Page 65 of Apathy
Or would they decide that I was somehow at fault for these murders in town?
Then there was my name carved into their corpses, like a beacon leading to me as a prime suspect. God, I wanted to run away from here. Just pack a bag and get out of this forsaken town.
But I couldn’t, at least not yet.
Besides, even if I ran, I had a feeling it would do me no good. My father would find me no matter where I went. Dylan would blow a gasket if I just ran away without ever talking to him about all this.
And, I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Ash. He riled me up like no one ever did, but my blood sang when he was around.
So, here I was, sitting in his car at six in the evening, because the same police officer interrogating me that first day decided that he needed to keep me at the station for way longer than necessary. I wanted to throw the mug on the table at him, but I couldn’t do that either.
I could count the number of things I could do on one hand, and none of those could help me find out what the fuck was happening in this town—the missing girls, then their bodies, then cryptic messages, and my name on their bodies. And that fucking letter from this morning, telling me to go to our local library to find out more about Winworth.
Did I even want to know more? I had a feeling that the more I knew, the more danger I would be in. But I couldn’t exactly just sit idly by and pretend that nothing was happening around me.
I could drown myself in drugs and alcohol, but that wouldn’t help either. All those were temporary solutions to a lasting problem.
“Are you going to be okay?” Ash asked, while parked in front of my house. The light was on, on the porch, but I knew that nobody else was at home right now. Dylan went back to Seattle to finish some things, my father was finally out of town, and my mom was still on that fucking trip.
Our housekeeper, Vera, probably already went home, which meant I would be all alone in the enormous house. Tremors rocked through my body, mostly visible on my hands, but I shoved them underneath my legs, hiding my fear from him.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I’ll be fine. Thanks for the ride.” I picked up my bag and turned to the door, but he took a hold of my arm, stopping me from going any further.
“Just,” he started. “Be safe, okay?”
Whatever it was that he wanted to say wasn’t that, but I was too tired to push him for more. I had a feeling that it was only one tragedy after another, and I couldn’t deal with grumpy Ash tonight. For some reason, I wanted him for more than just meaningless sex, and it was painfully obvious that he wasn’t willing to open up enough for us to talk about it.
One second, he was telling me things like in that forest, and in the next one, he was completely closed off. I had enough shit in my life without adding his to the pile. So no, tonight I was going to take a shower, go to sleep, and forget that this day ever happened.
“I always am,” I replied and pushed the door open, welcoming the cold air. As much as I hated the weather in Winworth, tonight it was a welcoming distraction from the disaster surrounding my life. We were in the middle of September, and the way the weather was behaving, you would think we were already in the middle of October.
The door slammed behind me, and I pulled the sweater Lauren brought to the station tighter around me, and started walking toward the front door. I opened my bag and pulled out the keys dangling from the string Dylan had given me a few years ago. I used to lose keys every second week, and after making me wear this stupid string around my neck, I stopped losing them. And when I didn’t need to wear it around my neck anymore, I kept it, unable to throw it away. Dylan gave it to me, and parting with it felt like somehow pushing him away, and I couldn’t do it.
The wind howled around me while an owl cried out close by. At least it wasn’t crows today. I had a feeling they were everywhere these days, and while I absolutely loved them, they reminded me of death and all the sinister things coating the history of Winworth.
As soon as I started unlocking the doors, the tires of Ash’s car screeched on the gravelly road, and I knew he was going to leave me alone for the night. I wasn’t sure if I felt disappointed or relieved that I wouldn’t have to deal with him and his mood swings tonight.
Maybe I wanted him to stay, to hold me during the night, but I also knew that would be too much to ask. I was tired of asking for things I could never have. I wanted him to do it himself, without me asking, but it was obvious that the two of us weren’t on the same wavelength when it came to this thing between us.
The lights were on in the house, Vera most probably leaving them on for me. It was both terrifying and soothing, knowing that I was completely alone. I didn’t want to call Dylan after they summoned me to the station, even though I knew he would’ve come. I didn’t want to call my father, because with him being away, I knew I could breathe a little bit.
But the truth was, I was completely and utterly alone.
Yeah, I had Lauren and my other friends, but they all had to go home to be with their families. They were all terrified of this person killing people, and I had a feeling that this was only the start of the nightmare.
Locking the door behind me, I all but ran upstairs, ready to just forget about the day. It was too early to go to sleep, but I wanted nothing more than to curl up in my bed and forget that another young girl died because a psychopath was obsessed with me.
He called these murders his gifts, and it was only a matter of time before he was going to message me again. Truth be told, I half-expected it to happen during the day, but there were still no messages on my phone.
I glared at the device as if it could give me the answers I so desperately needed, but the only thing glaring back at me was a bright screen and the picture of a wolf I placed as my background. Throwing my bag to the floor as soon as I got to my room, I started removing my clothes, ready to just take a shower and remove the remnants of the day from my skin.
I thought about Lilly and her vicious words. I thought about Ash and the hot-and-cold game we were playing. I thought about Heather and her last moments, comparing her to the visions of Megan I could never forget.
The police hadn’t shared with me if she was found in the same state Megan was but knowing that her chest was burned with acid left a sour taste in my mouth. As I stepped into the shower, letting the warm water cascade over my body, I started thinking about her family.
She was young. Too young to know that kind of violence. Too young for her life to be taken away from her. Too young to experience terror, and to go through these things. I often thought about the souls of those that died in a violent way.
Were they scared? Did they pray to God, saints, or the universe to take their pain away? What were their last thoughts before the monster took away their last breath?
