For a second—one terrible, suspended second—I can’t move. My deputy. My friend. Cut down in my house like he was nothing.
And then I hear it.
A muffled sound, wet with panic. A strangled cry that slices right through the haze.
Female.
Summer.
“SUMMER!” My throat rips as I scream her name, raw, primal. The walls shake with it. I’m already moving, boots pounding against the hardwood, my breath tearing out of me like gunfire.
I take the stairs three at a time, my body running on nothing but terror. My chest is a furnace, every inhale thick and choking. Her name leaves me again, louder, broken: “SUMMER!”
The door to my bedroom is shut. I slam through it so hard the hinges shriek. And what I see….
Constance and Adelaide.
They’re on the floor, bound with rope that’s dug into their wrists until they’re bleeding. Gags stuffed into their mouths; their faces streaked with tears. Constance’s nose is bloodied, her left eye swollen shut. Adelaide’s hair is a tangled mess, chunks missing like someone’s ripped it out by the fistful. Their eyes dart up to me the second I burst in, wide with desperation, screaming silently behind the cloth.
The air is thick with the smell of sweat and rope and fear.
But she isn’t there. Summer isn’t there.
My heart stops.
The world tilts sideways, the sound sucked right out of it.
My chest caves, but the next breath explodes out of me as a roar so violent it feels like it cracks my ribs. “WHERE IS SHE?!”
I tear across the room, my boots kicking the floor, the blood in my ears so loud it drowns out their muffled sobs.
I drop to my knees beside Constance, rip the gag out of her mouth so hard she cries out, spittle and blood streaking her chin. She gasps, choking, eyes wild.
But I don’t hear her words. I only hear silence.
Because Summer’s gone.
I pull out my pocketknife and slice through the rope that has her bound, and then she does the same for Adelaide.
Constance rips the gag out of Adelaide’s mouth and pulls her close, trying to calm her, but the second her eyes lock on me she snaps. She’s up in my face, shoving at my chest with all the strength she’s got left.Adelaide staggers forward too, both of them pushing me, their voices like knives.
Constance screams. Her voice cracks. “You weren’t here!”
Adelaide’s hands are bloody, trembling as she shoves at me, shrieking.
But their words don’t land.
Nothing lands.
There’s only this high-pitched shriek drilling through my skull—like tinnitus cranked up until it feels like my brain’s splitting. I press my palms to my ears, but it doesn’t stop. The whole world is nothing but static.
My body moves on autopilot, staggering past them. I hit the en-suite doorway.
And freeze.
Blood.
It’s everywhere. Smeared across the tile. Spattered up the wall. A mirror lies shattered across the floor, glittering with red where it caught her skin.
