Page 64 of Apathy
Shit.
“Give it back, Ash.” I jumped from the stump and started pulling my pants up, hating the way his eyebrows scrunched together at the words written on it. I took a step closer to him, as he took another one backward, finally giving me his eyes.
All the warmth from before was replaced by what could only be fear.
“Where did you get this?”
“None of your business.” I stepped forward and snatched the paper away from him. The lust I felt just a minute ago started dissipating at the mere sight of his face now. He wasn’t here anymore. No, he was a thousand miles away, and whatever it was, I had a feeling he wouldn’t want to share it with me.
“Do you know what it is?” I asked carefully, folding the paper again and placing it in the pocket of my pants. “Ash?” I urged again when he didn’t answer.
As if waking up, he shook his head before he looked back at me. “No. I’ve no idea.” His lips were pulled into a thin line, and a teeny-tiny voice inside my head told me that he knew more than he was sharing.
“Ash, if you—”
A familiar ringtone started blaring, echoing around the forest, and I almost jumped at the suddenness of it. I turned around and walked to my bag when it wouldn’t stop even though I wanted to ignore it.
I wanted him to talk to me, to tell me more than just the surface-level bullshit he was willing to share so far.
Lauren’s name glared at me from my phone, and with a huff I clicked the green button, and pressed the phone to my ear.
“Lauren, now’s not the—”
“Oh my God, Sky,” she sobbed, and the alarm went off in my head.
“Lauren?” I sat down on the tree stump and buttoned my pants. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“Oh God,” she sobbed again, freezing the blood in my veins. “I thought it was you.”
“What was me, Lauren?”
Ash slowly approached me and picked up the shirt that was haphazardly laying on the ground, extending it to me. He was observing me, just how I was observing him before, but I couldn’t think about him right now.
“They found another body, Sky,” she whispered. “They found another girl at the riverbank.”
And just like that, I knew. I knew she was going to have the same markings as Megan.
“I just spoke with my dad, and he asked about you. She, uh…” Lauren cleared her throat. “She has your name carved into her skin as well.”
All the warm and fuzzy feelings from earlier disappeared, replaced by sheer terror and knowledge that this girl was connected to the psychopath stalking me and messaging me. My blood ran cold and my hands started shaking. Disconnecting the call, I turned to Ash and uttered the words I didn’t really mean.
“We need to go back.”
Skylar
When I stepped out of my house this morning, I never would’ve imagined that this day would end in this way.
Seventeen-year-old Heather Nessai was found at the riverbank, with acidic burns on her chest and my name carved in her stomach. To say that it made me sick to my stomach would be the understatement of the year.
What made me even more sick was the fact that I lied—again—keeping those messages cryptic, because I feared for my friends. I feared that they would end up dead because of me. Knowing now that killing Megan was not just a one-time thing, I had a feeling we were dealing with an extremely deranged individual.
It didn’t help that Ash kept looking at me as if I was going to explode every minute. He kept quiet during the ride back to the town, and all the way to the police station, but he still kept looking at me. The difference was, I was too tired to look back at him. He knew something. The way he looked at that fucking letter, his reaction, I was so sure that he knew something I didn’t, and I was going to find out what.
Wasn’t it strange that the moment he came to town, these murders started happening?
And even though I wanted to erase these thoughts from my head, I started suspecting every single person in my close vicinity. Kane, Ash, ten other people, they all seemed fishy in my eyes, but I wouldn’t be able to prove anything unless I went directly to the police with the messages the murderer was sending me.
Would they be able to find who sent them? Would they be able to track the person threatening me?
