I bite my lip and glance over my shoulder at Zaid and Rafe, who both meet my gaze with hooded looks.
Yeah. I suppose I don’t have anything to be jealous about.
“Come on.” Everett gestures for us to follow him.
The air’s thick with the scent of decay and mold as we move through the entrance gate, which is now nothing but a crumbling structure overrun with weeds and ivy.
“What happened to this place? Why is it abandoned?” I ask, lifting my legs to step over a rotted piece of wood.
“Owner must’ve fallen on hard times,” Krystian answers, his lips pursing as he studies our surroundings. “They probably had no choice but to put it up for sale. When no one bought it, they shut it down and allowed it to wither away. No point in upkeeping a closed business.”
We step cautiously over cracked pavement, the sound of our footsteps echoing eerily in the empty space.
The towering Ferris wheel looms in the distance, its once-bright colors now faded and chipped. Some of the seats sway slightly in the breeze, creating a ghostly, haunting rhythm.
Roller coaster tracks thrust overhead like a massive skeletal hand, reaching towards the sky but suspended in time, forgotten. A dilapidated funhouse with peeling paint and boarded-up windows stands nearby, its mirrors cracked, distorting the faint reflections of us as we pass.
Krystian pauses, studying the mirror curiously.
“Is that where we have to go?” I ask, stopping beside him.
“No, this is the funhouse, not the mirror maze. It’s just…” A frown tugs at his lips, and he shakes his head ruefully. “It’s nothing.”
“It’s obviously something,” I counter.
The others have moved slightly ahead, granting us a semblance of privacy, which I’m grateful for. Something is obviously bothering Krystian. It has been since this morning. He tries to act like his usual jovial self, but there’s a heaviness to him that hasn’t been there prior.
“What’s going on?” I press, nudging him slightly with my elbow.
“It’s just…” He bites down on his lip, debating, before blurting out, “It’s Krys.”
I frown. “What about him?”
“Do you remember when we were in the maze? And we were staring into the loom?”
How could I forget? I saw image after image of some of the more memorable souls I reaped.
The old man holding his wife’s hand.
The little girl lying on a hospital bed.
The young woman who had just been beaten, raped, and left for dead on the side of the road.
“Well, I saw things that didn’t make sense,” Krystian continues. “The memories I saw… They weren’t mine. At least, I didn’t think they were until I started looking closer. I realized that they were Krys’s memories.”
He takes a shuddering breath, but I don’t speak to fill the silence—which is a miracle, because I love speaking. However, I can tell he needs to gather his thoughts before he’s capable of continuing the story.
“I saw some of the things Krys did—some of the people he hurt and killed—and at first, I was horrified. But then some of his thoughts drifted to me, and I realized how horrible these people were. They were murderers. Rapists. The scum of the earth. Take the motorcycle club you two visited. Every person in that bar was involved in an underground trafficking ring.”
He turns to stare at me, confusion swarming in his eyes. “The people he kills aren't all that different from the onesIkill.”
“Krys isn’t some sort of evil monster,” I tell him gently, rubbing his arm. “He’s you. And yes, he may have darker urges and a lack of inhibition, but he’s not the bad guy. At least, he isn’t in your story.”
“Last night…” He ruffles a strand of his white-gold hair. “Last night was the first time I remembered everything that happened. I didn’t wake up confused and disoriented, wondering where I was and how I’d gotten there.”
“Maybe it’s because you’re finally accepting that part of yourself?” I suggest.
“Yeah. Maybe.” He rubs a hand down his face with a ragged sigh. Then he forces a smile, that single dimple appearing on his cheek. “But enough of this depressing shit. We have the Underworld to get to.”
