Page 90 of Butterfly
Yes, that’s where I was. I came home from practice and texted for a bit with Oakley. Then…
Something else.
It’s all coated in cloudy fluff in my mind, but when I search my memory of the day, all I’m given is a throbbing pain in the back of my head and the prick of a needle in my arm.
The rest is a blur.
Okay. So someone got into my place and attacked me?
Yes, that tracks.
And then whoever it was hit me, drugged me, and dragged me to this place.
The space around me isn’t as big as it seemed when I first opened my eyes. It’s nowhere near the giant warehouse I thought it was. It’s more like… a basement. An unfinished basement with concrete block walls. I realize this as I scan the vague traces of the roofline I can see along what I assume are the edges of this basement I’m in. There are scant traces of light emanating from tiny cracks along the upper wall, and I’m going to guess those are windows that have been covered by something.
That’s something at least.
It won’t necessarily help me at this exact moment, but it’s information I didn’t have before, and that feels like a win. If I’m going to get the hell out of here, I need as many little wins as I can possibly get.
I lean forward, testing the length of whatever it is binding me to this wooden pole to see if I can get another win, but the rope isn’t as long as I’d hoped it was. Whoever tied me up here has seen to it to keep it short. Too short for me to even be able to stand up.
“Fuck,” I mumble, leaning back with a sigh. I close my eyes and scan my memory, looking for any clues that could be useful to me, but my brain keeps pinging back to one name.
Kyle Penton.
The messages I’ve received from that anonymous account, probably him, have gotten fairly threatening over the last fewdays, but that he’d come into my apartment, knock me out, and drag me here seems impossible.
Right?
I frown as I scan through my memory of the messages that have been sent my way since the first moment he cornered me with pictures of me and Shiloh in hand and a threat to out me falling from his mouth. There’s no way that little shit would try anything like this, but he’s the only name I can come up with.
“No fucking way,” I mumble to myself, opening my eyes and scanning my surroundings again as I try to come up with a better explanation than Kyle fucking Penton.
I sit in silence, watching the light stream through the windows for a few moments until I spot something on the wall to my left, but set behind where I sit. There’s another light back there, but it’s also dimmed enough that when I’m facing forward I can’t see it behind me. I stare in that direction, craning my neck to be sure my mind isn’t playing tricks on me, but there is something hanging there. I try to shuffle around to get a better look, but can only make out the scant edges of what looks to be paper tacked to a corkboard. I take a deep breath and shuffle my ass sideways, the rope behind me growing taught and digging into my skin as I get a better look at what’s there.
The breath is nearly knocked out of me as newspaper clippings become visible, each one smoothed out and held in place on the corkboard, but that isn’t what chills me to the bone.
There are pictures.
There’s a handful of me on the ice, clearly taken recently.
There’s one of my Jeep in the parking lot outside the arena.
One of Oakley and me, hugging outside my apartment building.
Me and Shiloh, sitting in my Jeep outside Healing Hearts on the day Iggy went missing.
“What the hell?” I whisper, eyes darting from article to article, image to image.
It’s Kyle.
It has to be Kyle.
A creak of wood from somewhere to my right startles me and I reel back, bumping my head against the wooden pole. I wince but focus in on that spot the noise came from, preparing for the worst. Something hard and solid is thrown at me, bouncing off my foot and landing on the floor with a bang. I reel back, pulling my feet away because my brain screams at me that it’s a human head, but as I calm down I realize it isn’t.
It’s my missing goalie mask.
“Kyle?” I ask, trying to stay calm as footsteps descend a wooden staircase I can’t see.
