the dark, naked trees in the distance are eerie.
I take my time walking through the forest. The moonflowers have long since shriveled away into their deep slumber for the winter months and now it’s just an empty field that a sick man visits each night.
Haunted, in a way. By me. That’s an unsettling thought.
It’s easy to lose time when you’re trapped in your past. I think of Neil and Perry and wonder where they would be in life right now if that night had turned out differently. Sometimes I hope if I close my eyes and wish desperately enough, I’ll wake up and this will all have been a dream.
But, of course, I inevitably open my eyes, and I’m still standing in the field.
Still haunting it.
I take a deep breath and walk back through the forest to the greenhouse.
It’s more difficult tonight than I thought it’d be, forcing myself to walk through the familiar hedge pathway and down the stones to the glass cage. How much blood have I spilled in that broom closet? How much more will be enough for Crosby? I’ve decided to not find out. I’ll be putting an end to his reign of horror.
From down by the greenhouse, large hedges block the view of Harlow. Someone must have woken up and turned all the lights on in the recreation room, because just above the bushes, a warm light shines bright.
The stale, mildewy scent of the greenhouse invades my nose. This building was wasted in its disuse. Dust and wet cement floors are all that this place offers now. My soul tires as I drag my body to the back room. The light beneath the door glows amber.
He’s already here.
I tighten my grip on the pocketknife. I take staggered breaths and my forehead beads with a cold sweat as I force my hand to twist the doorknob. Everything in my head screams for me to run. To stop and leave with Lanston and Wynn.
I ignore it.
The door swings open and I hastily step inside, knife drawn and adrenaline pumping a mile a minute.
But the room is empty.
My heart sinks and my eyes land on a small sticky note lying in the center of the floor, atop the steel drain.
My head feels light and dizzy as I bend down to inspect the note.
It’s a smiley face with a single word beneath it. As I read it, the blood leaves my face. My lips are numb and my fingers scorch with the onset of an anxiety attack.
I turn and leave the room. The glass walls of the greenhouse are a bright orange, lit from outside.
No. No, he wouldn’t do this.
I burst through the door and fall to the frozen ground the second I witness the flames licking the sky in angry throws of orange, red, and yellow.
The sticky note falls from my hand.
🙂 Burn
