Burn Like An Angel (Harrowdean Manor #2)

Prologue

PROLOGUE

TWIN SIZE MATTRESS – THE FRONT BOTTOMS

XANDER

Present Day

Have you heard about those people who poke around abandoned buildings, waving around their bullshit ghost detectors and speculating as to the horrors the decrepit ruins they’re violating may hold?

They pay off some cash-strapped security guard to sneak into the site without being arrested, usually by scaling chain-link fences or burrowing through boarded over entrances, carrying backpacks full of flashlights, energy bars and fancy cameras to document their exploration.

And that’s where the show begins, right? We’re sucked into the fascination from behind our phone screens, hearts pounding and palms sticky, awaiting the next dark twist in the story as they inch forward.

Hook, line and sinker.

I know we all watch those videos.

Not many of us can say that we were once the ghosts to haunt the halls now immortalised on the internet. The flip side of the coin. Part of the fabric of the abandoned husk, and by extension, its story.

Our lives are a mystery that society then monetises and sells off to the highest bidder for entertainment. The human stories interwoven with the tragedy are erased. Written over. Forgotten. That’s what happened to us.

Crouched low with the collar of my thick coat turned up to hide my face, I find myself in the paradoxical position of breaking into the institute I was once incarcerated in.

Now I’m the violator. Not the violated. I haven’t returned to Harrowdean Manor in the last decade. Tonight is different. I’m saying goodbye for the final time.

Everyone thinks this tale has already been told. The book closed long ago for the short-term memory spans of the disinterested public. Once the uproar died down, the world continued to turn, and Incendia was forgotten.

We were forgotten.

One by one, each of the six private institutes that once fed the wealth and depravity of the corporation have been demolished. It’s taken ten years to see the process through, and now Harrowdean is the final institute to fall. It’s set for demolition at daybreak.

Most don’t know this place still exists. It’s kept off the books and quiet for this exact reason—the government and those in charge of the cleanup don’t want curious bloggers poking around with their cameras. Instead, the place has been left to quietly rot.

In the pocket of my thick coat, I feel my mobile phone buzzing. I know who it will be without needing to check. Sighing through my nostrils, I answer the incoming call.

“I told you to leave me alone.”

“You can’t just storm off like that, Xan!” Lennox huffs in his gravelly, sonorous timbre. “We need to talk about this.”

“I’ve made my position perfectly clear.”

“Where are you?” he demands. “We’re going to sit down and discuss this together. As a fucking family.”

“Do what you want. I have nothing else to say.”

“Ripley had every right to sit down with that journalist?—”

“No,” I interrupt him. “She didn’t.”

Hanging up, I pocket my phone. I may not be the stone cold, level-headed analytic I once was, but I’m not going to sit here and write some shitty pros and cons list to make this decision. I said no.

We’ve never entertained any interview requests before. I certainly won’t be doing it now.

Creeping through long grass that’s almost as tall as I am, the loading bay comes into view. Weeds have long overtaken the concrete foundation and brick pillars, cloaking the institute’s rear entrance in a coffin-like, green shroud.

I hop up onto the platform, heading for the bolted door where deliveries once took place. My backpack slides off my shoulder and into my hands. After unzipping it, I sift around for the compact pair of bolt cutters I stashed inside amongst my other supplies.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

Everyone wanted to escape this hell hole.

Here I am now, breaking back in.

Latching the curved blades around the padlock that secures the bay doors, I position myself then begin to cinch the cutters closed. It takes some manoeuvring, the rusted metal screaming in protest, loud enough to make me flinch.

Eventually, the padlock splits and falls. It thuds against the ancient concrete so loud, it feels like the metallic clank of a guillotine making impact with an exposed neck.

Lip curled, I shake off the thought. No one comes here. The security measures are fucking pathetic. I’m perfectly safe. As I ease the door open, the smell hits me.

There aren’t adequate words to describe it... A pungent, stomach-turning concoction of animal waste, mould, burnt-out fires and something inexplicable. Something sinister. Perhaps the stench of long-removed corpses or faded bloodstains.

Stashing the bolt cutters, I swap them for an industrial flashlight then step back into purgatory. My flashlight providing the only guiding light, smashed glass crunches beneath my thick-soled boots, a breadcrumb trail leading me deeper into the suffocating darkness.

All of the evidence of the atrocities committed here was removed when CSI’s swarmed, and the infamous Sabre Security picked over the remains. In fact, there’s evidence of that—discarded plastic bags, crime scene tape and even the faint sprinkles of fingerprint dust.

The broken pieces of countless shattered lives were left behind, though. A random shoe. Used needles. Broken furniture. Torn books. Graffiti litters every wall with various tags and nihilistic messages left behind by forgotten patients.

One inked tag catches my eye.

WE SCREAM IN SILENCE.

Running a gloved hand over the letters, anger comes rushing to the surface. Strange to think I once felt nothing… until she came along. Now I’m not just angry. No. I’m indescribably, uncontrollably, ire-fucking-futably furious.

We did scream.

Yet all they heard was silence.

Hand falling, I swallow the thick lump that’s now clogging my throat and push onwards to the south wing. The damage is worse here. Patients sought safety and refuge wherever they could when the institute fell. Some obviously hid here.

I’m not sure what possesses me to return to the art room at the end of the sagging corridor, now peppered with all manner of animal waste. The door is hanging off its hinges, the room brightly illuminated by moonlight spilling through smashed bay windows.

Gooseflesh rises on my skin, even beneath my heavy clothing. I can feel it prickling and spreading. I numbly realise that I’m staring at a torn canvas, tossed on the floor and covered in stains.

Dirt. Blood.

Who can tell?

I recognise the brush strokes beneath, though. I’ve spent enough hours silently watching her paint. The way the lurid shades are liberally applied for maximum emotional impact… It’s Ripley’s signature style.

She doesn’t just create art; she creates living, breathing replicas of her motherfucking soul. Each canvas holds a piece, torn directly from her chest then splattered against the material like a bloodied Rorschach inkblot. She paints with her own mortality.

Crouching down, I ignore the coverage of filth to lift the canvas. I don’t recognise this one. My leather-encased fingertips skate over the intricate swirls of black, dark-green and crimson, painting a violent maelstrom with three lone figures at the heart of the storm.

It’s signed and dated. She painted this not long after we arrived at Harrowdean Manor. I trace the first shadowy figure. She’s flanked by two darker shadows, creeping up behind her like prowling wolves.

A low chuckle tumbles from my mouth. I suppose that’s exactly what we were back then. Wolves. Predators. Enemies. Which is precisely how we survived. We had to become evil too.

Placing the canvas back down, I forcibly tear my eyes away from the twisted reminder of the past. The rest of the room is a disaster. Work benches are smashed and collapsed, stools upturned, electrical cables hanging from the ceiling. It’s a war zone.

The other rooms are no better. My flashlight swings from side to side, illuminating each iteration of the institute’s own apocalypse. Weirdly, it’s silent. Deathly so. My footsteps are the only sound, not even the clamour of stray animals keeps me company.

The world abandoned Harrowdean Manor.

Much like it abandoned us.

My feet carry me without direction. I don’t know what I came here to achieve. Not really. I just knew that I needed to see it one last time—to verify those dark times really happened and weren’t some elaborate, fucked up dream.

On the fifth floor, it’s a treacherous journey to room seventeen. The door hangs open, partially collapsed. Hoisting my backpack higher, I step into Ripley’s old bedroom, the floorboards creaking beneath my boots.

As more moonlight spills through the window, a wave of déjà vu hits me amongst the thick plumes of dust. Like the rest of the institute, the bedroom is trashed. I move slowly and carefully, fearful the floor is going to give way at any moment.

My gaze is locked on the rusted bed springs, littered with scraps of decaying fabric that have peeled off the frame over the years. This is the bed where I held a knife to Ripley’s throat, intent on ending the never-ending game for both of us before something stopped me.

She stopped me.

No—It was the way she made me feel.

That cruel vixen brought me to my knees without even trying. I couldn’t have stopped her even if I’d wanted to. Deep down, I was always hers to claim. Even in the months I refused to acknowledge that.

Ripley Bennet stole me.

Broke me.

Fixed me.

Fucking loved me.

I knew what I was missing out on by refusing to feel or be vulnerable ever again—that’s the thing the doctors and psychiatrists could never quite fathom. It wasn’t that I didn’t feel. Far from it. Rather, I used to feel so much, I instead simply chose never to feel again.

A silent scream.

And an unheard one at that.

But now our screams aren’t just being heard. They’re being documented. Edited. Cut into palatable soundbites to capture the public’s eye. Our stories are being commercialised, swallowed and fucking regurgitated to secure some ambitious asshole’s moment in the limelight.

She’s enabling it.

Once again, Ripley’s signing our death warrants.

I can’t allow this documentary to happen. No matter what people’s motivations are for getting involved, nothing good can come of dredging up the past. As much as I may hate the way this tragedy has been erased, I won’t watch my family suffer the repercussions again.

If the world knows the true story, every last gory detail of what went on in this very manor, we can kiss the last decade of painful peace goodbye. No matter how horrific the long-lasting trauma has made these years. At least we’re free.

Ripley’s voice may change that.

I have to stop the documentary from airing.