Chapter 3
MICAH
“Ready?”
I could feel Grayson’s eyes on me as he started up his SUV, and I shook my head. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be ready.
“Me neither.” His confession was quiet, tentative, almost as if he didn’t want to tell me, but I could read him so much more easily now.
Even if he’d acted like he wasn’t apprehensive about what we were going to do, I could see he was on edge, from his clenched jaw to the way he was gripping onto the wheel like a lifeline, and his left leg restlessly bouncing as he swung the car onto the road.
We left the hockey house behind, but Grayson turned left instead of right at the end of the street.
My breath stuttered when the Zeta Gamma Theta house came into view.
Grayson glanced over at me, easing up on the gas and slowing the SUV to a crawl.
Black material had been draped across all the windows and even covered the door, a clear sign that they were in mourning.
“This is so fucking hard. It’s not right that she’s alone right now,” I whispered, and in my peripheral vision I saw Grayson nod in agreement.
“I know. I wish there was another way.”
It was so difficult to stay away from Ava, and even more difficult to act like everything was normal.
Even though the four of us had agreed that it wouldn’t be a good idea to be seen together—other than me with Grayson, since that was easy to explain away—and I knew it made sense, all I wanted to do was to go to her.
It made me sick to my stomach to think that not only was someone dead, a girl I’d known, but I was almost certain the target had been Ava.
It all added up. The threats, the person dressed the same as Grayson, with Grayson’s fucking name across their back, Ava and Olivia appearing so similar from behind that even I’d done a double take…
And now we had to leave Ava at the mercy of this psycho.
The only comfort I had was the fact that Grayson and Cruz were both in agreement that our stalker would be lying low for a while after everything that had happened.
With the heightened interest from both the college faculty and the cops, it was a hot story.
Although the local cops and the college had worked together to suppress the details in the wider community, it was all anyone at Blackwell U was talking about.
There was no way our stalker would risk more attention right now.
I just had to hold on to the hope that they were right, that this would all mean that the stalker wouldn’t strike again. Not until we had time to come up with a plan, one that would keep us all safe and allow us to find out who was behind everything.
“We need to do this.”
Gray’s hushed voice snapped me back to the present, and I nodded, realizing we’d come to a stop after driving for a while.
Lost in my thoughts, I hadn’t even noticed us leaving the campus behind.
We silently exited the car as planned, and I moved around to the driver’s side.
Grayson probably couldn’t see me in the darkness, so I reached out blindly, finding his arm and squeezing it.
He reached out with his other hand, catching my gloved fingers between his and squeezing back, a silent agreement that we were in this together.
Up ahead, a set of headlights flashed once, illuminating the high stalks of corn around us for a second before plunging them into darkness again. Wind rustled through the field, sending a shiver down my spine and I moved closer to Grayson, tightening my grip on his hand.
“It’s okay,” he murmured, dipping his head to my ear, his breath warm on my chilled skin. Together, we moved toward the light source as silently as we could, treading lightly across the dirt surface beneath our feet.
The clouds parted to show a sliver of crescent moon suspended in the night sky, allowing me to see the outline of the car that waited for us.
Grayson released my hand as we reached it, opening the door.
Before he could make a move, I climbed into the back seat.
He huffed out a breath but slid into the front passenger seat, closing the door behind us as quietly as he could.
“Here it is.” Cruz’s voice was solemn in the silence.
It was unusual for him, and it sent another shiver down my spine, for a whole different reason.
A tiny glow appeared around him, dimmed by a black shadow above the light source, and I realized he had his phone flashlight on beneath what was probably a heavy jacket or something.
Grayson leaned in, ducking his head, and I shifted forward, leaning between the seats and following his gaze.
“Fucking hell,” Grayson choked out, clamping his hand over his mouth. I swallowed down the bile in my throat, concentrating on breathing in and out until the nausea receded enough for me to speak.
“Are…are there more?”
“Yeah,” Cruz said hoarsely. “I got two more.”
“Show us,” Grayson commanded. None of us missed the shake in his voice.
Cruz slid another photo on top of the first one. This one was a close-up of Olivia’s torso, the slice in her throat at the top of the image, the red line dripping with blood. On her chest, right above her heart, was a symbol, crudely smudged over her skin with smears of red.
“It looks like the symbol,” I whispered, at the same time as Gray’s muttered, “Fuck.”
“It’s linked.” Cruz shuffled the images, placing the next one on top. “See?”
The final image was of the symbol itself. There were differences to the one carved into the stone of the crypt entrance, but there was no doubt in my mind they were related somehow. The same sharp lines, the same style, almost like runes.
“What does this mean?” I said eventually, after Cruz clicked off the flashlight, plunging us back into darkness.
Grayson exhaled harshly. “It means the game has changed. It means we know that whatever we found at the lake, it connects with this. It means that whatever we thought we were dealing with, we’ve only scratched the surface.”
“It means,” Cruz concluded, “that this shit we’re in? It’s deep. And I don’t know how we get out.”