I have to force myself to go silent for a beat, listening for mumbles or anything that will give her and whoever snatched her away. That’s when I hear the slam of a door echo in the distance and I immediately know where it comes from. I rush over to the basement door nearby, the same basement where I kept Broden tied up. I swing it open and I see a reflection of light shifting back and forth. As I walk down the steps, the swinging light fixture from the ceiling slows its movements, likely having been swung at from an impact of some sort, telling me that whoever took Olivia came down here. But where the fuck could they have gone? There’s nothing down here except…
I see a sliver of yellow light peeking out from behind one of the old, dusty book cases.You’ve got to be kidding me.
I pull out my phone, dialing Evrin first as I walk toward the book case. But he doesn’t answer. I push my hands up against it, trying to get it to move and it doesn’t budge. I dial Sage, but the phone rings and rings and rings.
No answer.
I kick my foot at the stupid bookshelf but it still doesn’t move and I can sense my rage growing rapidly, the need to find Olivia becoming violently intense.
I dial the next number, and surprisingly, he answers on the first ring.
“Where the fuck is everyone?” I say, aggression hanging in my tone, not caring for pleasantries of any sort.
I hear static buzz through the speaker along with something that sounds like wind.
“Hello?” I demand looking down at my phone.
“Try one of the books,” he says to me but his voice doesn't reach me through a muffled speaker.
I turn around to see him standing behind me, near the bottom of the steps. His bright neon blue mask glowing against his face, his long black hair tied up into a knot at the crown of his head.
He slides his Cutthroat’s mask off his head and lets it hang from his neck, looking at me like I’m a fucking idiot. That’s when I realized he’d been watching me struggle with this damn book case, so I flip him off.
“Banks,” I greet him. “Where the hell did you come from?” I ask.
He steps forward, meeting me at the book case.
“I traced Alli’s location out here. But I lost signal just outside. The bitch fucking drugged me,” he states before tugging on one of the shelved books, causing the case to automatically reveal an opening behind the wall.
“I swear, for someone who notices a lot shit, you seem to fail to notice the obvious,” he says to me and I just look at him, damn near ready to burst with fury and wrath and…
Suddenly, it hits me.
The obvious.
How could I be so fuckingblind?
The clues have all been right in front of me, but I’ve been trying to hunt down the people who hurt Seren, not the person who killedforher.
And suddenly, now her words from that night make a little more sense.
Besides, the only person who’s capable of truly hurting me is myself.
But I have a best friend who's going to miss me…
I also have to send my stalker my forwarding address.
Please, Trace. Just let me go. I swear I'll never bother you about anything ever again.
I feel my heart incinerate once more, blazing with hatred for what was done to her. I hate that she was going through that, that I wasn't there for her. It makes me eager to rip someone else's throat out, my skin is crawling with that need.
“You said Alli drugged you?” I ask, checking my phone and opening my video surveillance feed, seeing that all of my cameras have been shut down.
“Yeah, she got up after the fucking show you made her put on and I wasn’t gonna follow right away. But then Jensen got up so I did too. I followed her back to my cabin and I found her inside, alone. She was making hot chocolate. Claimed she needed something to calm her nerves and when she offered me my own cup, I took it. How the fuck was I supposed to know she dropped a half a fucking Rohypnol in my cup?”
I can see the look of irritation in Banks’ eyes and it matches my own. Everything is starting to make sense now. And while there’s a few things that I don’t even care to have an answer for, I now know who the killer is. And I’m pretty sure I know the reason why.
The chain. The notes. His close proximity. This whole weekend. I should have fucking known.
