Chapter 7 #2
I knew that coastline. It was Bar Harbor, up in Maine. Calista and I had gone there on vacation with our aunt and uncle when we were kids, and we’d both absolutely loved it and sworn we’d go back one day.
I swiped to the next photo, and my breath caught in my throat.
Roman Valcourt stood beside my sister, his arm around her waist, pulling her close. She was looking up at him with an expression I hadn't seen on her face in years; one of pure, unguarded joy.
This confirmed it. Calista and Roman were indeed involved with each other.
I swiped again to see a selfie of Calista sitting on a dock, her legs dangling over the edge. Roman was behind her with his arms wrapped around her shoulders, squinting against the sun.
Another swipe.
The two of them were at a seafood shack in the next photo, sharing a lobster roll. Cal had butter on her chin and Roman was reaching over with a napkin, lips curved in that signature Valcourt smirk.
Another.
This one was a selfie Cal had taken in what looked like a cozy bed-and-breakfast room. Roman was asleep beside her, one arm flung over his face, completely unaware he was being photographed. Cal's expression in that photo was so tender it made my chest ache.
I kept swiping, photo after photo. In every single image, my sister looked happy. Radiant. Alive.
She obviously had no idea.
No idea that getting involved with a Valcourt would put a target on her back. No idea that the man she was falling for belonged to a family that controlled a secret society capable of making people disappear. No idea that only a month after these photos were taken, she'd be dead.
My vision blurred, and I realized tears were streaming down my face.
God, Cal. What were you thinking?
But I already knew what she'd been thinking.
She'd been thinking that she finally found someone who made her feel happy.
Someone worth keeping secret; worth protecting from the judgment of friends who would've warned her away.
Someone who made her laugh and hold hands and take stupid selfies in bed.
She'd been thinking she was in love.
I scrolled back to the first photo and let myself really look at Calista’s face.
The joy there. The absolute lack of fear.
Clearly, she'd really trusted Roman. Trusted that she was safe with him.
Safe enough to share the good and the bad with him; the softer, happier parts of herself along with her worries and secrets.
Hopefully not every secret, though. Because that would involve sharing my worst—
No. I mentally slapped myself away from that train of thought. This wasn’t about me. It was about my sister and getting justice for her after what Roman Valcourt had done to her.
You should’ve told your friends about him, Cal, I thought, wiping another tear from my cheek. They would've warned you. They would've made you snap out of the love-haze so you could see what he really was.
But she hadn't told anyone at all. Not her best friend. Not even me. Instead she'd kept the whole thing secret, the only evidence hidden away in a photo album disguised as vacation pictures.
I stared at the photos for what felt like hours, tracing every line of my sister’s face with my eyes.
When I finally glanced at the clock on my nightstand, it was almost two in the morning.
My eyes burned from staring at the screen for so long, and the ache in my chest had deepened into something dull and heavy.
I really needed to sleep.
I set the phone down on my nightstand as a yawn escaped my mouth, and I was about to turn off my bedside lamp when something outside my window caught my eye. A flicker of movement. A shadow shifting across the curtain.
My pulse spiked.
I sat perfectly still, barely breathing, watching the window. Then I saw more movement, followed by a brief flash of red light.
Someone was out there.
My heart hammered as I slowly pushed back my blankets and crept toward the window. Every horror movie instinct in my body was screaming at me not to look, but I just had to know who was out there.
I reached the window and carefully pulled back the edge of the curtain, peering out into the darkness.
At first, all I saw was the empty quad beyond my first-floor window, bathed in the yellow glow of the lamps lining the paths.
Then the wind picked up, and I saw tree branches swaying violently, their shadows dancing across the brick wall of the building opposite mine.
A second later, the red flash came again, and this time I caught the source: a bicycle leaning against one of the lampposts, its reflector catching the light each time the branches moved.
That was it. Shadows and a bike reflector.
I let out a heavy sigh of relief and dropped the curtain, feeling foolish. Then I climbed back into bed and switched off the lamp, plunging the room into darkness.
My pulse was still elevated, adrenaline thrumming through my veins, but I forced myself to close my eyes and breathe. Eventually, the exhaustion won, and I slipped into a fitful sleep filled with dark, fevered dreams.
In every single one of them, I was falling.
The viewing platform of the clock tower rushed away above me as I plummeted through empty air, wind screaming past my ears.
The ground hurtled toward me, cobblestones and concrete ready to shatter every bone in my body, but I didn't hit the ground.
Instead, I plunged into freezing water. I thrashed, trying to swim, but the current dragged me down, down, down into the dark depths.
I couldn't breathe. Couldn't see. Couldn't move.
Suddenly I was falling again.
Clock tower. Empty air. Wind screaming.
Water. Dark and cold. Drowning.
Over and over, a seemingly endless loop of terror.
Finally, after what felt like hours of torment, my eyes flew open, and I sat up, gasping for air. Weirdly, I could feel real wetness all over my body, as if the awful nightmare had actually happened and left me soaked in seawater. There was a strange metallic scent filling my nostrils too.
My hand fumbled for the lamp, finally finding the switch.
Light flooded the room, and I looked down. My stomach lurched at what I saw.
Blood.
My blankets were drenched in it. Dark red, almost black in places, soaking through the fabric and into the mattress beneath. It was on my hands, my arms, streaked across my pajamas.
A scream caught in my throat, and I jerked backward, nearly falling out of bed.
That was when I finally noticed the wall across from my bed. The cream-colored paintwork had been devoid of any marks when I went to bed, but now three huge, dripping words were painted there in the same blood that had soaked through my blankets.
STOP ASKING QUESTIONS