Chapter 36
I’ve made my peace with dying. My only regret is that I won’t be here to see the leader Alexander becomes.
Nico’s fingers press against Donny’s neck, searching for a pulse I already know he won’t find. His hand trembles before he pulls it back and stares at the blood on his gloves.
My brain keeps trying to tell me this isn’t real. That we’re on some kind of movie set and Donny’s going to lift his head any second and we’ll laugh about how convincing the makeup looks. But the copper smell filling my nose is too strong, and the blood pooling under him is too real.
Nico presses his comms button, his voice coming out steady even though his hands are shaking. “DJ. Griffin. Get in here. Bring the cleaning supplies.”
He’s so calm. Like he’s shut down every part of himself that’s capable of feeling anything, and all that’s left is the part that knows what needs to happen next. In the library, he told me he never feels anything at all, but it looks like something he can turn on at will.
It’s not long before I hear their feet pounding on the stairs.
DJ bursts through the door first, and the sound that tears out of her throat is something I never want to hear again.
Griffin rushes in behind her, and he takes one look at Donny before spinning around and cupping his hand over his mouth.
“We need to get him down,” Nico says. “Griffin, help me.”
But Griffin is retching onto the concrete, his body convulsing with the effort even though nothing comes out.
He tries again, bending over with his hands on his knees, but all that comes up are choking sounds.
DJ’s sobbing, and Nico’s standing there looking around like he’s realized he’s alone in this.
The look on his face guts me. I know that look.
I’ve worn that look. It’s the one I get when I need to hold myself together, and I can’t let myself feel anything because if I start, I won’t be able to stop.
Donny means everything to him. Donny’s the reason he’s alive, and now he’s gone, and Nico is forced to clean it up.
Him saying he feels nothing was clearly a lie.
I can’t let him do this alone. He needs someone to be strong for him.
So I rush toward him and say, “Tell me what to do.”
Surprise flickers across his face before he nods. “There should be bolt cutters in Griffin’s bag.”
I rummage through the bag until my fingers find metal. The bolt cutters feel impossibly heavy as I bring them back, and I have to force myself not to look at Donny’s face.
“Hold his legs,” Nico instructs, already reaching for the chains.
I position myself under Donny’s right leg, gripping as tightly as I can. I bite down hard on my bottom lip because tears are already welling, and I can’t cry. Compared to Nico, I barely know Donny. I refuse to fall apart when he’s able to hold it together.
Metal cuts through metal with a deep snap. Donny’s body falls into my arms, and the paper nailed to his chest flutters. I brace myself for his weight, but there is none. His body is squishy and so light he could be hollow.
Nico and I lower Donny to the floor, and when I glance up at his face, I see tears glistening in his eyes before he blinks them away.
“What do we do now?” I ask.
“The police can’t find this scene.” Nico goes back to the bag. “If they investigate, they’ll find us, and our whole operation will be shut down.”
Right. The police also can’t find him.
Nico drags over the cleaning kit from where Griffin dropped it on the floor, and we switch our gloves for latex ones to bleach the surfaces.
The chemical burns my nostrils as I scrub the concrete.
Nico makes sure DJ’s okay, even though she’s sitting in the corner bawling.
He tells Griffin to drink some water after he finishes throwing up.
I was wrong to think I had fractured the team.
Nico is still holding it together. Seeing him shoulder the burden when he has nobody to hold him together sends a stab of pain through my heart.
“I shouldn’t have told them to come up here,” Nico mutters under his breath. “I should’ve warned them.”
“Nothing you could have said would have really prepared them,” I say. “Do you want to warn Benji?”
Nico seems to consider his words for a couple of seconds before activating his earpiece. “Benj, I need you to listen to me very carefully.”
“What?” Benji’s voice is tiny and squeaky. I feel a lump forming in my throat, picturing him sitting in the van all by himself. “Why?”
Nico’s jaw clenches, a muscle feathering under his skin. He explains the situation, and Benji is completely silent on the other end of the line. I keep scrubbing until my arms burn and all signs that Donny was ever here are bagged up and ready to go.
The walk back to the van feels like it takes years. My brain keeps replaying the image of Donny hanging there, that note nailed into his chest.
LOVE FAILS.
Every shadow feels like it could be the Game Master waiting to jump out at us. I keep expecting something to happen, for this to be the moment the trap springs shut, but nothing does. We walk through the empty building carrying our bags of cleaning supplies like a janitorial crew.
Nico and Griffin lift Donny into the van. Benji steps out of the driver’s seat, cupping both hands over his mouth.
“Take DJ and Benji back in your truck,” Nico tells Griffin. “I need you and Eden to stay separated. If Morrow comes after you, I don’t want you both in the same vehicle.”
Griffin nods, his face the color of old milk.
I climb into the passenger seat of the van. Everything feels wrong and distant, like I’m watching myself from outside my body.
Nico pulls away from the curb, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. My mind starts running through logistics. What happens now? Donny needs to be registered as dead somehow, right? Will the cops show up asking questions? Will they search the property?
Donny must have planned for this. He had cancer, so as far as the medical world is concerned, he could have been preparing for end-of-life care.
Plenty of patients decide to die at home—at least, that’s what I remember happening with my grandma, because Dad brought Rosie and me to visit her before she passed.
I hold my breath until my lungs burn and then breathe in a little more, doing the exercise the way Mom taught me. The question sits on my tongue for a long time before I can make myself ask it. “What happens to the team now?”
“We keep operating,” Nico says, keeping his eyes on the road. “That was always the plan for when he died. His wife died fifteen years ago, and he has no children. There’s nobody left to ask questions. We…” He swallows. “We became his family.”
My tears blur the streetlights into streaks of gold as I turn my face toward the window. I press my palm over my mouth to keep any sound from escaping.
Each pothole jostles the cargo behind me. The cargo that used to be Donny. Used to be a person who had a cup of tea for every occasion and gave me a chance when I had nothing.
The Game Master stripped away Donny’s humanity and strung him up like a display, not an actual human. The same way Stanley Daniels did to Rosie.
The anger that surges through me is so sudden it takes me by surprise. I want to find the Game Master and make him hurt the way he hurt Donny. I want to drag him into the vault and string him up by the neck with an iron chain.
What I can’t understand is why he brought us all the way to the warehouse if it wasn’t to take Griffin or me.
Maybe he did believe me when I told him he was wrong about us.
What if he only stayed interested in us because we revealed ourselves as ghost hunters, and then we led him to Donny, who consulted on his case?
Could he have killed Donny purely out of revenge, and it’s no longer about Griffin and me at all? It’s not unheard of for serial killers to change up who they target. Stanley Daniels did.
Or maybe I’m deluding myself into thinking Morrow isn’t targeting Griffin and me anymore. It may just be that we ruined his plan by both of us coming after Donny, but then splitting up.
Nico takes a sharp turn toward the on-ramp, and I see DJ’s Jeep ahead of us getting onto the highway. But the light turns yellow at our intersection, and Nico eases to a stop. He’s drumming his fingers on the steering wheel when blue and red lights flash in the side mirror.
I twist in my seat to see a police cruiser pulling up behind us, and quickly face forward again.
“Don’t panic,” Nico says, glancing over at me. “Stay calm.”
Since when has being told to stay calm ever made a person feel calm? “But he’s going to find Donny.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“What are you going to do?” I ask. “Kill a cop?”
Nico passes the on-ramp and pulls up to the curb, his body radiating calm in a way I could never replicate. He rolls down the window as the cruiser stops behind us. The cop takes his time getting out. I watch him approach, cloaked in shadow, through the side mirror.
The cop leans into Nico’s open window. He has to be thirty or forty with a good amount of pudge on him, and a soft face that makes him look like he’d feel bad giving you a parking ticket. Buzzed red hair stands up almost straight, and a small mustache clings to his upper lip.
I don’t know what Nico did to get pulled over, but I have a feeling it won’t be hard to get off with a warning. One ‘sorry officer’ and we should be on our way.
He peers at the two of us with a disapproving stare.
“License and registration,” he orders.
Nico pulls the documents from the visor and passes them through the window along with his driver’s license.
“You know why I pulled you over?” the cop asks, examining the documents with painful slowness. His words are much tougher than his face.
“No, sir,” Nico says.
“Your taillight’s out.” The cop’s eyes narrow on the license. “Alexander Wyman?”
Nico nods.
The cop’s expression doesn’t change, but I catch the smallest hint of a smile. “Where are you headed?”
“Back to our warehouse.” Nico’s hands rest on the steering wheel at perfect ten and two. “We do mold remediation.”
In the middle of the night? That explains the smell of bleach, at least. I know as much about mold remediation as I do about how to send a tiny robot to Mars, but I guess it is five in the morning, so it’s not outside the realm of possibility that we got an early start.
I nod along, crossing every finger and toe that my face doesn’t give the lie away.
The officer’s eyes pause on me before he leans down, peering past me into the back of the van. “What’s under the tarp?”
“Demo debris,” Nico says. “Had to remove a section of drywall from a basement.”
I imagine the officer peeling it back, finding Donny’s face staring up at him.
He hands the documents back to Nico. “I’m going to need you to step out of the vehicle.”
“Is there a problem, officer?” Nico asks, and I get the sudden intrusive thought that Nico would be a great crisis hotline operator.
“I won’t ask again,” the cop says. “Step out of the vehicle.”
Nico steps out of the van, keeping his hands visible as he faces the officer. The cop gestures toward the back. I crane my neck to watch through the rear window as they go to the doors.
“Mold remediation,” the officer says, and his voice is muted through the open window. “Interesting line of work.”
“It pays the bills,” Nico says.
“You look familiar.” He pauses. “Have we met before?”
Nico goes still. “No, sir.”
“Open the van.”
Do I run?
What will happen to Nico if I run?
“You don’t have probable cause,” Nico says, and I catch the smallest tremor in his voice.
The cop makes a tutting sound with his tongue. “Probable cause? I’ve got the Boy Next Door Killer standing in front of me. That’s all the cause I need.”
The bottom drops out of my stomach.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Nico’s words are still steady even though I can hear the fear underneath. “My name is Alexander Wyman.”
I try to get a better view through the back window. A passing car’s headlights sweep over the cop’s face. A thin smudge of crimson is smeared across his hairline. Wait.
The cop’s grin widens. “So you’re not just a monster, but a liar, too.”
A faint scratch accompanies each word.
“That’s not a cop!” I scream. Nico turns his head, eyes finding mine through the rear window. I undo my seatbelt, my hands already gripping the headrest as I lean over it to yell as loud as I can. “Nico, he’s not a cop!”
I see the exact moment he understands what I’m telling him.
The cop grabs Nico by the shoulders and shoves him into the rear window so hard the glass shatters, leaving a jagged hole amongst a spiderweb of cracks.
I scream. The cop yanks Nico’s head back to smash it forward again, grinding his face against the broken glass until blood runs down in rivulets. Nico’s body goes slack. He crumples to the ground.
I grab the shotgun mounted on the wall and a handful of rounds, then jump out of the side door. The shotgun is already at my shoulder by the time I come around the side of the van, aiming for center mass like Dad taught me and pulling the trigger.
The boom is so loud that my ears start ringing. The recoil slams into my shoulder and the cop staggers backward, smoke rising where stray salt granules burned through the shoulder of his uniform.
Closing one eye, I brace for the recoil and fire again.
The sound bounces off the building. The shot lands squarely on his bulletproof vest just like the last one and the cop staggers back another step, one hand clutching his sternum.
I need to shoot him somewhere off the vest if I want to stop him, but I don’t want to hurt the host.
Go. We need to go.
I run to Nico, grabbing fistfuls of his jacket and dragging him upward, but holy shit, he’s heavy. Blood streams down his face from a gash on his forehead, but his eyes are open. He tries to get his feet under him, but he’s too dazed.
I get low, hook my shoulder under his arm, and lift with my legs.
“Come on,” I grit out, my voice sounding harsh and commanding in a way that doesn’t sound like me at all. “Get your ass in the fucking car.”
He gets to his feet, and I throw him toward the passenger door, one hand already reaching for the handle.
A fist clenches my hair and jerks me backward. I try to scream, but a hand clamps over my mouth before any sound can escape.
“Where do you think you’re going?” he snarls, spitting into my ear.
My feet leave the ground as I’m dragged away from Nico.
I try to get free, but an arm loops around my throat and pulls.
Pain explodes behind my eyes. I hear Nico screaming my name, but his voice is getting farther away.
I will make myself stay conscious. Once I’m gone, I’m gone forever, and Bob will be alone, and… Nico…