I can’t tell if it’s condescension or reverence in his tone, but both easily trigger my flight instinct. Whatever is keeping me glued to my chair is deteriorating, and the need to run strengthens.
As if sensing that, Dread allows his stare to drop to my lips once more, though the journey back to my eyes is slow and deliberate. My heart flips when they reach their destination.
“You never needed to drug me, darling. If you wanted to fuck with my system, all you had to do was say my name.”
My mouth parts, shock and confusion battling for my attention. I’m frozen solid as he pulls away in one sweep, there and gone in an instant.
When I finally manage to blink myself out of the stupor he shoved me into, I turn my head to glance around.
Only Dr. Camry is there to meet my stunned gaze.
“Is there a reason you’re still here, Ms. Adams?”
CHAPTER 11
REVERIE
“All you had to do was say my name.”
Those nine words have haunted me since he uttered them yesterday. He disappeared afterward, and I haven’t seen him since.
It’s now nine o’clock at night, and I’ve only just finished my shift at the funeral home. I spent my morning attempting to work on homework, but I ended up typing out those stupid words more often than anything related to forensic science. Eventually, I gave up, took a nap, and went to work.
But even Sable couldn’t distract me.
She made a great effort to pry out what had me so distracted, even going so far as to threaten me with her scalpel, but I refused to release them into the world.
I don’t know what the fuck he meant, but even worse, I don’t know why the hell every time I replay it in my head, my stomach flutters.
With a tired groan, I lean heavily against the inside of mydoor and sloppily kick off my black kitten heels. My job requires me to dress nicely, and those shoes are the worst thing to happen to my feet since I learned to walk.
Today has been mentally draining. When Dread’s voice wasn’t plaguing me, his impending retaliation was. And whenthatwasn’t on my mind, Lionel being out on the streets somewhere was.
Not to mention the recurring nightmare plaguing me every night, where I'm convinced I'm back in that fucking grave again, a long root forming a noose around my throat, anchoring me down into the dirt. Standing all around the grave were the walking dead girls, throwing dirt on me while chanting the names of the known Locksmith victims.
I've never been able to sleep well, but these past few weeks have been particularly bad. The only time I managed to shift my focus to work was when a man came in to see his wife, the mother of the twin boys clinging to his legs. He wanted to create a special moment where they put their most prized possessions in her casket to be buried with her.
She passed from breast cancer, and Sable had made her look nearly identical to her old self, before the disease ravaged her body.
We set up her casket in a viewing room with a stool beside it so the twins could climb up and put their toys beside her themselves. Neither was old enough to fully comprehend their mommy wouldn’t be returning.
One boy kept shaking her, attempting to wake her up, and despite the father repeatedly explaining she wasn’t going to, the boy insisted on trying, anyway. Though the man stayed gentle and patient, with each passing second, the life drained from his eyes, and the fine wrinkles around his eyes and mouth caved in a little deeper.
Especially when the boy grew frustrated and slammed his tiny fist into her arm, yelling at her to wake up. At that point, the father hurriedly tucked their toys into her side out of sight and ushered them out of the building, face flushed red with both distress and embarrassment. An attempt at a special moment became an awful memory, and all he could do was mutter how stupid of an idea it was under his breath.
I’ve witnessed thousands of families break in different ways, but for whatever reason, today’s incident clung to my skin like wet fabric.
It broke my heart.
And it left me feeling more raw and vulnerable than usual. I’ve built walls around myself to prevent those occurrences from burrowingbeneath my skin. But between Dread and Lionel, they’ve become fragile and pathetic.
I’m just sotired.
It’s as if Earth’s gravity has strengthened, weighing my bones down. I want nothing more than to give in to it, collapse to the floor, and curl up like a crumpled piece of paper.
Instead, I force myself to strip and redress into shorts and an oversized T-shirt. Then, I quickly brush my teeth and trudge to my bed, prepared to crash the second my head hits the pillow.
An exciting prospect that shrivels and dies the second my eyes land on a small piece of paper folded in half, lying atop my comforter. Beside it is what looks like a bright pink barrette, but that makes no fucking sense.
