The same smell the Reverend uses in Pearly Gates.The same smell Becki carried when she arrived at the clubhouse.
Someone has been down here.Maybe someone who steals girls like offerings.Something, maybe.Something that snatches the girls so hard, it leaves behind scraps.Maybe on purpose.I rub my hand over the fabric.Knowing masks, costumes, it feels fake.Like someone wants us to think it belongs to a batlike creature.
Boot steps echo at the top of the stairs.
Oaks.
He stands there blocking the exit, shoulders loose, expression blank.But his eyes?They flick to the scrap in my hand.
Maybe he knows something.
“You find anything?”he asks casually, too casually.
“Nothing I can prove.”
He stiffens, a flash so quick anyone else would miss it.
I don’t.
Oaks shrugs and leans against the railing.“You’re chasing ghosts, man.Monsters.”He laughs.
“Maybe,” I say.“Maybe not.”
His smile twitches.Not real.Not warm.A warning.
“You need something, Royal?”
“Truth,” I answer.
He laughs, but it’s thin.Nervous.“Ain’t nothing down here but old rot and your imagination.”
Imagination.
Sure.
“And Becki.Why’d you move her?”
I pocket the scrap and brush past him.He doesn’t stop me.He doesn’t ask more questions.He just watches me go with that empty expression that says he’s thinking hard.
The hall is dim, lit only by a single bulb that flickers like it’s choking on secrets.My boots carry me toward my basement room before I consciously choose the direction.
Her room now.
Not her cell.
She’s the only one who’s been honest about the rot underneath this town.And the only one reckless enough to crawl into the fire beside me.
I unlock the door and slide inside.
She’s cross-legged on the bed, scribbling in that ratty notebook of mine she found.Thankfully an empty one.My top clinging to her, hair a bush of dark on the top of her head.She looks up with those sharp, feral eyes that always see too much.
“You forget how to knock?”she asks.
“I ain’t here for manners.”
“Right.Just here to stare.”
Her mouth curves wickedly, like she’s daring me to give her something to write about.
