“Ruckus.”
“You need to get to the yard,” I tell him.
“What's the problem, now?” He sounds groggy and pissed the fuck off.
“The problem is, we got another dead girl!” I stare down at the pale-skinned girl that's lying in the bottom of our empty pool and on closer inspection, I realize that I recognize her.
“What? Where?”
“Right fuckin’ here, Raze. I’m lookin’ at her!”
“Holy shit! Is she…she cut up like the others?” he asks, rustling around him and hopefully making his way here.
“Yeah,” I whisper, looking down at the wide-open eyes of the latest victim, “and this time there’s a message.”
The word GOTCHA is spelled out in blood around the girl’s head and when I hear a loud scream come from the balcony, I look up and see Anita.
“Jenika!That’s Jenika!” She rushes down the stairs and I meet her at the bottom, grabbing her waist and holding her back.
“She’s gone, there's nothin’ you can do for her,” I explain.
“No. She’s just a girl, she was saved.” Anita shakes her head.
“What's goin’ on?” Sasquatch steps outside one of the rooms, scratching the back of his head.
“She’s dead! Jenika’s dead!” Anita yells.
“What d’ya mea–oh, fuck!” He looks into the pool and what he sees wakes him the fuck up.
Raze comes rushing through the arch and stops at the edge of the pool when he sees the girl laid out at the bottom.
“You said he was dead. Youpromisedthat he couldn't hurt us anymore.” Anita clings to my shirt and shakes.
“I know.” I try to calm her down, but I got no words of reassurance. Cliff Adams is, without any doubt, dead and fuckin’ buried. What we’re dealing with here is the unknown.
I look across the yard at Raze and feel the anger coursing through him as he looks down at the girl he thought he’d saved.
“Cliff didn’t do this,” I promise Anita, holding her in my arms and doing all I can to make her feel safe.
“If he didn’t do it, who did?” She looks up at me like I’ve got all the fuckin’ answers.
“I don’t know.” I shake my head, realizing that this ain’t over.
I don’t think it’s even fuckin’ started.
