Chapter 32 #4
The entrance isn’t locked, so I ease inside. Music blasts, heavy metal, I register. At least this time it’s not too loud that I can’t hear myself think. At the far end, a door to another room is cracked open; voices spill from the other side.
“I’ll ask you one last time,” says a voice, low and distorted. “What happened that night?”
There’s a groan in response.
My eyes are transfixed through the gloom on the shards of brazen light around the door’s edge, which dip and flicker as someone moves on the other side. Heart in my throat, a dark thrill twisting through my veins, I step closer and spy through the crack.
A work light hangs from the ceiling. Its harsh white glare throws shadows over the crumbling brickwork and the two men in the room.
Troy stands with his back to me. He’s taken off his jacket and rolled up his sleeves.
The other man is slumped in the chair, wrists bound, head lolling forward, his shirt torn and stained red, his breath coming in ragged pulls. I can’t quite see his face.
“Time to tell me the truth now…you killed her, didn’t you? Did he order you to do it, or was it just a bit of fun for you?” Troy asks, exhaling slowly, rolling his shoulders.
When he doesn’t get an answer, he tuts and yanks out something buried in the other man’s leg, only to ram it into his chest. The man screams, curdling my blood.
“How about now? Does that jog your memory?” Troy crouches next to him and twists the knife lodged between his ribs.
“Burn…in…hell.” The man gasps like he can’t quite breathe.
As the light swings back and forth, moving shadows, I see the interrogator’s face.
But it’s not Troy, like I was expecting.
It’s a demon.
I suck in a breath, a cry sticking in my throat. But I clamp my mouth shut, swallowing it down, unable to look away from the mask with hollow red eyes and two short horns, its lips pulled back to bare sharp teeth.
It’s the demon I saw covered in blood the first night I came to Grayfleet.
Troy is that demon.
I should run a mile, have some self-preservation, but I can’t move, not even when he continues to dig the blade in the other man’s chest. With every shattered breath, a rush of adrenaline surges through my body like a narcotic drug, keeping me frozen, watching hell unfold in front of me.
“Been there. Got the fucking shirt. How about I send you there, just for being a stubborn prick?” snarls Troy, his mask half in darkness, his voice different, modulated.
But his body, and his tattoos…I’d know him anywhere.
“F-fuck you, Sweeney, you bastard.”
Sweeney.
He called Troy, Sweeney.
I knew it.
“Good, you know who I am, at least.”
The man spits blood in Troy’s red eye, but Troy doesn’t flinch. Instead, the face beneath the mask chuckles and presses on the blade.
The man’s scream turns to choking on blood.
Now I feel sick. The sight of all that torture makes me gag, reminding me I have limits. As my half-eaten dinner threatens to rise, I avert my eyes just long enough to steal a breath and stop it.
Barely.
But Nell’s voice slices through the haze. You need to see him for who he really is. No more secrets.
I drag my gaze back.
“Did Richard order you to do it, or did you decide to do it alone? I have a hard time believing a gutter shit like you would do anything off his own back.”
I freeze. Richard. My father?
A wet, hacking cough is his only answer.
Troy sighs and reaches into his pocket for something long and metallic-looking. Another knife? But as he moves behind the man in the chair, I see it clearer. A razor in his hands glinting in the low light before he smoothly lays the edge across the man’s neck.
And then I see the man’s face.
Darrow. My father’s right-hand man.
Troy pulls back violently. Darrow gives a strangled grunt, fighting against him and the bonds that strap him to the chair. Blood sprays in an arc.
I shove my hand over my mouth.
Silence.
Only the sound of my breath coming in short gasps and my heart beating erratically echoes loudly in my ears.
As Troy inhales deeply, seeming to savor the moment, he then releases Darrow’s hair, and the dead man’s head falls back. Humming, Troy leans over to clean the razor on the dead man’s chest. There’s a sound like popping a cork, and Darrow’s head rolls off, and a fountain of blood gushes out.
Suddenly, I feel sick again.
I grip the wall and wait for nausea to pass. But it doesn’t. It gets worse. Something thick and syrupy runs under the gap in the door, over the uneven stone, slipping beneath the soles of my heels.
I don’t dare look down.
I really am going to throw up.
But if I throw up, Troy will hear me, and the last thing I need is for him to find me here. I need to leave this place, now!
Quickly, I look to make sure he’s not coming into this room. But then I can’t help but stare as he takes a handkerchief from his pocket, mops the gore from his hands and face, and then strips off his bloodied shirt. It drops to the ground with a wet sucking sound.
The flickering light casts sharp, jagged shadows over his body, causing his muscles to shift beneath ink and scars as he turns to a record player placed on an old barrel.
He drops the needle.
A heavy beat thumps to life.
It screams through the damp air. Then, he casually and unhurriedly turns around…
And walks straight toward me.
Move.
The command screeches through my head, but my limbs don’t obey. Not until he’s almost through the door. A low whimper scratches my throat as I shove myself backward, pressing against the far side of the barber chair.
Footsteps come closer, slow and measured. The shadow on the wall stretches taller as Troy steps into the front room and switches on a lamp, lighting the place I’m trapped in with a dusty glare.
I don’t move. I don’t even think I’m breathing.
Not when he moves past where I’m hiding. As there’s the sound of him striding up to one of the cabinets against the wall, I manage to peek around. He rifles through a drawer, humming softly.
Crawl out now. Go.
But he turns in my direction.
I jump back. A scream burns in my chest, but I bite my tongue instead, swallowing the horror down like poison.
Troy pauses beside the chair, so close I can smell the metal stench of death on him.
Music burrows into my brain, like an insidious whisper in my ear as he hums along to it.
In the barber’s mirror, I can just about see his reflection.
The mask, slick with blood, his torso coated in it.
I bite down on my lip hard to keep the panic inside, watching as Troy rotates his shoulders and then turns away.
In the mirror, he takes a fresh razor from a leather roll on a side table, testing its edge and turning it in the dim light.
The tattoo on his back of a swan with its wings outstretched seems to glare at me.
If he catches me here….
I don’t want to think about it.
My only hope is to move under the table, inch by inch, and then run for the door. But the floor betrays me. There’s a soft squeak as my heel snags on something slick.
Troy stops. Those demonic red eyes lock on mine through the mirror, where I’m hiding behind the chair.
“What have we here?” His voice drops to something dangerously soft. “A rat?”