Chapter Thirty-Four #2
By the time he was back and handing them out, the door opened yet again, making everyone swivel their heads with a very ‘what the fuck now’ kind of energy.
And in walked the guy from earlier. Luce, they had called him. He used Barrett’s place as a safe place to make calls. Which could only mean he was some sort of criminal.
“Bathroom is occupied,” Sawyer supplied, sizing up the man he obviously wanted to figure out, the man he was uncomfortable with his brother socializing with until he did.
Luce shrugged, tucking his hands into his front pockets. “I can wait. What are we working on now?” he asked, going behind Barrett’s desk, leaning down, and squinting at the screen.
And he didn’t blanch.
He didn’t get sick.
He didn’t even seem all that freaked out.
Sawyer and I shared another look, both accepting that this guy, this new player, he was someone we needed to know ASAP.
“Hm,” he said, nodding at the screen. “That’s some pretty fucking good, almost convincing, B-rated cinematic snuff.”
You could have heard a pin drop in that room as soon as those words were out of his mouth. Sensing it, he straightened, looking around, assessing everyone’s reaction.
“What did you just say?” Sawyer asked, his tone deadly.
“The video,” he said, nodding his chin at it.
“Yeah, what about the video, kid?”
His lips tipped up at the ‘kid’ comment, but he didn’t take the bait. “I’ve seen a lot of this shit, and it’s almost always godawful. But this, this is really good. Believable, even. That’s impressive.”
“You’re saying it’s not real,” Brock specified.
“I’m telling you it is absolutely a goddamn fake snuff film.”
“And you know this how?” Sawyer asked, moving toward them.
“Christ, you guys are supposed to be experts,” Luce said, shaking his head, looking disappointed in the lot of us. “Cut out the static,” he told Barrett as he turned the screen to all of us. He reached out, rewinding the video.
Because I wasn’t quite convinced it wasn’t real, my stomach rolled as Luce slowed the video and we watched the focus on Cass again.
“Those bruises are real,” he informed us, like some kind of forensic expert.
“On her face, thighs, wrists, neck, none of that is staged. Which might be why you guys were so fooled. Someone worked her around something good. But here,” he said, stopping the video just as the knife caught the light.
“Watch, but listen this time,” he demanded, playing it.
When he was done, he looked at us all expectantly, like he wanted us to share in his revelation.
But we were all in the dark.
He sighed, rolling his eyes, clearly disappointed in all of us.
“Here,” he said, rewinding again. “First, see that, see that arterial spray?” Oh, we saw it alright.
Nothing bled like a severed artery, and that knife cut clear through two.
“There,” he said, stabbing his finger at one small, almost invisible speck on the screen.
It seemed to change colors, a brighter red than the rest of the blood.
“Whoever edited this forgot to darken that drop of fake blood.”
“How the fuck did you see…” Sawyer started, but Luce wasn’t paying attention.
“And that,” he said, rewinding to the scream.
“She can’t scream here. She cut out soon enough for most people to think it was real.
But right here,” he said, stopping the video, “the air in her lungs would push up the blood she is choking on and she would only be able to make a gurgling death noise.”
He rewound it once again to prove his point.
And we finally saw it.
I looked over at Sawyer, seeing my own thoughts reflected.
If she wasn’t dead, she had betrayed and stolen from Kenzi and made fools of us all.
“Really, it’s some good shit. Ruggero Deodato would approve.
” At our blank looks, he did his disappointed exhale again.
“Ruggero Deodato… Cannibal Holocaust… 1980 horror film. He was brought in on charges of actually killing his actors on set the gore was so realistic. Sick shit. Though, if you asked me, that motherfucker should have been charged with animal cruelty since that shit was real in that movie. But, yeah, this is right up there with that. These two could be making a mint. She’s a really good actress. ”
“Yeah, she is.”
Everyone jerked to find Kenzi standing there, no one having heard the door open or any of them step ou,t though they were all in the room again. Reese was looking down at her feet, not the type who could handle horror, even if it was fake. Paine and Enzo were looking at Luce.
But Kenzi?
Her eyes were on the screen. They were red and swollen but completely and utterly focused on the frozen picture of Cassie’s face taking up the whole screen, right before the knife came out.
There was something about Kenz right that minute, something I didn’t fully understand, something dark and tense, borderline ugly, something wholly unlike her. Her entire body was stiff as she stared at the screen for a long time.
But then her eyes cut to me.
“I took a sewing class after school in high school. Mom wanted to make sure Reese and I stayed out of trouble. So she pushed me into that since I already liked making my own clothes. Reese wrote for the school newspaper and was a part of four book clubs.” She had a weird, inappropriate smile pulling at one side of her lips then. “You know what Cassie was into?”
“No, honey,” I said, keeping my voice calm and reassuring, feeling like she was a bomb ready to go off.
She exhaled hard, looking back at the screen, looking at the face of the friend she thought had been raped, tortured, and murdered.
“Drama.”