Chapter 22
Agatha
Same eyes. Same bones. Not copies. Not masks. Brothers.
Triplets.
And I know them.
It hits like a punch. Mason’s uncles. The ones I see at dismissal leaning against the wall, tall and broad, like they own the damn hallway.
The ones who pick him up, who grin at him like he’s their whole world.
The ones I’ve caught myself looking at too long, thinking things I shouldn’t.
Bad boy smut on legs, walking straight out of a book I'd never admit I read.
But why me?
How do they know about my childhood? About the tights? How the hell did they get inside my parents’ house to dig up things I buried years ago?
My heart is trying to pound its way out of my chest. I force myself to stay standing, chin high, even as the room tilts with too many questions at once.
“The fuck,” I breathe. It comes out sharper than I mean, but maybe that’s better.
The one in the skull mask is the first to move.
Dark hair, cut close at the sides and messy on top.
Blue eyes, sharp and mocking, freckles scattered across skin inked with tattoos that climb from his chest and up his throat.
A silver ring glints through his nose. He looks like every bad decision a girl could make and still want twice.
“I’m Corwin,” he rasps, his voice low and rough. “We came because you asked.”
The second one steps forward, the one who played my body in the barn.
“I’m Garron,” he rumbles, his voice carrying the weight and vibration of a bass singer’s line.
His head is shaved close, scalp gleaming faintly in the light, and his eyes are the same blue.
His skin is sun-kissed, freckled. “You tempted us,” he says. “We answered.”
They sound the same. The same tone, the same heat curling around every word. Like one voice split into three throats.
My gaze snaps to the box on the floor, to the Bible that still smells like mildew and rot. “And you brought me my childhood,” I spit. “Who did that? Which one of you went digging in graves that weren’t yours?”
The last one smiles, the first mask I ever saw in the woods, the one who started all of this.
His brown hair is cropped close at the sides, longer on top, messy in a way that looks intentional.
Ink coils down his arms, every mark sharpened by muscle and pale skin.
There’s a small scar cutting through his brow and a simple two-line cross tattooed on his cheek under his left eye.
“We didn’t give you that to hurt you,” he tells me. “We gave it so you’d know exactly what we know.” Then his gaze finds mine again, steady, unblinking. “By the way,” he smirks, “I’m Evander.”
I shake my head, bile bitter in the back of my throat. “That I was a kid in a cage? Congratulations. Want a ribbon?”
“No,” he replies, eyes steady. “That you were never unclean. That the stain was theirs.”
And that’s worse somehow. Because rage I know how to hold, but pity? Grief? That cuts somewhere I can’t name.
“But how did you know about the tights, the button, and how did you get their address?” I narrow my eyes. If I’m going to die tonight, I at least want to have answers.
“We knew you then,” Corwin shrugs.
“The fuck you did,” I snap. “I’d remember three demented triplets trying to fuck me.”
Evander barks out a laugh. “We were two years above you, and it was only school. Our parents were never part of the church or any of that other cultish shit. We only went to high school with you.”
I don’t remember them, but that’s not saying much since I don’t remember anyone, really. Not unless it was the handful of kids who went to all the same church events as my family. And even then it was mostly the girls. I’d have been given a permanent chastity belt if I talked to boys at church.
Garron’s gaze doesn’t waver. “You used to sit behind the gym after school, tearing pages out of those notebooks. You’d burn them in a coffee can like some kind of ritual.
You thought no one noticed, but we did. You’d cry sometimes, quiet, like you were afraid even your tears would get you in trouble. ”
A chill runs through me. I’d write in my notebook at lunch like a diary and then burn it after school. The pages I didn’t want anyone to ever read.
“You were the only one who looked real,” Corwin says softly, and for the first time, there’s something like reverence in his tone. “Everyone else played along—smiling through class, swallowing lies—but you didn’t. You hid, but you didn’t pretend.”
“So what?” My voice shakes. “You stalked me for a decade because I burned my journals?”
Evander’s smirk fades. “Because you survived it. We didn’t. Not really. Watching you claw your way out, then seeing what you became online—owning it, twisting it into something beautiful and fucked-up—we couldn’t look away.”
Garron leans in, voice low. “We spent years watching ghosts. Then you lit the match again, and it felt like a sign. You were ours before you even knew we existed.”
My brain struggles to catch up. Their words clang around in my head, colliding with old memories I’ve spent years trying to bury—childhood trinkets that appeared on my doorstep, the button, the Polaroid. Things I told myself were accidents, coincidences.
“I'm not going to ask how you got in,” I say. “We all know I'd hate the answer. Why are you here? You started this game in the woods.”
Garron leans forward, his jaw set, eyes locked on me. “To stop letting you talk to ghosts.”
“And to make rules,” Evander adds.
Corwin tips his head. “We came to collect. And to tell you to stop pretending you don’t know who you belong to.”
My laugh rips out sharp, and I step toward him because I can’t help myself. “I belong to myself. That was the whole point of the channel. I kept the leash and handed out the illusion. You cut it without asking.”
“You asked to be hunted. Don’t curse the hunters now that they’ve found you.”
I feel my lip curl, my chest tight. “I asked for a show. You’re here to give me a funeral.”
“We’re not going to kill you, at least not yet.” Garron smiles.
“Did you kill him?” I force it out. I don’t have to say his name; they know who I’m talking about.
Corwin doesn’t blink. “Yes.”
I don’t move. I don’t flinch. I let the word sit where it lands. My mouth tastes like copper even though there is no blood. “Why did I get to walk away?”
Evander looks at me as if he sees all my broken pieces. “Because you’re the part that makes the rest make sense.”
Garron steps closer. “Because you asked for us. And we answer when we’re called.”
I should be afraid, but I’m not.
I let my gaze move from face to face. Same bones.
Same mouth. Different storms behind the eyes.
I want to tell them to leave. I want to tell them to come closer and get on their knees and beg.
I want to tell them to say Jay’s name like it hurts.
I want to say mine and hear it back in three different voices.
“So what do you want now? I know who you are. I know what you’ve done. You’ve murdered two people. Unless that little movie at the shop was a skit.” My eyes lock on Corwin.
“It wasn’t. That was VelvetNoose.”
“Three,” Garron adds, voice flat.
“Three? What?” My chest knots tight. I already know I don’t want to know.
“Three murders,” Evander says, smiling. “HolySpite from your channel is gone for good.”
“Fuck.” My head drops back, eyes closing. “So why now? I could go to the cops.”
“You’re coming with us,” Corwin says, giving me a little wink like this is a date.
“The fuck I am,” I snap.
Corwin’s smile sharpens. “You can come the easy way or the hard way. But either way, Little Horror, you’re leaving here with us tonight. We have things to show you. Things to give you.”
“Over my dead body.”
It happens fast after that. They move as one.
Garron grabs my arms, pinning them tight to my sides while Corwin jerks a pair of panties from the laundry basket by the dresser and shoves them between my lips before I can bite or scream.
The cotton tastes bitter and salt-stained.
Tape tears with a sharp rip, and Evander presses it over my mouth.
I thrash, kicking hard, but Garron lifts me like I weigh nothing. Corwin takes my legs, my heels pounding uselessly against his thigh as they haul me through the door.
“Pack her a bag,” Corwin tosses over his shoulder.
Evander nods, already moving toward my closet. “On it.”
I buck in Garron’s grip, my lungs screaming behind the tape, but it’s useless. They carry me out, down the hall, through the cool night air, straight to the SUV waiting at the curb.
I fight until my muscles burn, but they don’t loosen, don’t slow. My last thought before the dark swallows me is simple.
Please, let them have meant it when they swore they wouldn’t kill me.