Chapter Thirty-One
All attention shifted to the grimoire I’d carried with me this whole time. Nick pulled it closer, carefully flipping through its brittle pages. Without a word, we all deferred to him—he seemed to know more than the rest of us, or at least he acted like he did.
I didn’t know what I expected to happen. I hoped he’d find the sigil in the book with a note, "Reversal," and it’d all be done, easy as pressing buttons on a keyboard to undo a command.
My first instinct was to call Mathilda and ask about the grimoire—how to use it, what it meant. But Nick was firmly against it.
"We don’t even know if she can help," he said. "And we don’t have time for her bullshit."
I was slouched on the edge of the bed, head throbbing in my hands, watching him with a detached indifference. The book disgusted me. It had been from the moment we found it. It had been the root of all our misfortunes. My misfortunes.
Mitchell didn’t say it aloud, but I knew he still doubted the magic of the sigil. I didn’t. I felt it—seeping into my bones, coiling tighter around me with every hour.
Whatever Mitchell thought, he kept it to himself and went along with Nick’s search.
There were dozens of missing people, and he didn’t want me to become one of them.
If I hadn’t been the one mutilated by these people who had been sacrificing others for decades, I wouldn’t believe it either.
But here we were, and there was the book.
I still couldn’t wrap my mind around the fact that Lucas had it the entire time.
He was superstitious, sure, but so were most people. Everyone had their little beliefs—11:11 on the clock, manifestation nonsense, and all that. It didn’t mean any of it was real. But this—this was.
Now that I knew Lucas was gone, I didn’t want to hold onto the anger.
But being blamed for the mess he’d created and knowing I might be next made my blood boil.
He had never trusted me. Had lied to my face.
Gaslighted me about where he’d gone on those strange trips.
I had thought he might be cheating. For all I knew, he still could’ve been—like Mitchell said, cheaters, thieves, and liars.
That had been our relationship in a nutshell.
It was still a mystery why he stole the grimoire from his father and how he intended to use it.
Eventually, Nick withdrew to the second room we’d rented, unable to focus with all the questions and scattered ideas flying around.
"Isn’t it weird that Robert never came for you?" Mitch asked.
I raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
"If he thought Lucas gave you the grimoire, why hasn’t he come for you?"
I shrugged, exhaustion heavy on my bones. "I don’t know, Mitch."
I was so tired of people asking questions, rhetorical or not. I didn’t know why Robert hadn’t come for the grimoire if he wanted it back so badly. I didn’t even know what the grimoire could do, or whether it could do anything at all.
But apparently, Robert believed in the power of it so completely that he hadn’t hesitated to kill his own son for it. That explained the grave. They’d known Lucas wasn’t coming back. And yet Robert had played the grieving father so convincingly.
Nick’s mother, on the other hand, had once again been erased from the equation. Her murder remained a big question mark.
I’d always wondered how many versions of ourselves we carried. I only seemed to have one. Maybe that was my mistake. I was exposed, unprotected. I showed people every vulnerability from the start.
My father had been different. He had a face for work, one for my mother, another for me, and apparently one more for his mistress.
Did Mitch and June have sides of themselves I’d never seen? Did Nick?
The world might’ve been a better place if we were all just honest. If we couldn’t lie. If we didn’t know how.
June moved closer, her weight shifting the mattress.
"Do you think… if Nick figures it out, he could bring Amanda and Lucas back too?"
I turned my aching eyes toward her. "I. Don’t. Fucking. Know."
Without waiting for a response, I stood and walked to the bathroom, needing to be anywhere else. Her question cracked something open inside me, and I didn’t want to feel it.
In the bathroom mirror, I faced a pale ghost of myself.
My skin had a sickly green cast, as if something had burrowed in and worn me like a body bag.
Freckles blurred. Lips almost white. My eyes were rimmed in red, heavy with deep, hollowed shadows.
Purple and yellow blotches ravaged my cheeks, crawled down my arms, and marked my ribs.
I wasn’t just tired. I was unraveling, piece by piece.
The front door banged shut, and muffled voices drifted through the thin bathroom door. Mitch, who had gone out to get food, was back. I splashed cold water on my face, stepped out without looking at anyone, and went straight to the bed, curling up with my back to the room.
All I could do was wait. The seconds dragged by in nervous tension. The quiet from the other room was a muted siren’s song, tempting my thoughts to dark places. I wanted to barge in, to ask if Nick had found anything, if there was any chance at all. But I knew better. So, I let him work in peace.
The curtains were drawn tight, letting only a sliver of daylight creep through. None of us knew what to do, so we pretended to stay busy. Now, June was in the bathroom, messing with something, the sound of water running on and off faint in the background.
I mindlessly opened my laptop without a clear purpose in mind, then closed it, and opened it again.
I logged into Facebook and scrolled down the feed full of meaningless updates.
Weddings, kids, dog pictures. Each post felt like it belonged to another world, one that had nothing to do with mine.
All these people had no idea what was really going on, trapped in their little bubbles of normalcy.
But then again, neither did I. Maybe that’s all anyone ever saw—the glitz and glitter of each other’s lives.
I pulled up Sarah’s profile, my fingers moving on their own.
I started typing, but the words weren’t right.
It wasn’t an apology. It was a "Fuck you" message for being a terrible friend. For living the life I couldn’t.
For her ignorance, for gossiping behind my back.
I needed her to know, even if it was the last thing I ever did. What did I have to lose?
I stared at the message, a messy jumble of anger and frustration, then deleted it. It was childish and pointless. A way to vent emotions that wouldn’t change a damn thing.
Then I thought about the Facebook group Amanda and the other woman were in. I searched for it, but came up empty. I double-checked the spelling and searched again. Nothing. The group had gone. I checked my pending group requests, hoping for a clue. Nothing.
I turned to Mitch. "It’s gone," I said, disbelief creeping in.
"What’s gone?" He looked confused.
"The Facebook group."
Mitch’s face dropped. "I know," he said, keeping his voice down. "I noticed it a few days back when I checked Amanda’s page. I’m sorry I snapped at you about it. It’s been bothering me, thinking I should have checked it sooner."
I muttered, "It’s okay. You were right to snap at me."
His eyes drop to the floor. "It’s not just that.
There’s a message history with a deleted profile.
I could only see Amanda’s side of the conversation.
They were discussing what had happened to her.
She contacted them a few times, but then the messages just stopped.
About a month before she visited Black Water. "
"What does it mean?"
"You were right. They’re finding people online, luring them in somehow. Maybe broken people, like—" He trailed off.
I agreed with him. He should have checked on it earlier.
He should have told me about it. And though I knew it probably wouldn’t have changed anything, irritation still flickered to life in my chest. He sat there, slouched, his usual military posture and composure gone.
I wanted to lash out, say something to make him feel worse, but what good would it do?
We were both in the dark, fumbling around.
I closed my laptop with intentional slowness, picked it up and threw it against the wall. The sound of cracking plastic and metal choked the room.
Mitch stayed where he was, his face unreadable.
"What happened?" June burst out of the bathroom, startled by the noise.
I got up and left the room.
Nick sat on the faded rug, his back hunched, papers and notes scattered around him like a chaotic map of some foreign world. His focus was so intense that it felt like the room could fall away, and he wouldn’t even notice.
I set the paper bag on the table. "You must be hungry."
"Hm?" He looked up, blinking slowly as if he were just waking from a long sleep. "Thanks."
I watched him for a few seconds, his eyes already back on the page.
"How’s it going?"
"I’m not sure." He ran a hand through his hair, wary of the symbols. "It’s like… the book gives you ingredients. We just have to figure out the recipe. It’s not nonsense, but it feels like it.
It’s a language, maybe a cipher. I see things repeating.
" He pointed to a spot on the page, his finger hovering over the ink as if afraid it might disappear.
"Here, and here—the same symbol. And this one—"
I tried not to let frustration creep into my voice, but it still found its way. "So nothing specific?" I leaned against the table. Even if every piece of the puzzle was right in front of him, it would have been like trying to learn Hiragana in a single sitting.
Everyone was worried. Mitchell had retreated into disbelief.
June’s anxiety was edged with fear. But Nick’s concern felt different.
It wasn’t just concern; it was the kind of desperation that came with the thought of losing someone you couldn’t live without.
I hated myself for pushing all of that away.