Thomas peers into my worried gray eyes.
“You don’t need to see this, Ariah,” he says and closes the box.
I know it must be horrible if he doesn’t want me to see it.
Biting the inside of my cheek, I shake my head, “No, let me see. I need to see what else this twisted fuck has sent me. First, it was a hand. I can’t imagine it could be worse than that.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you received a hand?” he asks.
Shit.I forgot I didn’t tell him that.
Fidgeting with my hands, I shrug and say sheepishly, “Well, I kinda, umm, got this package, umm earlier, this week, and it maybe sorta hadahandinit.”
“Okay, I still don’t think you need to see this,” his voice is calm, with no trace of anger at my omission.
Rising from the chair, my expression more confident than I feel, I say, “I’ll be fine, I promise. Just show me.”
He expels a breath, and I know he’s going to give in, “Fine, but we’re going to discuss you keeping pertinent information from me on the ride home. I can’t properly do my job if you don’t tell me things that happen when you’re in school.”
Feeling properly chastised, I nod, “Okay, I’m sorry.”
He lowers the box, and I steel my spine, fighting the roiling in my stomach.
A pair of stitched closed frosted pink lips with a rolled-up piece of paper protruding from them lay at the bottom of the small box. They look perfectly preserved. No blood, no decaying, or horrible smell.
“Who’s doing this, T?” I ask, feeling the lone tear escape and roll down my face.
Handing me a napkin, he says, “My team will figure this out.”
“Is there anything on the piece of paper?”
Thomas pulls out a pair of tweezers from a travel-size kit of tools he has holstered on his belt. Once he’s pulled the paper out, he unrolls it.
His teeth clench. Whatever it says makes the veins in his neck bulge and every muscle in his jaw visible.
Afraid that if I ask what it says, he won’t tell me, I shoot my hand out and snatch the note from his hand.
“No, you don’t want to see—,” he tries to get out, but it’s too late.
I should’ve listened. What I see makes all the blood leave my face, and my vision starts to black at the edges. I try to reach for him. Hoping to anchor me to reality, it’s too late. One minute I see blue skies, and the next? Nothingness.
35
WYATT
When Thomas called to deliver his daily check-in on Ariah, I expected a simple and uneventful report. Instead, I’m greeted with bullshit and a headache before I can even brush my goddamn teeth.
“What the fuck do you mean someone sent her a box with severed lips?”
Another package. Someone sent my Riri… Another. Fucking. Package.
“Yes, Wyatt. There was a recording and two notes. The first note instructed her to play the recording. The second note caused her to pass out.”
I yank at my hair, curls uncoiling to be straight. I’m well past losing my shit. We weren’t successful in locating the person who sent the first package.
Owen couldn’t get any accurate information from Pamela before he killed her. Even after hours of torture, she only remembered waking with no left hand.
The dumb bitch was lying, but whoever she was lying for, she took their name to her grave. Well, her proverbial one, there’s nothing left of her to bury.
