He takes another step to leave, but there's a stupid part of me that can't seem to let him go yet.
“Hey,” I call sharply, prompting him to pause once again, twisting his torso just enough for his frosted eyes to find mine. “You could’ve easily killed me, maybe even gotten away with it. Why didn't you just let me burn? It's what you've always wanted, isn't it?”
The muscle is his jaw pulses, and after a few beats, he murmurs, “If I did, I think we both know I would’ve followed you into the flames.”
Before I can respond, he turns away, his tone resolute. “Go home to your dorm tonight, Rev.”
Then, he walks out of the door, leaving me to sit naked in a chamber of human remains.
CHAPTER 26
REVERIE
It’s funny how I have little will to live, yet I cling to life with a fucking hulk-like grip.
I should’ve told Dread to burn me in the damn crematorium when I had the chance. It’d be painful, but a fairly quick death, at least.
I lost my chance, though.
It’s been exactly a week since he left me naked in the retort. As soon as he was gone, I gathered my clothes, found my phone abandoned by the mortuary rack after I fell off the pan, and went to the restroom to wipe off the ash as best I could before getting dressed.
By the time I finished, he’d already texted informing me of the Uber waiting outside to take me back to my dorm. He left me there, naked, and then flew out to North Carolina later that same Saturday morning for some swim training thing with Team USA.
So here I sit, twenty-two years old and still terrified of the boogeyman living in my childhood home.
The news channel plays softly from the small TV on my dresseracross the room, but it fades into the background as I sit on the edge of my bed, staring down at the photo of me and Lionel from when I was five. Three days ago, it fell out of my backpack when I was pulling out a few textbooks, rolled up with another photo and a chunk of blonde hair tied around them like a bow, the follicles still attached to most of the strands.
I don’t know who put them there, or even when, but I’ve only told Barry and Sable.
Well, I didn’t tell Barry about the photos. I knew he’d send an officer to collect them from me, and selfishly, I didn’t want anyone taking them. So when the officer from the Hollow Canyon PD stopped by the funeral home that same night, I only gave him the hair. I should tell Barry about them, but he’s seen both images before anyway—one from Lionel’s old Facebook, and the other from Margaret Lever’s case file.
Deep down, I know I’m holding on to them to punish myself. I bite my trembling bottom lip as I run my thumb over my small face in the picture, feeling like I’m looking at someone else entirely. Except, I know it’s me, because even though I’ve aged and changed, my haunted eyes have always looked the same.
It was taken on June 6th, 2008, digital numbers marking the date in the corner of the picture. Lionel crouches down behind me while I stand between his knees, both of his arms wrapped around me as the two of us smile. My blonde hair is fastened into pigtails high on my head with neon green hair ties with those huge baubles on the end, and I’m dressed in a bright pink T-shirt with purple butterflies all over, neon blue leggings covered in lemons, a rainbow-striped tutu over top, and bright fire engine red rainboots with yellow polka dots.
A fascinating ensemble, yet my attention is locked on to the bright pink cast encasing my arm and thumb, covered in black Sharpie signatures.
I don’t remember picking out my outfit, but I do remember playing at the park that day. It was a minute drive down the road from our house, and Lionel would take me there several times a week to give my mom a break from me.
One of the other kids, Raymond Lever, used to pick on me relentlessly, and his mother, Margaret, was great at flirting with my dad but terrible at disciplining her child. Her favorite thing to say to excuse Raymond’s behavior: ‘Boys will be boys. If he’s mean to you, it just means he likes you.’
The only one who could get Raymond to leave me alone was Lionel himself. The little boy would straighten up immediately once he got involved, and it always made Margaret swoon to see the big, burly man she had a crush on playing daddy to her fatherless child.
Four days prior to this picture, Raymond challenged me to a race to the top of the slide. Whoever went down it first won. I beat him there, of course, and was in the middle of sitting to slide down it when Raymond came up behind me and shoved me, angry he lost. I tumbled straight off the side and hit the ground ten feet below, landing awkwardly on my wrist and breaking it.
Lionel was enraged. Margaret apologized profusely, embarrassed at her son’s actions but desperate for Lionel not to be angry with Raymond—or, rather,her. I sat in the back seat, cradling my wrist and crying, while Margaret stood outside the driver’s door, attempting to reason away her son’s behavior again. The last thing I heard before Lionel slammed his car door shut and rushed me to the hospital was Margaret pleading with him.
“He didn’t mean it, Lionel. You know boys will be boys. He’s only rough with her because he has a crush on her. Lionel, he’s sor?—”
My mom was livid and didn’t want Lionel taking me there anymore, and I had a meltdown over it. I loved that park and didn’t want the stupid boy to think he got the better of me. So when she finally gave in and let me go back, I must’ve picked out a crazy outfit to celebrate my return.
When we arrived, I felt like such a badass. Raymond mumbled an insincere apology to me and was ostracized by the other kids, who all signed my cast and treated me like a warrior princess who survived an attack by the big, scary dragon.
It was the best day I ever had at the park, and also the last time I saw Raymond and his mom. He went to live with his estranged father in Florida after Margaret went missing later that night. He left for a sleepover with his grandmother so she could have the house to herself. According to Margaret’s sister, she was cooking dinner for her first date with an unknown man, though she wouldn’t say who—not until she was sure he’d leave his wife for her.
Except, no one ever saw Margaret again.
My last memory of her is her bright, pink-painted lips stretched into a wide smile, the top half of her face concealed by Lionel’s camera asshe snapped a photo of him crouched behind me, hugging me tightly. I remember staring at a strand of her black curly hair sticking to her lipstick, and how she was so happy Lionel was letting her make up Raymond’s mistake to him with a home-cooked meal.
