Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Emily
Iwalk inside, and a low bark carries from the living room. A small smile pulls at my lips as I rush forward. She is on the sofa, curled on her side. I drop to my knees and press my palm to her head.
She is cold.
“No,” I whisper. My lower lip trembles. “No.” I cradle her face, but her head slips loose in my hands. “Daisy, baby, no, no, no.”
A sharp sound rips out of me, and I bury my face in her fur. “You’re just sleeping.” Tears pour down my cheeks, too fast to wipe away.
I lift her, shaking her gently. Her head lolls again. My forehead falls back against her fur as I pull her tight to my chest.
“What happened?” My voice breaks. “This is just a dream.” The words choke in my throat. “Just a dream.”
It isn’t.
I picture her somewhere else, somewhere bright—a place where dogs run without pain. Daisy is there, biting at her favorite plush toy, barking at angels who bring her favorite treats. I cling to the image because it hurts too much to imagine nothing.
The tears don’t stop. I scream into her fur.
Rourke stands in the doorway. He doesn’t move. He watches me fall apart.
Nothing prepares you for this. You always think there is time. You tell yourself you will do it tomorrow or the next day. You push the toy aside when it gets under your feet. You flinch when the barking gets too loud. Nothing prepares you for the silence that replaces it.
I will never hear her bark again.
My heart shatters into pieces, and every piece leaves with her.
When you have been as lonely as I have, when there is only one living thing that makes you feel less alone, losing it leaves a hole that nothing can fill. Now there is only empty space where she used to be.
If I could turn back time, I would turn it only for her. If I could give away every year I have left to live, I would give them to her. I would trade them without hesitation, just to give her the full life she deserves.
And whoever says this was meant to be has never lost a best friend. Someone who never wanted anything in return. Someone who never asked for more than a walk and a full bowl. A simple life. The kind of life we humans forget how to live.
I wish I had hugged you a little tighter. I wish I knew. I am sorry, Daisy. I didn’t think it would be the last time.
Arms wrap around me from behind. I jerk away, tightening my hold on Daisy. I refuse to let her go.
Then a sharp sting bites into my neck.
I turn my head.
Rourke stands there, a syringe in his hand. A clear drop slides from the needle and falls to the floor.
“Why?” I whisper.
My eyelids grow heavy. Dark creeps in from the edges of my eyes. I still cling to Daisy, pressing my face into her fur. I want to hold her until I can’t feel anything anymore.
He says nothing.
He just watches.
My knees buckle. I sink to the floor, the room spinning, the weight of the world slipping away.
Then everything goes blank.
***
I blink once. Then again.
A thin line of light leaks in from somewhere ahead, a narrow window or a gap in a wall.
I don’t know.
It cuts through the dark like a blade. The space in front of me feels wrong, too long, too narrow. Not a hallway. Not quite another room, it was like something in between.
I try to stand.
My legs shake as soon as my weight shifts. I manage one step before pain snaps tight around my left ankle. Metal scrapes against stone. The chain yanks me back, hard, and I stumble, crashing to the floor.
My breath leaves me in a sharp cry.
“Hello?” I shout.
No answer.
I crawl back to the thin mattress on the floor. It smells stale, damp. I collapse onto it, and the sob breaks loose. My chest heaves. Tears soak my face, falling down my cheeks, unstoppable.
Years without crying. Years of pretending my heart was frozen solid. It all fractures now, shattering within a week of my arrival in Eureka Springs.
I curl into myself, my back pressed to the wall, knees pulled tight to my chest. My face disappears against my legs as I choke on my breathing.
I can hear footsteps.
The hard clap of boots against tile is coming closer. My body stiffens.
The lights snap on.
White light slams into my eyes. I flinch, squeezing them shut, then force them open again through the burn.
Shapes sharpen, and a man moves toward me.
“Look what I caught here,” he says, laughing.
“Rourke,” I shout, gather my spit, and then spit at him.
His hand closes around my throat instantly. Fingers dig in, cutting off my air as he hauls me up toward him.
“Try that again,” he says, his voice low, “and you end up like the rest of them.”
My lungs scream. I claw at his wrist, spots bursting in my vision. My gaze moved past him, searching the room.
That is when I see them.
Two girls.
One chained to the wall on my left. The other on my right. Metal collars circle their necks, chains pulling them tight against the stone walls. One has dark hair. The other is blonde. They look my age. Or close to it.
They look miserable.
Their skin clings to bone. Arms too thin. Faces drained of color. Their eyes are open, but empty.
“Why?” I whisper.
He releases me and steps back, laughing harder.
I suck in air, coughing, my throat burning. He watches me like this, enjoying it. Then he reaches up and peels the contact lenses from his eyes, dropping them onto the white tiles. He adjusts something on his nose. The beard hides half his face, but the eyes don’t change.
My stomach drops as I lock my eyes with his.
Blue. Deep blue.
“Zayne?” I whisper.
“Eek,” he says sharply. “Wrong.”
He lunges forward, hand snapping around my throat again, tighter this time.
“Guess again.”
The word slips out of me, broken. “Brother.”
“That’s right.” He shoves me back onto the mattress and climbs over me, his weight crushing the air from my chest. His face hovers inches from mine. “How does it feel knowing you fucked both brothers?”
“I wouldn’t know,” I spat. “I barely noticed your dick inside me.”
His hand lifts. His jaw tightens. For a moment, I am sure he will hit me.
He doesn’t.
He just stares, his expression going terrifyingly calm. My stomach twists.
“You better remember that,” he says softly. “Because this dick will be the last thing you ever have for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
My breathing quickens. My heart pounds so hard it feels like it might tear through my ribs as he drags me closer. His knee forces my legs apart, and for one terrible second, I think this is how it happens.
Then the syringe appears.
A cold needle presses into my neck before I can react and bites. A sharp sting floods my veins, and weakness crashes over me all at once. My body turns heavy, useless.
This can’t be happening.
Every explanation I clung to dissolved the moment he removed the lenses from his eyes. The blue beneath was the exact same shade as Zayne’s.
How matters more than why.
How did no one notice him slipping into the investigation? How did no one recognize his face, or the truth standing in front of them this entire time?
He lifts me with little effort. The chain around my ankle loosens, metal clinking as it falls on the floor. I try to move, but my limbs refuse to listen. I try to fight, but my muscles give nothing back. My tongue tingles, then goes numb. My lips follow.
Whatever he injected into me strips away everything.
I am nothing now. Just weight. Just a body in his hands.
He carries me down the corridor. Red light bleeds from the room ahead, staining the walls as we pass through the doorway. Inside, there is only a table. Mirrors surround it on every side, reflecting me over and over again from every angle.
He lays me down.
Leather restraints close around my wrists. My ankles follow, forced apart, spread wide.
I stare at the ceiling, my chest rising in shallow breaths.
This is it, I think.
This is how I die.
This is the beginning of hell.
He hums a tune as he lowers himself into the chair. The sound crawls under my skin. He drags the chair closer, close enough that I feel his breath when he leans in.
“Let me tell you a story,” he says.
Cold metal flashes. The scalpel presses into my left wrist, and a sharp sting follows.
“In 2009, I met this gorgeous woman,” he says. “I fell in love.”
He chuckles, shoulders lifting in a careless shrug.
“Then I found out she’s married. To a cop.”
A loud laughter spills from him.
“The irony, right?”
A tear slips from the corner of my eye, tracking slowly down my temple.
I can’t speak. I can’t move.
“I challenged him,” he continues. “I killed women who looked just like her. Just to thrill him.”
His voice stays light.
“When I finally asked her to choose me, she couldn’t. She chose him.”
His grin stretches wide, teeth bared as his face moves closer to mine.
“So I decided to do something special. For both of them.”
He pulls back and claps his hands once.
“I killed her, of course. And he ended up locked in a cell below. Meanwhile, I stepped into his life.”
He rises and circles behind me. The scalpel kisses my right wrist this time, slicing skin with the same calm precision.
“I took everything from him,” he says. “Just like he took everything from me. First, his wife. Then his mind.”
He taps his own wrists and laughs.
“I drank. I took drugs. I destroyed his career. Everyone thinks he’s an addict. A lunatic.”
My chest tightens. A scream builds inside me but never finds a way out. I am trapped in his voice, drowning in it.
“You know,” he says, “I grew up with everything. So I learned that I deserve everything.”
He pauses, savoring the silence.
“Having something taken from me created who I am.”
He returns to my side—scissors glint in his hand. The blades bite into fabric, slicing my shirt open. Cool air hits my skin as my breasts are exposed.
“Well,” he adds with a laugh, “that and my psycho dad who made me in his lab.”
He shakes his head, amused.
“He thought he could change a serial killer by isolating me and giving me a happy childhood.”
He leans closer to my left breast, licking my nipple.
“Mmm,” he murmurs. “My brother has good taste.”
He steps back, then bows slightly.
“Zeke,” he says. “Your doctor. Owner of the Z Institute. Here, instead of fixing people, we like to break them.”
His eyes lock onto mine.
“And we like to fuck them.”
A small sound escapes my mouth, but no words form. Saliva slips from the corners of my lips as I remain motionless, waiting for what he plans to do to me.
I was trapped in his own asylum.