23
FREYA
Jude’s blood sits in a pool on the wooden floor in the living room. My hands shake as I stare at the crimson liquid. Fragmented memories of him lying on the floor filter in, of me screaming at him to stay with me. To keep his eyesopen.
The feeling that sank to the pit of my stomach when he lost consciousness will forever be embedded in my body.
River comes up behind me and I snap myself out of it. He grabs a bucket and a mop, and I go upstairs to change my shirt and wash my arms before sitting at the foot of the steps as he cleans the blood up.
I refused to speak to him in the car and neither of us say anything now.
Eli and Oz stayed behind to sort out us taking custody of Angelica with the police. Oz messages me to say they’re getting a lift back with one of the Uniforms and by the time a car engine rumbles on the drive, River’s finished cleaning up.
He’s done his best, but the floor is discolored where Jude’s blood spilled, the dark red having stained the wood. I sit on the couch and stare at it until Angelica, Oz, and Eli come join me around the coffee table.
Angelica sits on the couch to my left. She pulls her legs up to her chest. “I didn’t mean to,” she says.
I nod, the distant feeling I thought I’d left behind at Carmen’s coming back. “I know.”
River speaks up from behind me and I turn to find him leaning against the island, his arms crossed. “Jude said you have something to give to Freya.”
Angelica nods and reaches into her pocket.
Everyone tenses and Eli’s hand drops to the gun holstered at his hip, but she doesn’t pull a weapon.
No. My sister retrieves a brown folded envelope.
The hairs on my neck spike as she hands it to me. It hasn’t got an address on it and the envelope bulges in the middle. I tear it open and upend it.
A chess piece falls into my palm. The black queen.
I pinch it between my fingers, hoping I’m wrong.
I’m not.
It’s the same piece from the game I played with Zach in the park. The piece he made me sacrifice. I’m about to put the envelope down when something soft brushes my skin. I shake it. A lock of hair falls into my hand. Ginger. Tied with a piece of string.
Harley’s.
“You got this from Zach.” My lips are numb.
Angelica nods. “He said to check the PO box every day and if there was ever a letter there, I was to give it to you. He said you’d know what it means.”
Eli digs his hand into the back of his neck and Oz looks over at River, wariness seeping from his eyes.
“It means he knows I’m back.” I put the hair back in the envelope and tell myself a lock of hair doesn’t mean she’s dead. I curl the chess piece inside my fist, the wooden edges digging into my palm. “It’s a threat.”
“A threat?” my sister asks, her brows furrowed in confusion.
“Zach’s not a good person, Allie.”
Her frown deepens. “He helped me. He got me out of that place and said he’d protect me. He gave me money.”
I press my lips together, part of me not wanting to tell her the truth because she’s in her regressed self right now. This Allie is more like a teenager than a fully matured adult. But if we want her to help us, she needs to know Zach’s not on our side.
I draw in a steady breath. She spent time with him, might have information that could help us find him.
“Zach hurt me, Allie. When we were little. And now he’s taking other little girls and hurting them too.”
