Chapter 25 #2
Somehow, nothing at all has changed. Whatever I expected, it wasn’t for the basement to look exactly the same as I left it.
The only difference is the lack of bodies. The man I killed is no longer on the floor, and the table that held Scotty is bloody but empty.
Get me out! Scotty’s words and his desperate screams, suddenly echo in my ears. They’re just as real as they were that day, and it’s hard for me not to clap my hands over the sides of my head to get them to stop.
You have to get me out—
“I’m sorry!” I gasp suddenly, my words echoing in the empty space.
Scotty’s blood is a dark stain on the metal worktable now, but I have to physically force myself to stumble away from it before I puke.
My feet take me to the back of the room, unintentionally following the path that I crept along when I made my grand, murder-fueled escape.
The rusted doors to the ‘cells’ are still locked; their padlocks are just as old as the doors themselves but still sturdy enough to hold.
I will not be Hillling through air shafts again, so I only look at the rooms that are open along the back wall, finding nothing except stains I refuse to identify.
Not that I need to.
I know what’s down here. I know why it smells like this, and why Pearl’s ruff is up, giving her a very displeased and bristled appearance.
“I hate it here,” I grumble, searching the rooms at the back where I was kept. They’re the safest in my mind, though I won’t admit that out loud. But they also yield absolutely nothing.
Neither do the rooms where I found Tyler and Pearl. Just more bloodstains, more rust, and more of that smell that makes everything inside me revolt.
Going to the other side, where I found Ariana, is so much harder. Every step feels like I’m forcing my way through quicksand, and I check the other rooms first, somehow knowing that the other two will show me absolutely nothing.
I’m right, unfortunately.
When I get to the last door, Pearl growls, and I jerk my hand back from the handle. Her dark eyes are fixed on it, and she looks braced, like she’s ready for ghosts or demons to come spilling out. And hell, maybe that’s what I should be ready for too.
“I know,” I whisper. “But I have to do this. I gotta face this, Pearl. Just once.” It can’t be that bad, right?
I’ve seen everything else. I’ve walked this whole basement, with the fluorescent lights buzzing above me and the stink of blood invading every pore.
One more door, and I’m done. Just one more room, and I can leave this place with no intention of ever returning.
I won’t let this break me.
When I open the door, the smell from the room hits me like a physical thing, and I stumble backward, coughing, eyes watering.
The week of it being closed, considering what had been there, apparently has brewed up a very unfortunate concoction, and it takes over a minute for me to stand up straight again, though I wish I had something to put over my face to somewhat mitigate the fetid stench.
The last time I was here, all my focus was on Ariana. I hadn’t noticed the differences between this room and the others, though when I turn on the light by the door, I’m able to see that there are things I missed before.
A file cabinet sits in the corner, with folders and notebooks on top of it.
A table is pressed against the concrete blocks, though it’s clear except for a few scribbled Post—it notes.
Trying to ignore the old blood and the memory of Ariana’s place of death, I force myself to walk over to the file cabinet, half wishing I’ll find it locked.
But it isn’t. The top drawer opens smoothly, revealing dividers packed with…cards? Reaching inside, my hands find the slick laminate of credit cards, licenses, and membership cards that I pull out to place on the table.
My blood runs cold when I see them all laid out like this. None of them belong to me or my friends. They’re other people’s. Other races, other ages, all different. All people who have no use for them anymore.
While I knew the Hills had done this before, given the ledger and the way things went down, it’s another thing to see it now.
Every time I reach in, I come out with more, until I’ve lined up at least twenty licenses and ID cards.
Some look older, and some are even expired, with dates from the last few years printed on them in faded black ink.
I push the membership cards and credit cards to the side, not bothering to match them up as I line up the licenses in a column, staring down at the faces of the victims who died here.
We hadn’t been the first, but fuck, I refuse to not let us be the last.
Blindly, I grope back for the drawer, unintentionally knocking the folder down from the top. It hits the table, contents spilling out, and my stomach twists when I see Scotty’s familiar face smiling up at me.
“Oh, Scotty,” I whisper, and it’s so hard to reach out and line up his license with the others. Tyler’s is next, though his, at least, doesn’t make nausea curdle my stomach. He hadn’t been a nice enough person to earn my sympathy today. Not when I’m fighting to hold it together for everyone else.
Ariana’s license feels so heavy in my hand, even though it’s just as light as the others. But when I pick it up, I realize there’s a sticky note on the back, prompting me to turn it over so my friend’s face is no longer staring up at me, smiling like she’s still alive.
Prime Meat.
The words jump out at me, and something in me twists. I drop the card and the note, but that doesn’t mean I can stop reading the scrawled words on the faded yellow paper.
Sell to J. Harrison
Film it. He likes that shit.
I’m numb. My entire body feels cold, my fingers are icy, and it feels automatic, rather than intentional, when I reach for the last license in the folder.
Mine.
There’s a Post-it stuck to mine as well, though something in me whispers not to look at it. It would be so easy—so fucking simple—to just ignore it, rather than flipping to over to read the messy writing on the back.
But I can’t help it. I turn the laminated card over in my hands, fingers pressed to the edges while my eyes scan the words written on the paper.
Prime Meat.
No buyer yet.
The words are so impersonal. So…distant. Like I’m nothing but a piece of meat, like there was never any use for me apart from this.
Is my worth to these men really measured by what they can sell me for?
The idea of being butchered like Ariana, and how close I’d been to that, has my head swimming. What if they found a buyer for me, too?
Would I be dead? Would I have been chopped up, my tongue and eyes removed? Would I have been—
My knees hit the floor as I turn my license over to stare at my half-happy, half-strained features.
I remember when I had this taken last year.
The lady at the DMV rolled her eyes and told me over and over to get my bangs out of my face, which had resulted in my photo looking like I have a permanent cowlick with how I had to slick back my hair to expose my face.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper to the girl who never knew her license would end up here, in this awful place. “I’m so—”
Sadie.
My name echoes in my ears, though I barely hear it. I can barely recognize it, with the way my blood roars and pounds through my body.
I could’ve been Ariana.
Before now, I didn’t realize how close I’d been to ending up like her. To ending up butchered like a dead cow, without the mercy of being killed first.
She begged me to kill her, and I couldn’t even do that for the woman who dragged me into her social circle when I’d lost my own.
Sadie!
She needed one thing from me—one fucking thing—at the end of it all, but I hadn’t been able to face it. I couldn’t help her, in any way that mattered.
I hadn’t succeeded in doing anything for my friends, only for myself.
“Fuck, Sadie!”
My fingers are shaking as they hold my license, and suddenly the light above me is blocked, though I can’t tell what through the blur of tears that I only now realize are falling.
This was meant to be the place I died.
And if I’m honest with myself, I think some part of me did.
“Sadie!”
Without warning, Deacon is there, dragging me to my feet.
He doesn’t hesitate after gazing into my face for half a second, searching and finding something, though I don’t know what.
His eyes turn steely and before I can even register it, I’m up in his arms, being carried up the stairs, and out of the basement I was never meant to leave.