Lilac and Bone (The Petals & Bones #1)

Prologue

Seraphine

The first scream didn’t register as an actual scream.

Not right away. It was muffled, like one of my Kappa Theta sorority sisters had burned themselves on the curling iron again.

I didn’t look up from the sketch I was drawing. It was Sunday night, and I was curled up on my twin bed with my drawing pad and a bowl of stale popcorn, trying not to obsess over midterms.

A second scream sounded a moment later. My hand paused over the paper. The radio played in the background, and I absentmindedly reached over to turn the volume down.

One second passed. Then another.

Another scream.

This one was louder. Shorter. So raw that the hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

A chill ran through me as I stood, letting the pencil fall onto the covers. My pulse quickened, instinct screaming that something was wrong.

That wasn’t a playful scream, like last week when Alpha Delta Phi had attacked us with water balloons. No, it was a chill-you-to-the-bone sound of real terror.

The floor creaked as I tiptoed to my cracked bedroom door and peeked my head around the corner. Everything was quiet for a moment.

Too quiet. The silence felt suffocating, like everyone in the house was holding their breath.

Then came a voice.

A man was singing a lullaby off-key. The melody was all wrong, and it made my skin crawl.

A door slammed upstairs, then another scream.

Maya. It sounded like something heavy hit the floor right above my head, making the ceiling vibrate from the impact.

My stomach lurched as footsteps pounded down the stairs. My roommate Courtney made a beeline for me, her green eyes wide as she plowed through my door and slammed it shut behind her.

“Hide.” Her voice was laced with panic that I’d never heard before. She gripped my shoulders so hard her nails were digging into my skin. “It’s the contractor… he’s in the house, but he’s…” Her words turned into hyperventilating gasps.

The sound of the man’s singing came closer, my heart hammering inside my chest so loud I was sure he could hear it.

Courtney dropped to the floor and rolled underneath her bed. I scanned the room. Panic made me freeze as I realized there was nowhere else to go but underneath my bed also.

I dropped down, squeezing myself underneath the tiny bed, the childhood instinct making more sense than trying to jump out the window.

My breath hitched, and I clamped my hands over my mouth, trying to stop the whimper begging to escape.

Courtney’s eyes were filled with terror, her mascara running down her cheeks.

She held a finger up to her lips as if to tell me to be quiet.

I nodded once, holding my breath and trying not to move as the bed pressed down on me like a tomb.

Footsteps pounded down the hallway. It sounded as if something was being dragged across the floor. My entire body tensed as my door creaked open.

My eyes were level with a pair of bloody black boots.

Fresh blood.

I didn’t blink.

Didn’t breathe.

Didn’t scream, not even when he walked into my room dragging one of my sorority sisters behind him by her leg. Her head bounced against the doorframe with a sickening thud, and bile rose up my throat.

He started humming, the sound sending an electric shock to my heart. The tune was something I recognized but couldn’t place.

“Come out, come out, wherever you are,” he said in a singsong voice.

My hand trembled, but I didn’t let go of my mouth, because I knew if I did, I would scream the house down. The taste of copper flooded my mouth as I bit the inside of my cheek.

Boots stomped around the room, then silence. I counted each step he took. Four steps to my dresser. Five more steps to Courtney’s bed.

Courtney whimpered, then screamed when he grabbed her by the ankle and dragged her out from underneath her bed.

Her fingers clawed at the floorboards, leaving bloody scratches in the wood, but it was no use.

She kicked at the attacker, her screams ringing in my ears, mixed with him humming like he didn’t have a care in the world.

I wanted to move, to fight him, to save her, but I was frozen.

He grunted, then a wet sound. Over and over, as if he were stabbing her.

Thrust.

Pull.

Thrust.

Pull.

My entire body trembled as blood soaked the wooden floor inches away from my face. The metallic smell mixed with Courtney’s floral perfume, making me want to gag.

My lungs were burning, but I didn’t dare exhale. I couldn’t move even if I wanted to. Fear kept me right where I was.

Courtney’s screams stopped. The silence in the room was somehow worse than the noises she had been making.

His boots came back into view as he stood at the end of my bed.

Seconds went by, even though it felt like an eternity.

I could see his reflection in the pool of blood, distorted and monstrous.

He reached down and grabbed Courtney by her ankle and dragged her out of the room.

Her body left a red trail, like one of my paintbrushes swishing across a canvas.

I didn’t know how long I stayed under the bed, but when the humming stopped and the house grew quiet, my instincts screamed for me to run. It felt like a trap, but this could have been my only chance.

I slithered out from under my bed and scrambled to my feet. My legs were numb from the fear crawling through my body, and I nearly collapsed back to the floor.

Move, Seraphine. Move, or you’re going to die.

Maya’s body lay half in my room and half in the hallway. My entire body trembled as I realized her eyes had been cut out. Hollow sockets stared back at me like something out of a horror movie. Blood trickled down her cheeks like tears, and I tried to hold back the scream that was aching to escape.

I stepped over her body and sprinted for the front door. My only thought was to get out and get help. My bare feet skidded across the hardwood floor, and I had to catch myself against the wall.

There was no time to think, no time to process. Every fiber of my being told me I had to survive. The front door seemed miles away, and I prayed that I could get out.

I almost made it.

If I hadn’t slipped in the pool of blood in the hallway, I would have gotten to the front door. To freedom.

I scrambled to get back up, my hands sliding uselessly in the crimson puddle. A hand fisted my hair and yanked me back down so hard I slammed to the floor. My head bounced on the ground, and my glasses flew off.

My vision went black for half a second, stars exploding behind my eyelids. The pain was intense, unlike anything I’d ever felt in my short existence.

Then I was screaming, clawing, kicking at the arms that were trying to drag me. I rolled onto my stomach, trying to drag myself through the blood, but it was no use. My fingernails broke against the floorboards as I clawed.

The hand fisted my hair again, slamming my cheek into the wooden floor over and over again. Each slam sent lightning bolts of pain through my skull, blood flooding my mouth, making me want to vomit.

He flipped me over, his breath coming out ragged. Dark eyes met mine through his cheap Halloween mask that was cracked and covered in blood. I reached up, my arm trembling from pain as I dragged the mask off his face.

I could barely see through the haze of blood, but I saw the scar. A jagged edge that ran across his cheekbone. It was raised and had an unnatural angle to it. There was something cruel about it, like it was self-inflicted.

“You’re nothing special,” he whispered in a distorted voice. “This is a gift.” His smile was the worst part. Almost loving. It was the most frightening thing I’d ever seen.

But his laugh... It was something I would never forget.

Hysterical.

Demented.

Like he was laughing at some inside joke, and my death was the punchline.

I screamed one last time as the knife slid across my throat. The blade seared cold, then burned hot, and the world spun out of control as warmth spread down my neck…

But he should have made sure I was dead.

Because the girl who was left to bleed out on that floor wasn’t the same one who walked away.