Chapter Seventeen #2
Evander crawls closer and then stays crouched by the open doorway, his heartbeat a runaway rabbit as he peers into the forbidden garden.
What he expects, he can’t name. Something terrible, something foul.
The Lennox-Halls’ dirty secret. He holds his breath and presses himself hard to the edge of the doorway in shivery anticipation.
Show me. But the more he looks, the more his frown deepens, and he can’t help the wave of sallow disappointment.
The locked garden is perfectly circular, with wildly untamed underbrush running around the edges and Ever Ivy smothering the stone walls.
It smells viciously and violently of growing things, of fresh soil and vegetation rotted down, and the flowers are oddly shaped and disfigured as if they’ve been crushed and flattened out by an invisible hand.
Wickedly glossy berries cluster near leaves that curve like arrow tips.
Most of them he recognizes from the field guide, from the poisonous nightshade section.
That wild, foul-sweet smell reminds him of something too—the poison that stained the air when Byron died.
In the middle of the garden lies a circle of odd tiles, a strange-looking dry marble fountain in the dead center.
It’s so smothered in lichen and ivy it’s impossible to make out the grotesque statue’s shape until he realizes it’s another faun.
What the hell is it with all the fauns? This one looks particular monstrous with horns and fangs, stone edges chipped off and bandaged in fingers of ivy.
Six garden beds surround the fountain and they’re the only things that don’t make sense.
They are completely dead.
Not a stick has been planted, not a weed flourishes.
Tension pricks at Evander’s shoulder blades and he glances quickly behind him, but nothing is there.
Breathe. When he looks back, Bane is already lording over one of the empty beds, directing Jessica onto her knees to start digging with a small trowel.
She tilts her head up to say something and he scoffs.
The flashlight shows her frown before she bends back to her task.
Maybe the only thing happening is a rich man being an asshole. If Laurie was here, he’d go in and pick a fight with Bane so Jessica could escape, but Evander has none of that bravery. It also does strange things to his insides thinking of how Laurie is the only Lennox-Hall who would step in.
Bane inspects his piddly basil plant and starts waxing on and on about how to garden—bold for a man who dragged an underpaid assistant out here to do it for him—and Evander starts to feel his nervous energy fizzle out in disappointment. No answers will be found. No new pieces for the puzzle.
He gets to his feet, careful not to brush up against the vicious ivy, and decides he’ll melt into the shadows and keep looking for Carrington. Maybe later he’ll try to steal that key from Bane and inspect this garden in the daylight.
Because it makes no sense to lock a garden that is nothing more than a place for dying plants.
He turns away just as Jessica’s voice tips up into a stifled shriek.
Evander whips back around, his hands on the doorframe, leaning in while his heartbeat picks up. They could probably see him if they glanced this way, but neither of them look.
She’s pointing into the garden bed and he can’t see, can’t see, but Bane gives an unconcerned snort and comes over to rest a hand on her shoulder.
“Oh my god.” Jessica’s hands clap over her mouth. “Ohmygodohmygod. Is that … is that an arm?”
Ice settles in Evander’s veins. What the—No, she must have uncovered an old root and is confused in the dark. Getting any closer would mean he’d enter the garden and he can’t risk it.
Bane laughs, one long, despicable sound, and then tosses the basil plant over his shoulder. It smashes against the water fountain in a tinkling of ceramic.
“Yes, yes,” Bane says, unaffected. “Didn’t you know? The best way to fertilize hungry soil is with blood and bone.”
In his hand is a small knife.
There is one split second where Evander’s eyes go wide, his body coiled to plunge forward, because he can see it in slow motion, feel it, taste the spray of hot coppery blood at the exact moment it happens.
Bane plunges the knife into the side of Jessica’s neck.
He yanks it free with a sick, wet squelch and blood mists out like black rain.
A strange gurgling escapes Jessica as her hand flutters to her neck and she twists to stare up at Bane with almost childish confusion.
Evander’s heart punches into his throat, an upturned scream clattering against his teeth. He is frozen, he is horrified, he can’t take his eyes off what he just saw.
Hands close over his mouth.
He’s yanked backward and down, his cry muffled as he strikes out with wild terror. Carrington. It’s Carrington and he’s going to die die die—
But then Evander is crushed against a chest, his body folded over as a heavy weight presses him toward the cobbles and heather.
Laurie’s mouth is at his ear, his breathing too quick and lit up with a raw, wretched fear.
His fingers dig in hard around Evander’s mouth, his left arm coming up to wrap around Evander’s throat so he can’t scream, can’t breathe, can’t make a sound.
This is nothing like the comforting hold of before when he had a panic attack.
This is a silencing.
Laurie tightens his grip, his brace digging in hard against Evander’s windpipe; it’s strangulation, sickening and savage.
“Shh,” Laurie hisses.
Panic soars through Evander’s veins until he is an animal thing, pinned and brutalized, his terror written only in his wild eyes. This is the place he nearly died and this is the person who nearly killed him and the way he’s holding Evander says he has not forgotten either of these facts.
All Evander can do is stare into the open doorway of the forbidden garden as Bane releases Jessica and she crumples like a crushed flower into the empty garden bed.
The bloody knife is in his hand, glinting wetly in the dark, and he surveys it with bored contempt.
Then he kneels down, puts a knee on her back, and starts sawing open her throat. As if he needs her to bleed out faster.
The flesh must be chewy and soft. The small knife keeps getting stuck.
Cartilage snaps with a crackle.
A whimper escapes Evander, muffled by Laurie’s fingers pressed up hard against his teeth.
But then Laurie rests his forehead against Evander’s curls with infuriating tenderness, and bloody despair is strewn all through his voice as he whispers, “I told you and told you. The garden isn’t safe.”