Chapter 25 #3
“Played with you?” she questions, and my face heats from embarrassment.
I nod, averting my gaze from hers again. “Yeah, like, sexually.”
A wave of embarrassment washes over me again, but deep down, I’m craving them, like a drug that my veins miss. I’m still desperate for them, wishing I could go back in time and do it all again.
Juliet stares at me for a minute, her mind probably conjuring up all sorts of fucked up images, then she laughs. “You do realize how fucked up that all sounds, right?”
I laugh as well, nodding. “Yeah. But, oh well, you only live once, right?”
My mind travels back to the photo of my parents, and it seems that depravity must run in my bloodline. I start to think of my mother being chosen for the Games, so I swing my legs over the side of my bed and stand up.
“Hungry?” I ask Juliet, eyeing her.
“Yeah, I’m just gonna change into some sweats,” she answers, standing up and grabbing her bag.
Leaving her in my room, I close the door to give her privacy to change, and head downstairs to the kitchen.
My grandmother is in the living room watching TV, so I dig in the pantry and start pulling out different snacks.
I find a tray under one of the counters, and I pile cookies, chips, pretzels, and a couple bottles of water on it.
Carrying the tray, I poke my head into the living room on my way past. “Goodnight, Gran.”
“Night, honey,” she calls, giving me a smile.
I make my way upstairs, then balance the tray in one hand to push my bedroom door open. When I do, I find Juliet sitting on the floor beside my bed, the photo of my mother and the Hallows Boys in her hands. I rush forward, putting the tray on my bed and snatching the photo.
“What are you doing?!” I ask with a bite, pressing the photo to my chest.
“I saw them poking out from under your mattress. I swear I wasn’t snooping,” she says, standing up.
My ears ring, feeling like my very personal secrets I wasn’t ready to share were just invaded.
“Is that your mom? You look just like her,” she adds.
I close my eyes, breathing through my nose to calm my racing heart. Anger simmers through me, and I so badly want to yell at her, but part of me tries to give her the benefit of the doubt. Even though I know the photos weren’t poking out, since I just put them back in place.
I blow out a steadying breath. “I don’t know if it’s normal around here to go through people’s things, but where I’m from, you aren’t supposed to.”
“I know!” Juliet says. “I’m so sorry, Sage. I guess I was just curious. I thought maybe they’d be pictures from Halloween.”
“It’s fine. Forget it,” I dismiss her, walking to my vanity and putting the photo into the top drawer.
I sit down on my bed, grabbing a cookie and waving a hand for her to join me. She smiles a tiny smile, but sadness runs through her features as she sits with me. “I really am sorry, Sage.”
“It’s okay,” I say on a sigh. “I’m just not ready to share those photos with anyone. They’re from when my parents lived here.”
“I wish I had photos of my dad,” she mutters, grabbing a handful of chips.
I shake my head. “I’ve never heard you mention him… You don’t have to share with me if you don’t want to, Juliet.”
She puts some chips in her mouth. “I feel like you might be the only one who even comes close to understanding, honestly.”
I eat some more of my cookie, then grab another. “What do you mean?”
“My dad didn’t die.” She swallows. “But he left when I was a baby. He picked another kid over me, like I wasn’t good enough or something. He chose to watch some other girl grow, leaving me with my mom.”
I click my tongue. “Then he’s an idiot.”
She smiles sadly. “Maybe.”
I don’t know why I do it, but I stand up and go to my vanity to pull the picture back out. Sitting back down, I lay it between us, putting a finger just above my father. “That’s my dad, Andrew. People say I get my smile from him.”
Juliet leans forward, falling silent while she stares at the picture. After a minute, she points a finger to my Uncle Aaron. “That’s your uncle? He looks just like your dad.”
“Yep.” I swallow. “They’re twins.”
Juliet grabs the picture, flips it over, and then her eyes go wide as she looks at me. “The Hallows Boys?!”
I laugh. “Yeah, did I not mention that part? Apparently, my dad and my uncle founded the Hallows Games.”
She stares at me, blinks a few times slowly, then laughs. “And your mom was chosen for the Games or something? Talk about history repeating itself, huh?”
I snort. “Tell me about it.”
The moon hangs above us as Juliet and I lie on our backs on my rooftop.
It’s a clear night, and the wind has seemed to calm down so it isn’t too cold.
The shingles of my house provide a very uncomfortable bed for us, but the joint Juliet brought with her is making it worth it.
I’ve never been a big smoker, since cheering calls for clear lungs, but when in Rome, right?
Juliet takes a big hit, blowing a cloud of smoke up into the night sky as she hands the joint to me. “Have you heard Blackmore’s famous scary story yet?”
I take the joint, my head floating. “No?”
She giggles. “The Blackmore Tragedy. It’s actually a really sad story, but I’m sure details have gotten twisted over the years, so I can’t promise everything I know is true.”
I suck on the joint, only pulling a small amount of smoke into my lungs before I hand it back to her. “Well, don’t leave me in suspense.”
She huffs a laugh. “Back in the day, there was this sweet girl who went to Blackmore University. People said she was a quiet girl, kind of a loner.”
I cut her off. “Is this about you?”
She laughs. “Shut up.”
I chuckle, turning my head to look at her as she takes another hit from the joint. She blows the smoke out, then continues. “As I was saying, she was quiet, kind of a loner. People say she was going to be top of her class, until she went missing.”
Goosebumps rise on my skin, and I wish I could blame it on the breeze blowing, but the night is still. “What happened to her?”
Juliet crosses her leg over the other. “The town sent out a search party for her every day for a month, and no one was able to find her. There aren’t a lot of places to hide in Blackmore, so it turned into this huge mystery around town.
Finally, the state sent the FBI in to do a sweep with K-9s and shit, and they ended up finding her body out in the far edge of the cemetery, where all the old ass crypts are.
She was in a shallow grave, completely naked, her body mutilated.
They said she was cut all over, and her neck still had a rope around it from where she was strangled. ”
I start to feel a little sick, and a chill runs down my spine. I picture the scene that Juliet is describing, but instead it’s my body in a shallow grave, bleeding and dead. I clear my throat. “Did they ever find who did it?”
“Yeah, they arrested someone who she went to school with—a student. They found his DNA inside of her, like he raped her before he killed her.” She sits up, pinching the end of the joint until the ember falls off and rolls down the shingles.
“He pleaded innocent from the very first day, said it was just a bad coincidence since he’d hooked up with her prior to her going missing, but no one believed him.
He went down for it; pretty sure he’s still in prison. ”
“Do you think he did it?” I ask, sitting up as well.
She shrugs. “Who knows? Either it was a really unfortunate coincidence, or he did it and was trying to save his own ass. A girl died, though, so hopefully justice was served.”
She stands up. “C’mon, I’m tired.”
I stand up to follow her back to my bedroom window, ducking in after her. We crawl into my bed, get comfortable, and let sleep take us.
My night is filled with vivid nightmares about a girl being brutally murdered, and every time I get a good look at her face, it’s me.
I wake up drenched in sweat, the morning sun shining through the window and making my head pound.
Slipping from bed quietly, I go downstairs to make some coffee to try to cure the pain in my temples.
“Morning, honey,” my grandma calls as I walk through the door to the kitchen, and I groan in response.
She chuckles a little and puts her attention back on the newspaper.
I go about making coffee mindlessly, something deep inside of me itching to find out more about the story Juliet told me last night.
I don’t know why it’s weighing so heavily on me, but I just want to figure it out.
I’ve loved puzzles ever since I was a little girl, and leaving one unsolved makes me itch.
Who knows? The story may just be some made-up scary story to frighten children around a campfire.
Except…coincidences don’t really happen, do they?
And Blackmore has one too many secrets for this scary story to be fake.
The twisted tradition of the Hallows Games sticks out in my head, and like a big, blaring red flag, they start to fit together.
What if this has something to do with my parents, or the Games?
Once the coffee has started to drip in the pot, I grab a cup from the cabinet and stand to watch it impatiently. I trace my fingers over the scar that’s crusting over on my neck, remembering the look on Kaiden’s face when he licked my blood from his finger.
My story could have easily been just like the girl’s from the story—naked, bound, cut—though I got multiple orgasms instead of being murdered.
I spin around to look at my gran. “Do you think if I snuck out of here, you could tell Juliet when she wakes up?”
My grandmother puts the newspaper down on the table, turning around to look at me. “Why?”
I purse my lips. “I need to go to the library.”
“At nine o’clock on a Saturday?” she questions, her eyebrow raising.
I narrow my eyes. “Can you cover for me?”
Chuckling, she turns back around to grab the newspaper again. “Go on, girl. I’ll send your friend home.”