He’s not satiating me. I just want more.
Winslet’s not so different.
I glance at the clock on the wall, seeing it’s after six. I’ve been here for twelve hours, working alone, but I’m finally ready for the holiday. Everything is baked, frosted, and stored until tomorrow when we transport it all to our booth in the park. In twelve more hours.
Still have to get through tonight.
I fan the pages, reading various entries written in no intelligible order and studying drawings. Fists gripping a steering wheel. A boy running away from a car. Blackhawk Lake and the waterfalls our town is named after.
Death Fallsreads the title above the drawing of water pouring down over a mountain.
Took them from me, took them from me, took them from me...she scrawled on another page.
I shake my head as I run my finger over the deep indentation of the letters, carved into the paper. Maniacal and desperate.
*dark
*water in the air
*scent of earth
*keys like claws
*headlights
*now
*now
*now
*now
*now
*now!
My heart beats faster, like I’m her. Like I’m feeling the keys between my knuckles. Like claws.
Vengeance.
It starts to come together. Winslet MacCreary went missing, and everyone thought it was Weston. Hawke, Dylan, and everyone surmised it was specifically the Doran brothers.
But this notebook makes it sound like it wasn’t.
She was taken. Someone else tried to murder her.
And when she survived, she hid. Possibly at the summer camp, which was abandoned in those years, as she planned revenge.
Why did Manas push her away, though? And what does she mean by “took them from me?”
I flip the page, reading.
My heart never hurt when it was empty.
You make me wanna die.
Needles prick the back of my throat, tears rising to my eyes. I don’t know what an empty heart feels like. I’ve always had love of some sort.
