Chapter 26
SAGE
I’m shaking and shivering where he left me. I never knew I could feel so used, and yet remain a virgin at the same time. Every part of me is on fire. Every nerve is rubbed raw. I want to lie there and not move, but inside my mind is screaming at me to get up.
Kathy, or worse, Mundel, could walk in at any minute.
It takes me a few minutes to compose myself and redress. Then I wander through the house looking for him.
Not that I want to find him.
But I have thirty minutes tops before he passes out. In that moment, his mouth was between my legs, his breath on my thighs, and I told him not to stop….
I was quickly adding the crushed migraine pills to his wine.
Now, I’m going straight to Hell.
But first, I need to get that key.
I check the sitting room, the billiard room, and the library, but they’re all empty, not even a fire lit. For once, I’m entirely alone. Ben is skulking in the shadows, back to stalking me.
Where would he go?
“Where’s Troy, hey?” I ask Ben. He cocks his head at me, but doesn’t budge. Maybe I watched Lassie too many times as a kid, but I expected him to run off and show me the way.
Then I feel it rather than hear it, heavy metal music thumping like it’s in the walls. I follow the sound to his secret office. The bookshelf door looks shut, but a line of light spills through the crack, telling me it’s only closed over.
Ben lies down outside like he’s probably done a thousand times before, watching me with knowing eyes. His master is in there.
“Good boy,” I whisper, my hands shaking as I pull the door open.
The music hits me like a wall of guitars screaming, drums pounding, like a headache come to life.
And there he is.
Troy is laid back in his leather chair behind his desk, one hand dangling over the armrest, loosely gripping his wine glass.
The wine inside catches the lamplight, looking like it’s stained with blood.
His eyes are half-closed, head resting against the leather, and for the first time since I’ve known him, he looks almost.. .
Human.
The moment I enter, he’s suddenly alert, but his reflexes are slower. He doesn’t move in that coiled-spring way of his.
“Sage.” His voice is rough over the music. “What are you doing here?”
Heart pounding, I force myself to move inside and close the door. “I heard the music. Are you…okay?” I ask, keeping my voice steady but raised. The music is still blaring. I look around for the speaker control panel and spy it on the wall next to the door.
I lower the volume and then turn around.
There’s a sneer on his lips when I face him again. He’s sitting up, placing his glass on the desk, the movement less controlled than usual. “Worried, after you tried to poison me?”
The air leaves my lungs as I turn around. “I…”
“What was it you gave me?”
“I didn’t…” But I can’t speak.
“Something that takes a fucking long time to kick in, that’s what.” He sighs, leaning back in his chair.
I don’t move.
“If you’ve come to finish the job, hurry up.”
“Troy—”
“No? Well fuck off and leave me in peace then.”
“Just tell me what happened to her. Please.”
“All you had to do was ask.” He goes quiet, and for a second I think he’s out cold, but then, “You look like her, you know. At first I thought…” He trails off, shaking his head slowly.
“But you’re not. She would never—” He stops himself, reaching for his glass and then realizing.
“Fuck, I need a drink.” His fist grips the armrest instead.
“She would never what?” I press, still standing there, less than two feet away.
His grass-green eyes find mine, glassy but intense. “Kiss me like that.”
“L-Like what?”
He lets out a bitter laugh. “Like you hate monsters.” The drugs are pulling him under, his words starting to slur, though his jaw tightens, even through the haze. “Hate me. What kind of sick fuck would I be if I took it when you hate me so damn much?”
My stomach churns.
I want to run, but I need to keep him talking. This was starting to go somewhere. If I can bring him back to Nell, I might get some honest answers for once. “Troy. Troy please. What happened to my sister? What happened to Nell?”
He blinks slowly, fighting the weight of his eyelids. “The girl who isn’t afraid to be a monster herself.”
Is he talking about me or Nell, now? I have no idea.
I step forward. “Did you kill her?”
His words fade, chest rising and falling deeper now. He sighs. “No.”
“Did you… accidentally push her?”
“No.” The word is barely a whisper. “I tried…to save her.”
His eyes drift closed fully now, and his breathing slows. I’m losing him to the drugs. I sit there for a moment, my mind in chaos.
Troy was there.
Nell fell from the tower, and Troy was there. But he tried to save her. But if that’s the case, now what? Everything I’ve done for the last year has been about revenge.
And now….
I blink, feeling like I’ve been shot in the chest.
He’s lying. He has to be.
Then I remember why I’m here—the scars, the swan key.
“Troy?”
But he’s gone, his breathing evening out, becoming deeper. I shake him just to be sure.
Moving quickly, I crouch down in front of him to unbutton his shirt.
My fingers keep fumbling, and undressing him while he’s out of it feels so very wrong, but I manage.
His skin is hot under my fingers as I peel his shirt back to reveal the key chain around his neck, and… every single one of his scars.
There are so many. And each one is painted in ink.
Every intricate design of his tattoos hides some snarl, some twist of his flesh in a way that makes it beautiful.
On his left shoulder is a jagged scar that looks like it was once deep and violent, and then on his right side, buried under his ribs, is an old puncture wound that must have hurt.
Handshaking, I reached out and run my fingers over it.
“What the hell are you doing?” Troy slurs, dragging his eyes open.
I stumble back and hit the desk.
He blinks at me, a curl to his lips, and then grabs me, pulling me onto his lap. “Are you taking advantage, little finch?” he mumbles into my ear.
“I-I thought you were asleep.” Despite my racing pulse screaming at me to run, my insides melt at his touch.
“It’s going to take more than poison to keep me from you,” he drawls, inhaling my neck.
“It’s not poison.” My words are barely a whisper.
His arm locks tight, holding me close. “Then you’d better run when I wake up.”
But I can’t move. Can’t pull away from the way he’s holding me…
Like I’m already lost to him.
Because I am.
It’s only a matter of time.
When he well and truly has passed out, I slip the cold weight of the swan key from his neck. And then I ease myself from his grasp. But as I extract myself, his words tear me apart as they go round and round in my head. I don’t know what to think anymore.
After I turn the volume back up on the speaker, I glance back, my eyes finding him unconscious in the chair.
He’s so vulnerable right now, and yet dangerous, even when dead to the angels.
I could kill him right now, but something cracks in my chest, snuffing that thought out like a candle in a storm.
He tried to save her.
What if he isn’t lying?
The music screams on as I clutch the key in my hand and leave him there in the gloom.
The swan key fits perfectly in the secret pantry door. I turn it and then open it wide. It’s a bit dingy inside, but there are two passages, each going in the opposite direction. I walk further in, taking a left turn first, using my phone as a torch.
The air hits me cold and damp as I round the corner and come to a set of concrete stairs that lead down into the earth.
It’s a short descent—just a few steps to a stone archway, with a swan carved into the lintel.
The air is warm through here and gets warmer and thicker as I get to the bottom. I inhale slowly, trying to remember to keep breathing. But the air clings with the scent of wet wood, damp earth, and something sharper…metallic.
I know I should go back.
But, ironically, it’s fear that pulls me forward.
Gripping the stone of the archway like an anchor, I inch inside. A shiver spills through me, trailing over my spine, lighting every nerve as my torch reveals rows of metal hooks hanging from a wooden beam. Dead birds—pheasants—sway from them, trussed up on chains.
It’s a game larder.
We had one at our summer house, back when we had an extra house to summer in.
My father liked disappearing inside it during the long evenings, curing bacon and gammon for the family Sunday roast. This was before he lost everything in gambling debt.
Back then, the smell of it reminded me of an abattoir, cloying in the back of my throat.
This place reeks the same, like a butcher’s block left to rot, heavy with the stink of old meat and rusted iron.
In the middle of the room, just like ours, is a thick, brick curing table, though my gut tells me it isn’t for making bacon. The marble on top is stained dark. And something drips slowly and steadily off it into a drain on the floor. The soft, wet splatter makes my stomach twist.
At the far end, a door to another room about seven feet square. There’s a light switch by the door. I throw it, and a single bulb flares to life overhead, casting shadows that twist across stone walls.
In the corner is a chest freezer.
I really don’t know what’s going on with my thoughts as I walk over to it. All the things I’ve found out, the emotions I feel are clashing inside me right now, like I’m a walking heavy metal band myself.
Strangely, Nell has been quiet. I haven’t heard from her for a while. I don’t know whether to be worried about that, but I’m too scared to try to find her inside my brain. Because it can’t be right…it can’t be healthy to have a dead person talking back to you.
I’m a bit of a mess when I open the freezer door. I don’t even know what I’m expecting to see inside.
But not Tobias Ragg.
Fully preserved, like he was sleeping and then kind of just fell into the chest with his eyes frozen open, staring at me.
The scream sticks in my throat. I have to clamp my hand to my mouth to stop it spilling out. Then I slam the freezer shut, heart skittering in my chest, veins shooting with adrenaline.
I stare at the freezer.
Oh, my God. Why? Why is the reporter dead in the freezer?
Did I imagine it? Am I seeing things now? Sometimes I see Nell. It could be that.
Grinding my teeth, I tentatively crack open the freezer chest again. And no, there he is.
But this time I don’t slam it shut. I stare at his blue corpse, trying to work out how he died. There’s this dark, congealed stuff around his neck. Someone slit his throat and then put him here. He was most definitely murdered…I’m going to go out on a limb on that one.
But why? Who would want him dead?
Okay. I need to pretend I didn’t see this. Because the alternative is….
I don’t want to think about it.
Carefully, I close the chest freezer again and then head back up the stone steps. The other passageway is calling to me. I’m feeling too sick to keep searching through tiny airless tunnels. But I may never get this chance again.
The other room is not another game larder.
It’s a grooming station with a dressing table, a mirror, and what looks to be a barber’s chair facing it.
The walls around it are covered in childhood drawings and photographs of a family; a dad, a mum, and a son and daughter, who look way too happy to be tacked up in this macabre hideaway.
In the center of the room is a dark, smoke-stained brick surround. It contrasts beautifully with the huge fireplace that glows like sunset against stone walls, covered in stone swans.
But that’s not what has me rooted to the spot.
I walk over to the dressing table, where a demon mask is laid out, and a vanity case is propped beside it.
I’m too scared to open it. Especially when the floor creaks underfoot, and I look down. I’m standing on a trapdoor. Its edges frame the barber’s chair I’m beside. I scramble to get off it. I don’t know why, and bump into a chest tucked into the corner by the wall, a kids’ toy chest.
Even though my nerves are screaming at me not to, slowly, I crack it open.
I’m shaking so hard as I look inside. But nothing scary jumps out.
It’s just rammed full of old clothes. The smell hits me, an unwashed smell, like everything inside hasn’t been aired in years.
Looking closer, all the clothing is stained dark.
Nausea swirls in my gut.
Okay, that’s enough.
I’ve seen enough.
My heart is in my throat now. We definitely didn’t have a room like this in our house.
I run to the door. A quick look through the keyhole tells me no one is in the pantry, so I rush back through it and relock the hidden door. It’s only as I get back into the kitchen that I can breathe properly, dragging in breaths like the air is paper-thin.
Kathy is coming into the kitchen, humming away, as I’m hurrying out of it. She glances up at me and then stops. “You do look pale. Are you sure you’re not coming down with a cold?”
“I’m fine.” But my voice sounds high-pitched. She’s going to twig that something’s wrong, but she gives a stiff nod and carries on.
Maybe I always sound like this, a bit panicked and a bit unsure.
Okay, Sage. You need to carry on like nothing happened. Do not let anyone know that you just found a dead body in the freezer and a weird room that you can’t even explain.
But then Nell sneers. Why are you being so cowardly? Go back there. Investigate. That’s what you’re here to do.
She’s right. Here I am, hiding in my room. I need to be stronger. I need to be better at this because everything is on the line.
Troy’s going to wake up soon and kill me.