Page 74 of Shadow Hunter

I wish you’d stop sending letters. Every time I see the return address of the Execution Underground, my stomach churns because I know it’s either a check that’s meant to pay me off for the brother I lost, a check I have to cash if I don’t want to be homeless...or a letter from you. I don’t know which makes me feel worse.

He bit his lip.Shit. That one stung.

Dear B,

Why?

All I can think is why.

A sharp painstabbed at his heart as he read the words. The next was merely a single sentence.

I feel nothing...

God help him.He had to keep reading. He couldn’t pause to think. It hurt too much.

Dear B,

I tried believing this today.

Everything is normal. Mark is not dead. You are not the cause. Life is the way it used to be. I’m a happy college student, preparing for med school.

Yeah...it didn’t fool me for a second, either.

And the next:

If you were here, I’d stab a knife straight into your back, just like you did to Mark. What worthless excuse for a man betrays his friends? What kind of pathetic human being leaves the ones they love to die?

Next:

I wish I hated you.Things would be less complicated if I hated you.

He hated to keep reading,but he had to.

Dear B,

I’m addressing this to you, because though I know I’ll never send it, I don’t know who else to write to. It’s strange that the only person left in this world who I feel a strong connection to is the man responsible for the death of my brother.

I’m all alone now. I have no family left. My grandparents are dead. Aunt Cecelia’s dead. My parents are dead. Mark is dead. And now you might as well be dead, too.

I must be next....

Tiffany

He had to force himself to keep going.

Dear B,

I realize now that not only is my brother really dead, but so is the friendship you and I had. I’ve run through endless possibilities of ways to fix this, ways we could reconcile, but there is no way.

Tiffany

He wanted to stop,but he couldn’t.

Dear B,

I need to move on, to forget about you and put the past behind me, but your letters just keep coming.

I tried to burn them. I built a small fire out behind my apartment building last night. As I watched the flames, I held your letters—all of them, the ones I’ve read and the ones I haven’t— over the fire. But even though I will never read them again, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t burn a single one.

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