Chapter 15
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
EMMA
I walked into work the next morning to find two of the office juniors gossiping in the hallway.
“Did you see the photos?” one said on a whisper, eyeing me as I sauntered past.
“Unfortunately,” the other one groaned. “I almost threw up.”
“Who would do that?” She screwed her face up like there was a bad smell under her nose.
“A fucked-up freak, that’s who.”
I had no idea what they were talking about so conspiratorially, but I knew, once I stepped through the doors into my office and saw everyone huddled around Mike, the photographer’s desk, I was about to find out.
As I got closer, I saw the image he had on his screen, and part of me wanted to back up, turn around, and start the day again, preferably at another company.
“What’s going on?” I asked hesitantly, like I needed clarification when the ugly truth was staring right at me on his monitor.
It was a murder scene. But not any murder scene. This was a staged horror show. A gruesome spectacle. A torturing sickos dream.
There was a naked man nailed to a wall with what looked like tent pegs through his shoulders. His throat had been cut from ear to ear, but I wasn’t sure that’s what’d killed him. You see, he’d also been cut open from his sternum right down to his pelvis, and his ribs had been pulled apart, cracked open to let his internal organs spill from his body onto the wooden floor. His intestines draped over his lower half, creating a disgusting waterfall effect. Blood soaked his face, and I peered closer, only to see that he’d been scalped. He didn’t have any eyeballs, either. Those had been gouged out. My stomach rolled at how his head hung at a peculiar angle. Did he have a broken neck? And the way his arms hung limply, his severed hands lying on the floor beside his intestines. It made me shiver.
I’d never seen anything so fucked-up. It was hard for my brain to accept that it was real. It looked like something from the set of a horror movie. But it was real, and painted on the wall above him in red paint were the words, ‘Stripped of my pride.’
That fucking word was starting to haunt me.
“He was nailed to the wall and stripped of his pride,” Mike said, like he was proud of coming up with that line.
“What is that?” I asked, ignoring him and pointing gingerly at the screen where something seemed to be stuck to the wall in place of a full stop at the end of the words.
“That’s his tongue,” Mr Gold suddenly announced from behind. “He had it cut out and nailed to the wall. But the question you should be asking is, not what is it, but who is it.”
I turned to stare him down.
“Who is it?”
Mr Gold pointed at the screen as he spoke. “That is, or rather was, Sirius Bell. CEO of Rebulous and part-time art critic for The Herald.”
That shiver I’d felt moments ago became a shudder that made me want to run and hide. I didn’t want to ask the question that was burning a hole in my brain.
“We were lucky to get there right as the police showed up. They confiscated Mike’s camera, but he managed to get this one on his mobile first.”
“How did you know about this?” I asked Mike, who was sitting at his desk while the rest of the staff gathered around, smiling at his screen like he’d got the shot of the century.
“I got an anonymous tip-off.”
“From who? What did they say?” I questioned a little too aggressively, but I was starting to feel sweat trickle down my back, and pressure was building in my overactive brain.
“I’m not disclosing my sources to you,” he snapped back, and I wanted to grab him and shake him. Did he know what the fuck he was dealing with?
“This art critic...” I turned to face Mr Gold, blocking out the photo on the screen that I was sure I’d see in my nightmares until my dying day. “Did he get on the wrong side of anyone we know?” He knew what I was asking, and he curled his finger at me, beckoning me to follow him to his office.
I walked into his room and took a seat as he closed his door. He sat down and then took a deep breath before he spoke. “I’ve been speaking to a contact on the force and apparently he had his heart ripped out of his chest.” I couldn’t breathe. “He said it’s like he’s been savaged by a wild animal.”
I was panting now.
Moments away from a panic attack.
Mr Gold leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk as he fisted his hands. “They can’t find the heart.”
I shot up from my chair.
Of course they couldn’t find the fucking heart, because it’d been left in my living room as a warning that I was next.
“Fuck this,” I spat. I was spiralling, grabbing my hair in my fists as I backed away from his desk. “I didn’t sign up for this.”
“Calm down, Emma,” Mr Gold sneered at me. “It’s a murder. We deal with those all the time in our line of business. I think you’re being a little over dramatic.”
“Over dramatic? Over. Fucking. Dramatic!” I shouted, and then I slapped my hands onto his desk and leaned forward, glaring into his face that was so full of ridicule. “When he comes for you, let me know. Let’s see how you like being fucking terrorised and threatened with your life. But until then, why don’t you just shut the hell up. I’m not being over fucking dramatic.”
I expected Gold to argue back, but he just shrugged in response to my anger.
“You mean S.K.A.M.? He has come for me,” he replied like it was nothing. “The only difference is, I have a thick skin, and I don’t give a shit.” Then he sneered at me as the cogs in his brain started to work. “You don’t think he did that, do you?” He huffed a laugh. “Emma, seriously? Are you losing your mind?”
“It certainly looked like something he’d stage. And the reference to pride on the wall, that’s a little convenient after his performance.” I didn’t want to add that I knew where the heart had ended up. I knew he wouldn’t believe me anyway.
“You need to be careful, throwing accusations like that around. Do you want to get sued by one of the country’s wealthiest and most successful artists?” he spat back.
“He came for me first,” I seethed.
Gold huffed impatiently. “He’s a famous artist with a reputation to uphold. I doubt he’s running around on a murder spree in his spare time.”
I thought back to the last email he’d sent me, when he’d told me the K in his name stood for killer. I believed him. But I knew I was talking to a brick wall, standing here trying to argue with Mr Gold.
“Think what you like,” I sneered.
“I will,” Mr Gold replied. “Because that...” He pointed at his door. “Out there isn’t the work of an overpaid artist, it’s the work of a fucking psychopath.”
“You think?” I nodded dumbly at him, sarcasm dripping from my tongue.
“I know,” he snapped. “And when they catch him, we’ll have the story on the front of our newspapers. But that story won’t have your name attached to it. I think maybe we were a little hasty in promoting you to junior reporter. I don’t think you’re ready for the job.”
I could feel the heat burning in my cheeks as fury raged through me.
“I’ll tell you what I’m not ready for, having my words taken out of my mouth and replaced with yours. For your incompetence to land me a fucking stalker.”
Mr Gold shook his head, and I swear he huffed a quiet laugh as he replied, “Emma, if you ever want to succeed in this industry, you’ve gotta learn to roll with the punches, toughen up. You won’t last five minutes if you throw a hissy fit every time someone upsets you. So he sent you a few pissy emails. So what? Deal with it.”
“He’s stalking me. I’m not throwing a fucking hissy fit. This is my fucking life you’ve been playing around with, and you know what? It’s not happening anymore. I quit.”
“What?” He scoffed, and his sneer turned into a condescending laugh that I wanted to smack off his face.
“You heard me. I quit. Stick your job up your ass. I don’t need this. I’m done.”
“Well, good luck finding another job,” he shouted as I pulled his door open and marched back down the office with every eye on me. “And don’t come to me for a reference. I’ll make sure you never work again.” Was his parting line.
I was fucked.
So fucked.
I didn’t have a job.
I couldn’t pay my rent.
But at least I might stand a chance at keeping my fucking tongue, or any other part of me, from being pinned to a wall for being associated with this fucked-up media circus.
As I walked back out into the crisp morning air, I told myself over and over again, ‘This has to be the end of it. No more. I can’t take anymore’.