33. Malic #3
I failed her.
No one else.
Me.
“My fault!” I shout to the void, tossing Wilder his phone without care. “She never fucking would have…” My chest heaves several times, and I shake my head. The rage I felt before when I was in the basement is tenfold now. It courses through me like an inferno, destroying everything in its path.
That’s what I want to fucking do. Destroy. Everything.
My world dims.
My fingers tremble.
My blackened heart shrivels further into my chest, sucking every fucking emotion into it like a black hole.
Except for the rage. It’s still there. Simmering beneath my flesh.
My fingers curl into fists. I throw my head back, roaring toward the ceiling and letting my anger and anguish bleed through me.
I pull at my hair, growling when a hand lands on my shoulder and gently squeezes.
“Malic,” Wilder whispers like he’s talking to an injured animal primed for attack.
“I will find that beady little snake and tear his goddamn eyes out!” I shout, throwing my fist into a hanging bag.
Over and over. I let my rage consume me more until I’m left huffing and puffing.
“I will find who fucked with my sister. Is she…” I swallow hard, not wanting to say the words despite seeing the evidence in the photos.
“Prepare for the worst,” Wilder whispers the words he said to me over the course of our search for Meredith.
Prepare for the worst. Prepare for her imminent death. All those hopes of my sister on a grand vacation, lying on the beach after escaping this hellhole fucking town. Escaping the life I never fucking wanted for her.
“She was innocent,” I hiss through clenched teeth, looking back at Wilder. “A goddamn nurse! She saved lives! And now… And now!” I shout, throwing more punches into the hanging bag so I don’t take them out on my fucking keeper.
It’s hard to recognize anything right now, but the pain is constantly consuming me. It thrives inside me now, boiling through my veins and darkening my vision. Every molecule inside me screams for relief.
“She was,” Wilder says, breaking through my spiral. “She was an innocent who saved so many people.”
My shoulders bunch with every heavy breath I take.
The cool material of the hanging bag rests against my forehead as I attempt to collect myself.
I’ve never had to reel myself back in before.
That’s what my fucking keeper is for. Only this time, he’s the one who delivered the blow of all fucking blows.
Maybe she’s not dead.
Maybe it’s all a ruse for us to find her and bring her back from the brink of death. Yes. That’s it. She’s not fucking dead. No way in fuck would anyone in this goddamn town dare to touch a hair on her body like that.
I have to find her. Get to her. Bring her back to our home and nurse her back to health. Then I’ll never let my sister go through that again.
I’ll save her.
She’s not dead.
The pictures flash through my brain on repeat. It’s something I’ll never be able to unsee or forget about.
“We have to go to the fucking Greenwood Hotel.” I stand tall, heaving my breath, and reeling myself back in from the brink of disaster. I may be Malic the fucking Maniac, but I must hang by this thread of fucking sanity until I see her again.
She’s not dead.
“Greenwood Hotel?” Wilder asks, wiping at his eyes. “Why?”
“Whoever did this wanted me to fucking see it,” I say, smoothing down my shirt and quieting the voices running rampant in my mind and begging for retribution, blood, and lots of death.
“What?” he asks, looking at the pictures again. “I don’t understand…” He trails off, shaking his head. “How can you tell?”
“It’s right here hidden in plain view,” I say, gesturing toward the phone. “Greenwood Hotel.”
Wilder blinks at me several times and then looks through the pictures again, trying to prove me wrong. But he can’t. I’d recognize it anywhere. The shitty sheets and ugly artwork hanging from its walls. The floral comforters.
It’s all there in plain sight.
“This is our new home for the time being, Malic,” my egg donor says with a grin, shoving me inside an outdated hotel suite and shutting the door behind us, blocking out the light spilling in.
I blink several times when a lamp clicks on, and the entire room lights up.
“And I’ve got a special place for you.” She smiles, taking me by the shoulder and leading me to a dog cage at the edge of the room. “You’ll be a good boy, won’t you?”
My limbs lock up as I shake the memory from my brain.
“I know what room she’ll be in, too.” Every word I say pulls me further from humanity and deeper into the darkness, especially with the realization of where Meredith will be lying.
If she’s still there.
Whoever posted these photos of my sister’s death will meet an end they won’t come back from.
I’ll string their body up for the entire world to see.
But not before I find out why this is all happening.
The organs. The deaths. My fucking sister.
It’s all connected somehow; I have to figure out how and by whom.