Page 34

“Him, who?” I forced out.

“The Skinner.”

A high-pitched ringing screamed through my ears as my entire body locked up, every muscle going rigid like I’d been dropped into ice water. “No…no. That’s not…” My breath hitched, chest heaving as something cold and violent tore through me, splitting me open from the inside. A strangled sound bubbled up in my throat—something close to a laugh, but there was nothing fucking funny. Christopher kept talking, but his voice faded, drowned out by the roar in my head.

What.

The.

Fuck.

My vision blurred as I blinked rapidly into the dark, trying to ground myself, trying to breathe. I was going to be murdered. The thought hit clean, like there was no room left to pretend. Is this how Evie felt when she woke up? Did she sit right here? Choking on that same fucking stench? Did she know? Did she know it was him? My eyes burned as the images came, whether I wanted them or not.

Evie chained to a wall.

Evie crying out in the dark.

Evie waiting.

All while I was out there, running through bushland, calling her name into empty air, praying I’d never find what was left of her. Fuck! A broken breath tore out of me. Did she think I was coming? The thought cracks something open in my chest. Did she stare at that door and hope I’d walk through it? Did she picture me…right at the end, while she begged him not to…

“Jackson?”

I didn’t hear the rest. My body folded in on itself, shaking as something inside me finally gave way. The sobs came hard and fast, ripping out of my chest like they’d been waiting seven years for a way out. I couldn’t stop them. Couldn’t breathe through them. It felt like losing her all over again, a deep penetrating wound in my chest that made it impossible to breathe. I’m here now, Evie, I thought pathetically. “I’m here now…” I choked under my breath, the words pathetic and fucking useless. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, shaking my head against the wall. “I’m so sorry…”

A sudden bang shattered the moment.

A dull light flooded into the room, harsh after the suffocating darkness. I squinted slightly, eyes straining before the light was taken by a slamming door. “Oh no,” Christopher breathed beside me as heavy footsteps thumped down what sounded like wooden steps. I dragged my knees up as far as the restraints would allow, pressing myself back into the wall like I could disappear into it, protecting myself from whoever drew closer through the darkness.

A harsh click split the air before blinding light lit the room up. Overhead, a single bulb casting a sickly yellow glow swung back and forth, shadows stretching and snapping across the walls. I squinted hard against it, eyes burning as the darkness peeled away just enough to show him. Standing right in front of us. Hands planted on his hips, with a wide-brim hat dipped low over his face, hiding his eyes. But it didn’t matter. The shape of him alone was enough to make something primal recoil in my chest.

“And then there were two,” he said in a deep crackling voice, just as unnerving and terrifying as the body it left. The Skinner was huge, a mammoth-sized monster looming over us.“You look scared, pretty boy.” He laughed, the sound abrasive and unnatural as one side of his lips curled up in a smirk. Anger surged through me, hot and immediate, cutting through the fear.

“You son of a bitch!” I snarled, lunging forward. The chains snapped tight, wrenching my arms back as pain tore through my shoulders. But I didn’t stop. I thrashed, fought, dragged against the restraints like I could tear myself free through sheer force.

“Look at you,” he mused.

“Jackson, stop,” Christopher urged beside me. I snapped my head toward him, chest heaving. For the first time, I saw him: dark hair, hollow cheeks, brown eyes wide with something close to panic. “You’ll only make it worse,” he said, quieter now.

My jaw clenched. Every instinct screamed at me to keep fighting, to harm the person who stole everything from me. But something in his voice cut through. I forced myself still, sucking in air through clenched teeth as I turned back to face him.

“Good boy,” the man drawled, the words dripping with mockery. He crouched down in front of us, his grey stubble catching in the light as he tilted his head, studying me like I was something pinned to a board. He took his hat off and tossed it aside, its rough landing thudding through the room.

And everything inside me just…stopped.

“…Wayne Gatz?”

The name left my mouth before I could stop it, disbelief cracking through every syllable. My brain scrambled, trying to force the pieces apart, trying to make them not fit. Wayne Gatz was probably the nicest man in Swanford. I’d never known him personally, but I knew he had been around Evie and Peter when Robert died. This bastard cried on live television the day after Evie went missing, claiming that she was like a daughter to him.

He was the one who helped organise the search parties, helped Peter print thousands of missing persons posters, and publicity defamed the police for not doing enough to find her. I remembered seeing Peter crying in his arms the day after Evie was taken while I was looking through the front window. Wayne had been the one to pick up the pieces of the life he shattered.

“Jesus…” I breathed, shaking my head, trying to reconcile the man in front of me with the one burned into memory. “How could—how could you?” I stammered, betrayal and hurt leaking from my tone.

“There it is,” he sneered. “Big man on the field, yeah? Think that carries down here?” He stepped closer, closing the distance and stealing the already-sparse air. “You’re nothing but meat, just like the rest of ‘em.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a thin needle.

I bristled as he stepped onto the mattress, the springs screaming under his weight as it dipped. Christopher shifted beside me, chains clinking as Wayne straddled my lap, his weight crushing down, forcing the air out from my lungs. My nostrils flared as I forced myself to breathe through the stench of him, through the fear, through the instinct screaming at me to shut down. He leaned in close, his breath hot and foul against my face.

“You’re even better up close,” he growled, voice thick with something sick. “Real shame, isn’t it?”