My chest pinches, tightening with alarm. I drag the washed-out gray T-shirt Chase handed to me earlier up my arms and over my head, watching the thin fabric fall to the top half of my thighs like a dress. I step into my worn underwear, returning the lace to my hips, then my shoes, before pressing my palm to the rectangle mirror that sits above the burnt-orange vanity. In circular motions, I remove the steam that has settled across the glass until my reflection ghosts back at me.
There’s a harsh bang that comes from the hall and there are a few voices that follow, some raspy, some low. The place had become a cacophony of testosterone.
I catch a shiver, and it digs around the ladder of my spine. Crossing my arms and squeezing my elbows, I stare into my eyes, noticing how dull and lifeless and empty they are.
Being surrounded by death does that to you. It doesn’t discriminate; it doesn’t pick and choose whose life it will fuck up.
Death takes; there’s no give.
Droplets of water drip between my shoulder blades and goosebumps tumble across my limbs. I snatch the towel at my side, wringing the ends of my short hair. Pushing my fingers through the damp strands and shaking it out, I flick the front to one side and leave it like that, knowing it will dry straight on its own.
Another bang comes from behind me, though much louder and closer this time, and I feel my heart punch out of my body. Spinning around, I clasp the edge of the chipped vanity, my palms now clammy.
Knuckles rap at the timber door, accompanied by a voice I’m not familiar with, “Can you hurry up in there, girly?”
I glance from the knob that wobbles, toward the toilet in the corner of the same room.
“One second,” I croak, dropping the soiled towel into a washing basket beside it in a frenzy and frantically snatching up my blood-stained clothes from the wet floor.
I cast one more gaze toward the mirror, seeing once again the red that has rimmed my eyes. I look so broken, it’s tragic and ugly,so fucking ugly.Sucking back a sharp breath, I drop my chin and free up the bathroom.
Jean-clad legs rest against the opposite wall, I keep my head to my chest as the man walks into the bathroom, shutting the door with a thud and a horrifying belch.
It makes the sparse contents in my stomach curdle.
I’m moving down the hall, alarm in my step as I head toward the main section of the clubhouse. My lungs tighten with the need for a cigarette and as I curl into the room, stopping at the edge, I raise my chin and find Chase, his back toward me.
He’s resting against an old pool table and by the way his shoulder muscles are corded beneath his top I can tell his arms are crossed.
A bottle of beer rests at the felt surface behind him, it’s the same for Harlen, who is next to him, and Rusty too, who is on the opposite side, his hands curled around the lipped ledge.
They’re talking to someone sitting on the old peeling red leather couch in front of them. I can’t see who though, and the four of them haven’t noticed me.
It made me feel invisible, like an apparition listening to a conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear, whispered quietly beneath solemn breaths.
“...neck snapped, doused and scrubbed with bleach…” A pause, then, “Like your sister. But this time, he didn’t use the tunnel.”
I curl my fists into the fabric of my dirty clothes, swallowing the lump in my throat at the mention of Jade and her neck and the snap thatstillechoes.
And the bleach,the scrubbing, a detail I was yet to learn. That what this monster had done to Jade, the state in which he’d disposed of her, was a mirror act of my grandfather’s murders.
“That’s why you saw a cruiser and other cars congregating at the entrance of the trailer park.”
Whoever this guy was, he was obviously talking to Chase, and must have thought more of the scene at the entry of the trailer park than I had.
My palms begin to shake.
Chase tells them, “Yeah, pushed back into the trees there was some kind of tent?—”
Rusty clarifies, “A privacy tent.”
I didn’t notice that.
The guy in front of them clears his throat, spits phlegm at his side. “Yep. It seems the sick fuck bypassed the tunnel and thought it was a good idea to drop her off beneath the park's sign.” He pauses, only to pop a knuckle. “Tied her broken neck to the steel pole with some flimsy-ass pink and red ribbon.”
My vision telescopes.
A numbness washes over my body.
