Page 174 of Vicious Butterfly
And so, so cold. I walk faster to generate heat and to keep up with my husband.
The hallway finally opens into another room with two more sarcophagi, each with a statue.
Terry and Amelia VanCourt.
“Mom and Dad,” I say with the astonishment clear in my voice. “They’ve been here all this time.”
“Yes,” Luke says. “He told us he’d never been able to find out where they were buried.”
“So damn strange,” I say, gravitating to Mom’s burial site, reaching a hand toward her outstretched one. Why did Jasper give this to me? He bequeathed me that fucking key. Why bother ever to show me?
Maybe no reason at all. Maybe just to keep me up late wondering, so he’ll haunt the corridors of my mind forever.
“They look so real,” Ryan says, peering at her.
I look closer, because they do look incredibly realistic.
“Actually,” McKinnon says. “So, look, I spend way too much time on Reddit, and well, long story, but at the beginning of the twentieth century, there was a guy who experimented with electroplating humans. Allegedly, it was offered as an alternative to cremation or burial.”
“No. No fucking way. This is a statue, it’s not my dead mother, McKinnon.”
“I mean, it’s just a theory?—”
“A fucking crazy-ass conspiracy theory,” Ryan says. He slides an arm around my waist.
“They died in a car accident; they were probably unrecognizable,” Luke says. In other words, they wouldn’t make good statues.
“And who told you guys that? Jasper? Didn’t he lie a lot?” McKinnon says. He just wants more proof of his morbid theory. “I think it’s cool.”
He reaches out to touch Dad, and I snap my head in his direction. He pulls his hand back. If McKinnon’s crazy theory is true, that means the statue of Uncle Jasper up top isn’t a statue. Yeah, we’re not going with McKinnon’s theory.
“You spend too much time on Reddit threads, McKinnon,” Ryan says, leaning his head on my shoulder.
But McKinnon doesn’t know when to stop talking. “You know, Savage, if electroplating humans is a thing, you should keep that uniform. You would look hot in it as a statue.”
That’s it. I lunge, hellbent on killing McKinnon. At least maiming him. He’s about to become a fucking statue. Luke pulls Ace behind him, using his body as a shield. “It’s okay, brother. I’m taking him away.”
McKinnon bites his lip to keep from laughing, not as scared as he should be, while my heart races.
“Don’t ever call my husband hot again.”
“Noted, Coach,” he says.
“Come along, McKinnon. I think you’d be safer in the house.”
But once they’re gone, I don’t like the eerie blanket of dread that falls over us. We should get out of here, too, before the walls close around us. The irrational feeling that the secret chamber will close and seal us down here forever whispers in the background of my mind.
Ryan shivers.
But I need one last look at Mom. Whoever crafted her statue created an incredible likeness. I can almost see her beneath the moonlight, cutting her long black hair on the full moon.
“You look like her,” Ryan says.
“Many people told me I looked like my uncle.”
“Because they only knew him. You have some of his features, sure, but there’s something very her about you.”
Something stirs in my belly.Feeling.Is it for my mother, or is it just Ryan again? Ryan’s my bridge to humanity. A current thatbrings me emotions my body can understand. Whatever it is, I’m glad I can feel something for her.
