He nodded. He slipped the piece into his pocket, then grabbed one end of the carpet, and I took the other.
She had a terrace with no fence, facing the Ozark woods. It made everything easier. We slid through the terrace door and stepped straight onto the narrow path leading away from the house.
We said nothing.
We just kept walking until the trees swallowed the trail and the woods thickened around us. The spot sat just off the path, tucked near a wide tree with roots breaking through the dirt. We unwrapped the carpet and laid her body down.
But before we left, Zeke knelt beside her. He took the puzzle piece from his pocket and placed it carefully on her back.
“I’ll always remember you, Twenty-two,” he said.
He looked at me when he stood.
I folded the carpet.
We had to take it with us and burn it later.
We couldn’t leave anything behind.
As we walked back toward our small cottage on the other side of town, Zeke laughed and squeezed my shoulder hard.
“Brothers who kill together stay together.”
I nodded. I didn’t say a word.
This was only the beginning.
FIFTEEN
Zayne
Iam back in the Institute, back in the room with restraints.
And all I can think about is Dr. Emily Beckett.
How crushed she must be after finding out her dog escaped.
I hid Daisy’s dead body deep in the Ozark woods so she can’t find her. I believe that giving her hope, the thought that she might return, hurts less than if she never will.
Am I falling in love?
No, I can’t love.
The plan is simple. It always was.
Lure her here, let her give me a clean diagnosis, something false enough to protect me, while Zeke would keep killing, so the trail points anywhere but any of us. And when the time comes, Rourke takes the fall. A copycat of Ezra Zane. A monster wearing another monster’s skin.
It would have worked.
But Detective Mara got too close. He started to notice that Rourke had changed. Almost as if he were a different man. The affair didn’t help either. Zeke had no idea it even happened. Andwhen she confronted him, he told her he couldn’t remember sleeping with her.
What a fucking idiot.
Does he not know how to pretend?
He could have told her it was the best night of his life and walked away as if nothing had happened. Instead, for once in his life, he chooses honesty. And he tells her the truth.
He had no fucking clue.
