My pulse quickened as I nudged the door open enough to get a better look.
Then, the world fell out from under me.
I pushed the door the rest of the way open, heart hammering. I took one step inside.
I couldn’t breathe.
Every wall of the room—every inch—was covered in images. Of me.
Pictures were printed out and thumbtacked to corkboards, taped directly to the walls, and tucked into frames. Some I recognized. Press stills. Screen captures from my show. Instagram selfies.
But others…others I’d never seen before in my life.
Candid shots. Grainy images of me walking down the sidewalk, caught mid-step. Leaving the studio. Getting into a cab. From behind. From a distance. One looked like it had been taken through the damn window of my apartment.
My knees almost gave out.
“No,” I whispered.
No. No. No.
I stumbled further into the room, toward the large desk in the corner. Three computer monitors sat side by side, all dark now. Below them, multiple towers blinked silently with standby lights. I scanned the mess of items on the desk—a tangle of wires, notebooks, pens. I froze.
There, right beside a worn leather mousepad, sat a tiny black camera.
It looked identical to the ones we’d pulled from the cabin.
My stomach knotted and bile crept up the back of my throat. My skin turned ice-cold.
This wasn’t just my old room.
It was a shrine.
I backed away slowly, heart pounding in my ears. My mouth was dry. The walls felt like they were closing in, pressing down, trapping me with the truth I didn’t want to see.
This couldn’t be real.
Ash—my brother. The only family I had left.
It couldn’t be him.
But the camera on the desk. The photos.
I gazed around the room, terror seeping into my very bones. I wasn’t safe alone in this house.
I needed to get out.
31
Skye
“Youalwayswereasnoop, weren’t you, sis?”
I spun around at the sound of his voice, heart in my throat. Ash stood in the doorway, hands in his pockets. I couldn’t read the expression on his face. It wasn’t anger. It wasn’t hurt. It was almost…blank. Nothing.
I swallowed down my fear, trying not to lose my mind.
This was my brother. This was Ash. I’d known him since he was a baby. This couldn’t be Ash’s doing. It couldn’t.
