Chapter 2
REVERIE
“He’s going to do something awful,” I tell my only friend in the world, anxiously biting the skin around my thumbnail.
I’ve been doing it since my history class with Dread yesterday—I’ve constantly been looking over my shoulder, waiting for the moment he strikes. I’ve already covered my left thumb in little tears, so I’ve moved on to the other.
Sable dabs her thin brush in the rose-pink lipstick on her palette, gliding it across the corpse’s thin, white lips. I’ve already seen the old woman’s finger twitch, and I’ve been eyeing her shrewdly to ensure she doesn’t magically become a zombie and eat me alive.
“When hasn’t he?” she mutters snidely, casting a disgruntled look my way before refocusing on her task.
Freshman year, I was desperately looking for a job, and the only place hiring was Eterna Requiem, a Puerto Rican family-owned funeral home in Hollow Canyon.
Juan, the owner and Sable’s father, took pity on me and hired me as an assistant.
He and his wife, Isa, are funeral directors.
They handle the grieving families while Sable, as their mortician, works with the dead.
I met Sabela Vázquez my first day working here, when I got lost in the sprawling building and accidentally walked in on her mid-embalming. Having seen a lot worse, I asked if I could watch, and we became best friends overnight, bonding over the fear of how we’d die, rather than death itself.
Sometimes, when I’m really bored, she lets me put makeup on the bodies, too—though if her father found out, he’d subject us both to an hour-long lecture, and there’s nothing worse than a Juan Vázquez lecture.
I lean against the metal table the dead woman lies on, crossing my feet at the ankles, one arm over my stomach with my elbow resting on the other, aimlessly sliding my pendant back and forth on its chain as I stare off into space.
The woman died at ninety-six of heart failure, alone in a nursing home, where only the nurses grieved her death. Apparently, she has four kids, but none of them showed until it was time to make arrangements and collect their portion of her life insurance.
If people thought drama ended in death, they’re sorely mistaken.
“This time just feels… worse than usual,” I say, distracted, my eyes beginning to burn from not blinking.
The woman’s face blurs, and the pit of foreboding in my stomach deepens. “I can’t explain why. Just the way he said to call my father for help…” I trail off and shake my head, tearing my focus away from Sable’s work.
Anxiety has long since made a home in my nervous system. If I could push it out as expertly as I do the memories it feeds on, I might consider myself a functional human.
Sable sets down her makeup brush and gives me her full attention, drawing my reluctant gaze to her deep chestnut brown eyes and her perfectly arched brows, which are currently pinched with concern, creasing her golden tawny brown skin.
At twenty-six, she’s only four years older than me, so the age difference is hardly noticeable—except for times like this, when she feels more like an older, protective sister than my best friend.
“First, stop torturing your lip,” she starts. My jaw stills—I hadn’t even realized I was chewing it into nonexistence. Slowly, I release it from between my teeth. “Second, I wish you would just report him to the media or something before he does something that will seriously hurt you.”
I tip my head back with a heavy sigh. “It’s not that easy and you know it, Sabela.
” She gives me a pointed, unamused look.
Only her parents call her by her full name, and only when she's in trouble, which is, unsurprisingly, often. “He’s literally the god of Hollow Canyon and can do no wrong. Last time I tried going to the dean, he said he’d have me expelled for spreading lies and jeopardizing Dread’s future as an Olympic swimmer. ”
I roll my head back to her, where she stares at me with a disgusted look, and rightfully so. She hates Dread nearly as much as I do.
“He's also just a straight white male,” she mutters derisively.
“Exactly. Plus, something tells me the authorities would take his word over the daughter of an infamous serial killer, especially when he has an entire university kissing his feet.”
She scoffs and drops her glare to the body, her hair falling around her face as she stews over the harsh reality of my life.
She’s perfected the art of styling her dark brown curls into smooth, glossy ringlets, cut into a long bob that just reaches her shoulders, parted on the side.
With a frustrated sigh, she tucks the thinner half behind her ear and then refocuses on her work, her movements stilted as she picks up a brush and harshly dabs it into a palette of light pink blush.
“Who fucking cares if he can swim like a fish?” she mutters beneath her breath as she lightly brushes the makeup on the woman’s pale cheeks.
I tighten my lips, opting not to answer that question. We both know the entirety of Hollow Canyon cares. They have a legend in their midst, and it makes them feel special.
She glances at me. “Stay with me tonight, or however many nights until you’re safe again.”
I should. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve stayed at Sable’s house instead of sleeping alone in my dorm to escape Dread’s plans. Yet, I still returned to some form of torment. Rather than escaping his twisted games, I only delayed them.
Just like cancer, he’s learned to adapt.
If I'm not where I'm supposed to be, he finds some fucked-up way to get me there.
Like when he hot-wired my car so he could drive it to the top of a slope with a ravine at the bottom, put it in neutral, and let it slowly roll down toward the edge until I stopped it in time.
Or when he unleashed a family of raccoons in my dorm room—I still don't know how he managed to catch them.
Or one of the hundred other creative ways he's come up with to force my hand to his demands.
Meaning—it's useless.
Dread will get to me one way or another, and I’m better off walking into his trap than hoping he’s somehow forgotten I exist.
If only I could be so fucking lucky.
The dorm halls are completely silent as I cautiously edge through them, my eyes pinballing over the half-white, half-wood paneled walls, as if a viper is lying in wait to bite.
It’s after midnight, and I’ve just finished my shift at the funeral home. After Sable assured me I could escape to her place if Dread pulls something especially heinous tonight, I finished cleaning the viewing room from an earlier service and clocked out.
My heart thuds heavily against my rib cage, and adrenaline courses through my bloodstream.
Normally, I’d adopt a completely casual approach, refusing to let others view me as weak. But I’m alone, and my true feelings are on full display.
Dread scares me, but I’ve slept under the same roof as bigger monsters.
However, I have an annoying will to live, self-preservation, yet a stubbornness that insists I step on the bear trap just to say I could.
Unfortunately for me, I would rather let him kill me than show him just how deeply he affects me.
I stop at my door, eyeing the handle as if it’s coated in poison.
An oily, sticky feeling coats my insides like tar, and I know with every atom in my being that whatever is on the other side, I’m going to hate it.
Just get it over with, Reverie.
Inhaling deeply, I grip the gold knob, twist, and barge into the room before I can talk myself out of it.
Instantly, a sharp gasp rips from my throat. My eyes widen into saucers, and my jaw drops, my heart following suit and sinking into the acidic well in my stomach. Vomit rises in my throat, and I cover my mouth as I take in the scene, shaking my head in denial.
There’s no way this is real. Yet, the longer I stare, the more real it becomes.
A bloody woman lies on the floor in the middle of my room, a heap of severed arms, legs, and her head.
Even from here, I can see the chunk of blonde hair missing from her scalp.
Deep crimson darkens the grotesque ends of her limbs down to the cherrywood beneath her, the pool creeping along the floor until just before the area rug.
This… I don’t think this was Dread’s doing, and that’s a far more terrifying thought.
No, this looks like my father.
I quickly scramble inside and shut the door behind me. For several beats, all I can do is stare at the sight with wide eyes, my chest heaving.
Was Lionel released already? But how, when he isn’t supposed to get out for another three weeks?
Or, fuck, maybe he wasn’t, but Dread got the letter and found out Lionel will be soon, and this is him fucking with me?
I glance at the body piled a few feet from me, and immediately gag.
Yeah, that looks fucking real.
“Oh my God,” I whimper, leaning heavily against the door. “Shit, shit, fucking shit.”
My hand moves to my forehead as I stare at my feet with rounded eyes, attempting to get my racing thoughts in order, but I’m struggling to untangle them in my head when there's a torrential downpour of panic circulating my system. It’s dizzying, and even with the door holding all my weight, my knees threaten to collapse.
My stomach churns, but if this is Lionel’s doing, the last thing I need is more of my DNA all over the crime scene.
At least, not more than it already is, considering the woman is dead in my fucking room. My DNA is everywhere.
Jesus Christ, am I going to go to prison over this? One D’Amour gets out, just for the other to go in.
My wild stare bounces around the room, at a loss of what to do for several paralyzing moments. I’m not thinking straight—I can’t think straight—but I need to… Fuck, I need to fucking think.
As if my brain needed a direct order to function properly, a light bulb goes off in my head, and I mutter a string of curses at myself for being an idiot.
Check the goddamn CDCR site, dumbass.