Page 104 of Run Away With Me

‘For fuck’s sake, Mouse.’

‘Don’t call me that,’ I snapped.

Brooke flinched.

I pressed the heels of my hands over my closed eyes and dropped my elbows to rest on my knees.

‘What the hell happened, Jessie?’ she asked, trying again, and I wanted so badly not to break. I’d been doing so well, keeping it all pressed down, locked up tight so I didn’t have to think about it.

‘Jessie?’ she asked again, and the fear in her voice pried open the box inside me I’d been keeping so carefully closed.

Choir rehearsal had been canceled.

I’d only joined the choir because it kept me out of the house until late on a Monday, and I did anything I could tobe out of the house on Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays when my mom worked until eleven, or later.

At the start of the school year, I had looked over the extracurricular activities that were being offered and signed up to whatever sounded the least painful, and choir had seemed like a good option. I could sing with a group – I’d been doing that at church since I was little.

But today choir rehearsal was canceled, and it was Monday, and I didn’t want to go home.

I stared at the hastily scrawled note on the choir room door, then turned and went back up the stairs that led to the main lobby of St. Catherine’s.

I delayed going home by studying in the library until I got kicked out. The city bus took forever to get back to my neighborhood, now that all the school buses had stopped running. I used to wear headphones and listen to music on the journey, but I’d stopped that a while back, and now just wore headphones so people wouldn’t try to talk to me. I preferred being aware of my surroundings when I was alone. That way, no one could sneak up on me.

The bus dropped me off two streets away from home, and I shrugged off my school blazer as I walked. It was getting warmer in the afternoons now.

I headed around the side of the house to let myself in through the kitchen door. We never used the front door at this house. It was for company or the police. Even our Amazon Prime driver knew to drop off parcels on the back deck.

The door was open, just a crack, and I didn’t notice atfirst. My eyes skimmed over the mess, the disaster, as it took my brain a moment to catch up.

For those few seconds, I literally could not process what I was looking at.

And then it hit me.

Oh, God.

Oh, Jesus.

My breath wheezed out of my lungs, and I gripped the edge of the counter as my knees buckled.

There was blood splattered everywhere.

Over the floor.

Shards of bone scattered around, shiny white covered in sticky black.

Dripping down the walls.

Covering the ceiling.

On the kitchen cabinets.

Clinging to the pretty curtains I’d bought last year. Yellow fabric with daisies on it that matched the color of the cabinets.

The Creep was sprawled on the floor between the kitchen and the living room.

Well, parts of him were.

Other parts were … not where they should have been.

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