If he saw me cowering in the dining room, afraid to even knock, he might form a different opinion. I’m upsetting myself with a thousand different scenarios, each one worse than the other, instead of just going down the hallway to tap my knuckles on her door.
The self-scolding breaks through my paralysis. I storm along the corridor and hammer at the door, determined that if I’m ruining their tryst, I’m going to ruin it as badly as possible.
There’s no answer. No grunt of annoyance or sharp call back, “What?”
I hesitate, then wrench open the door, pushing so hard that I stumble inside a few steps.
Nothing. No one. Not a stitch out of place.
See?
Before the self-congratulations start, I abort them. I’m no further ahead. With my adrenaline propelling me forward, I walk the few short steps to my room and fling that door open, far more confident.
My stomach plunges to my feet.
Crimson drips off the ceiling. Long arterial streaks are sprayed across the walls, blearing the windows, staining the bedclothes.
My throat seizes before I can scream, cut off by the horror of what’s in front of me.
I take a step but my feet tangle, spilling me forward to land heavily on one knee.
A wail slips out of my mouth, scaring me further. I gulp it back, reaching for the chair in front of me, reaching for Ceecee’s limp, lifeless hand.
My brain shutters itself from the horror; only letting in one snapshot at a time. The slash across her neck, the river of blood soaked into her transparent blouse. The red fingertips, which is weird because I could have sworn she’d just gelled them blue.
Then I see properly. They’re red and raw because some monster, some animal, some callous fuck pulled out her fingernails.
I cry, large silent tears that drip uselessly down my face. When I shift position, my knee shrieks in pain. I brush a hand over it and knock a small hard object free. It rolls back onto the cheap floor tiles, and I pick it up, lifting it to eye level and blinking my eyes to clear them.
It’s a tooth.
My brain is dull, too blunt to think. I lever myself to my feet and stumble past Ceecee, stumble across to the next horror.
Another girl. This one I don’t recognise.
Liz. The new name on the board.
On the other side of the bed is Harry. One eye is gouged out. His fingertips are in an even worse state than Ceecee’s. His right thumb is missing, and the room grows darker by the second as I understand what that means.
The person who did this used it to unlock his phone.
The person responsible for this atrocity sent the text.
This is my fault. Whoever sent Andy must know now that he’s dead, that we killed him.
My uncle. It’s the only thing that makes any sense.
He’s killed my colleagues, my clients, and now he’s going to kill me.
Far too late, I whirl and head for the door. My feet skid in the blood, slip across the tiles. One foot slips and I fall to the left. My arm shoots out, grabs the bed, stopping my fall.
When I lift my hand away, it’s stained red.
I move again but the door retreats two steps for each one I take forward. A sob tears out of my throat.
The fear is more immediate, more visceral, than any I’ve felt before. Whoever tortured these people wasjust here.
The kettle wasn’t warm, it was hot.
