Page 104 of Killing Me Softly

Of course. Of course.

Kenny shot to his feet, mind locked in. The profiler in him had overthrown the panic, replacing it with sharp, slicing clarity.

“She’s recreating it,” he said aloud, his voice a rasp in the silent room. “The origin point. For her, it’s poetic. For Aaron… it’s a trap.”

Nausea clawed up again, but he swallowed it down to bolt toward the front door, nearly slipping in his own vomit. As he ripped open the door, he halted. His car wasn’t there. He squeezed his eyes shut.Shit.Still at the university. He must have been driven home. Thank fuck he hadn’t attempted to drive in the state he was in. But now, that left him with one option.

Run.

Kenny tore down the pavement, hammering the concrete, each impact jarring through his body like an electric current. He wasn’t fast. His usual stride had abandoned him, replaced by a sluggish, desperate push against the lingering haze of drugs in his veins. His muscles screamed in protest. Lungs burned. But he kept going. Stopping wasn’t an option.

The river. The woods. He had to get there.

Phone clutched in his trembling fingers, he hit 999 again.

A crackling voice answered, calm and controlled. “Emergency, which service do you require?”

“Police!” he gasped, ragged, barely keeping pace with his legs. “Now—get them to Wilton. Tell DI Jack Bentley, Ryston Police. The river. The woods—fuck, I don’t know exactly where—”

“Sir, can you confirm the exact location?”

“I—” His mind scrambled, grasping at fractured memories, but the terrain blurred, unfamiliar in the dark. “Near the old bridge! The—fuck, I don’t—near the lock! By the—”

His foot caught on something.

A tree root.

The world tilted violently.

For a split second, weightlessness. Then impact.

The ground ripped him forward, and he slammed into the mud, momentum dragging him through the slick earth.

His phone flew from his grasp, bouncing once against the sodden ground before launching into the river with a cruelplop.

Gone.

The cold hit next, biting through his clothes, soaking deep.

Chapter twenty-one

Crazy

Bound to a chair, coarse rope biting deep into his skin, gag pressing into his mouth with the fabric sour and suffocating,stealinghis voice, Aaron’s gaze never strayed from Mel.

She trembled, her own restraints cutting cruelly into her wrists, body taut with terror. Tears welled in her eyes, spilling down her cheeks in silent pleas. She tried to cry out, tried to scream, but the gag swallowed every desperate sound and Aaron’s pulse thundered, a helpless fury boiling beneath his skin. He willed her to understand.I’ll get you out of this.A promise made in silence. One he didn’t know how to keep.

His sister stood before them, poised with eerie elegance, her presence almost serene. Like an artist admiring her own macabre exhibition. The gleaming row of knives and rusted torture instruments laid out beside her spoke volumes, their serrated edges catching the dim, iridescent light like the teeth of some ancient predator.

And then there wasthe gun.

Brutal. Familiar.

A Winchester Model 1911, its wooden grip worn smooth by years of use, the barrel darkened with age but still deadly in its promise. The sight of it sent a sick lurch through Aaron’s gut. Not just because he recognised it, because herememberedit. His father’s hands gripping the stock, steady and practiced. The echoing crack of shots splitting through the dense woods. He’d been told it was for hunting. For chasing off scavengers, keeping the land clear.

But that had been a lie.

Now, he knew what the hunts had truly been.

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