Page 44 of Sawyer

“I suspected as much,” Noah says. Reaching under his desk, he pulls out a large envelope and tosses it on the old wooden top. “A letter addressed to you showed up here this morning. I opened it because you get death threats regularly. They rarely mean much.”

“Regularly?” Bryn steps up to the back of my chair, placing his hands on the cushion, and his presence becomes electrifying.

“There have been a few that were questionable.” My boss eyes Bryn. “I called in the deltas. They reviewed the threats, and they have often deemed them nothing more than a prank.”

“So her life is a prank to you.” I can feel Bryn seething behind me.

“Bryn.” I glance over my shoulder, hoping to diffuse this situation as fast as possible, because they might kill my boss. “I’m a reporter. We all get death threats. All the time. Every single day.”

“Our security team reviews every piece of mail before it even gets to the newsroom.” Noah points to the envelope. “That slipped through. There’s no address and no stamp from the postal service.”

Curious, I reach for the envelope, only for Sin to smack my hand away and grab the envelope himself. Reaching inside, he pulls out a stack of photos. I can’t make them out from here, and Sin schools his features so I can’t read him.

Rumor snatches them out of his hands and flips through them quicker than Sin did. “Where did you get these?” he demands.

“I told you.” My boss sounds tired, as though this is the straw that will break him. “They were on my desk this morning when I got in. Show her.”

I reach for the pictures and wiggle my fingers. For some reason, I feel like I should be more reactive, as though I should worry about whatever is in those images. Instead, I feel nothing. It’s like I’ve already processed the bullshit I’m about to witness.

“Sawyer,” Rumor murmurs, unsure if he should give me the pictures.

“Hand them over. I assure you that whatever is on them, I’ve dealt with worse.” Like Tomi, and he’s dead. “Just hand them over.”

Annoyed with the wait, Bryn snatches them out of Rumor’s hands and gives them to me.

I was not prepared.

“What the fuck is this?” It’s all I have the energy to say as I stare at the image in my lap. It’s me wrapped around a pole, with my hands splayed on the floor and my legs in the air.

I flip to the next page. The photographer zoomed in on my eyes, my tired eyes, and I remember that moment as the person I am now dives deep inside my mind. The other part of me that exists purely for survival took over when I danced, getting me through the emotions, the moves, and the moment.

I couldn’t even say what song I danced to, only that I did.

The next few are more of the same.

It’s the next one that throws me. It’s of us in the dressing room. Tomi stands there looking smug after he just called for Roger. The photographer captured the moment my fear rushed through me. In the next photo, I’m collapsing to the floor, my gaze stuck on Roger squared.

I quickly flip through the rest, already knowing what I will find.

Tomi staring lifelessly up at the ceiling. A dead Roger with blood pooling on the floor around him.

“These are after we left,” I mutter, not finding our shadows anywhere in the pictures. Only the dead. “We left them there so they wouldn’t talk, yet here they are, screaming at us.” I look up at my boss, calm rushing over my body like icy rain.

“There’s more, Sawyer.” He nods to the last dozen.

I flip to the next photo, my fingers shaking at what I’ll find.

It’s of Rumor and me in the woods…except it isn’t recent.

“Oh my fates.” I flip to the next image, my heart now pounding. This one is of Bryn locked inside me. My mouth is opened in pleasure, and there’s a scarf over my eyes and a clip on my nose. “How?”

There’s one more. This one is of Rumor and me in the woods yesterday, standing over Jenny’s body. It’s the last, as though the photographer could get only one picture before he ran off.

“How?” I repeat, but the meaning is so different. I toss the photos on the desk and round on Rumor and Bryn. “There’s no way you didn’t know,” I accuse.

They look at each other, their eyes guarded as though they fear my wrath.

Good, they should fear it.

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