She instantly turns away while I open the lid once more, needing to ensure I wasn’t imagining shit the first time.
My nostrils flare and my hands quake as I stare down at the contents, nearly grinding my molars to dust. I wasn’t imagining anything.
Inside the box are two bloody eyeballs staring right back at me, the lifeless irises still a vivid moss green.
My stare drifts an inch to the left, where the note lies on the ground by my feet, face up. Now, the words are clear.
CHAPTER 30
REVERIE
This is bad.
This is really fucking bad.
I don’t remember handing the crimson-stained note and box over to Dread, but when I turn away to pace the hallway, my hands are empty as I delve them into my hair and squeeze tight, white noise muting sound as panic consumes my soul and my stomach twists with nausea.
“I need you to gaslight the fuck out of me right now,” I say, my voice trembling. “Please tell me those don’t look like Mindy Sackler’s eyeballs.”
He's quiet, and vomit rises in my throat with every passing second in silence.
Tears line my waterline, and my chin trembles.
Shit, this is bad.
I've been keeping up on any updates posted about her disappearance, but no one has heard from or seen her since the night she went on that date with a person using a rendition of my birth name. It'sfucked up, and it's yet another thing that has the press in a fucking frenzy.
I drop my hands and pause before Dread, who's staring at the open box holding the bloody fucking eyeballs, the muscle in his jaw pulsating and his expression ice cold.
“Dread,” I urge desperately, his name cracking in my throat. It's too tight not to crush any sound moving through it.
He's slow to lift his frosted eyes to mine, his voice toneless as he says, “I can't.”
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuck.
“Okay, wait,” I rush out, my voice squeaking with desperation and hope as I attempt to reason with him. “Eyes don’t keep the pigmentation once the tissue dies. Th-they should be milky and colorless, right?”
Dread tightens his lips. “Baby, you’re in a forensic science class,” he reminds me softly.
My face crumples, and I nod, the knowledge I shoved to the back of my brain rising to the surface. If formalin is immediately injected into the eyeballs, it will prevent the tissue from decomposing and retain the pigmentation in the irises. If anyone would know to do that—especially to send a message—it’d be the fucking Locksmith.
“But we still don't know if they’re hers, right?” I ask, hating how small my voice sounds.
He inhales then nods once. “Right. It could be anyone's. Lots of people have green eyes.”
My expression is pained as I give him a pointed look that says,No, they fucking don’t.He grimaces, knowing as well as I do that green eyes aren’t uncommon, per se, but they still make up a very small percentage of the population, especially when they’re as vivid as Mindy’s.
“D-do you think she’s dead?” I ask hoarsely.
His lips flatten into a firm line, refusing to answer.
I blink, and a tear drips to the tiled floor. It feels as if I’m being crushed beneath the weight of the possibility that my father just murdered someone from school. She’s gone because of me—because I refused to go back home.
My fingers cover my mouth as I process the fuckery Lionel threw at my goddamn window.
He potentially killed another woman, put the incriminating evidence right in my hands, and left me with it.
He’s punishing me.
