Page 20

Her eyes flicker. “I see. We may need to unpack that another day.” She rises and grabs her wool coat and umbrella. “Come back to see me tomorrow. We will finish where we left off.”

I nod in anticipation of where the memories in the bunker will take me. The dark places that made me crave violence. “Okay.”

“And Layla…keep working on your paintings. They are helping you unlock the memories you are looking for.”

She’s wrong. I’m not searching for all my memories. I’m too afraid to recall the one that shattered me. The one that terrifies me to my core.

Chapter 8

My apartment seems smaller than before as I open my door and peer inside. Kicking off my shoes, I shake water off my umbrella and coat. Everything is the same as I left it, down to my scattered clothes on my bed. The wineglass I left out and a few papers. My bed is unmade and crumpled.

I sigh and walk over to the window, opening it a crack and glancing down at the police cruiser sitting outside and the city lights of the busy neighborhood as the salty air breezes against my skin. I can’t sleep right now, so I head to the couch and prep my paints and begin to study the side of the Archer’s face. I’ve already laid down black and gray strokes. His dark hair is wild and unruly, and everything is centered around his bright eyes. Each day, my mental image of him sharpens, yet he remains concealed behind that mask. Frowning, I mix paints and meticulously sketch the lines around his eyes. The emotion depicted isn’t quite accurate, and I can’t quite decipher the meaning in his gaze.

Anger, sadness, pain, love—none of them seem right. Obsession perhaps?

My phone buzzes, and Beth’s name lights up the screen. I answer, assuring my overbearing mother I’m fine. She tells me she wants me home, claiming she can keep me safer when I’m closer.

In just over a month, her company was meant to be mine, as my grandfather’s will stipulated for my twenty-first birthday. Now that I’m out of the picture, she’s making all the decisions, completely disregarding my grandfather’s wishes. My abduction couldn’t have come at a better time for Beth. Still, I have to face Stormwood, eventually. I’m only delaying the inevitable.

She finally lets me go, and I open a bottle of white wine, then settle on my couch, taking a long sip and closing my eyes, nearly spilling the glass. It’s not long before my phone rings again from an unknown number. I swallow hard and answer it, saying nothing, placing my wine down on the coffee table calmly.

It’s quiet on the other side of the line, but I can hear wind and a deadly presence. It’s him— it must be. I watch those inhuman eyes staring at me through the canvas, and a low laugh rumbles through the phone.

My body is shaky. “You shot at me, you asshole.” I sound pathetic. So, fucking pathetic.

“Listen carefully, wildling…”

Blind rage consumes me. “No,” I scream at him. “I will not listen. You are a fucking monster. I could have died. One inch…” I can barely finish the thought as I envision my head splattered on the ground.

“You really don’t remember anything about me, do you, Layla? I hit the light, because that’s how precise my aim is. If I wanted you dead, baby, I’ll kill you right fucking now. I never missed my mark.”

I linger my gaze out the window into the darkness. “They will find you. Whatever game you think you’re playing, you won’t get away with it.”

“They won’t find me, because they don’t know I exist.”

Jesus.

I rack my brain trying to remember where I’ve heard his voice before. It wasn’t in the bunker, it couldn’t have been, but I recognize it so intimately—so where?

“Do you remember a woman named Mrs. Parkinson?” he asks.

I crinkle my nose at the sudden change in topic. “What?”

The familiar name comes rushing back to me. An image of an old lady who used to scowl at me at the grocery store, or at the bank, and rarely gave her any mind.

I grip the phone. “I remember her. She lived off Sannich Road. What does she have to do with anything?”

He laughs softly, and his laugh makes my knees weak. “Do you remember what she died of?”

I pull up the bits and pieces of what I can recall. The entire case was so underwhelming. She is nothing but a distant memory. But the real question is, how does the Archer know her?

“A heart attack,” I tell him.

He pauses. “You’re wrong. She died from a spider bite. A black widow, to be exact. Three different spider bites from three different spiders. Enough venom to trigger a heart attack. Do you remember when she died?”

My skin prickles. I can only guess. “Why are you so sure there were three?”

“You’d be surprised what information you can find online. The coroner’s report said it was three bites. Black widows only bite once, and it’s very rare to have a cluster of them together. Spiders live alone, baby.”