Page 34 of The Silent Note

Don’t make me please.

Zane’s eyes drift down to mine. They’re dark and serious and hold me completely captive.

“Tiger, I’m here.”

You don’t understand, Grey. You weren’t there.

No, I wasn’t, but I’ve imagined it in pure detail. Read every report. Walked those steps in person and in my mind a thousand times, desperate for any clue.

He met her in the woods, far away from Redwood. So far that no one would even think she’d just come from meeting Principal Harris there.

He grabbed her.

She fought him. Sloane wouldn’t have gone down without a fight.

But he was bigger than her.

Way bigger.

Her fingernails dug into his skin, but it wasn’t enough.

He wrapped his fingers around her throat.

He choked her.

The first thing she would have lost was consciousness.

But she’d still be breathing, some part of her would still struggle, fight.

A survivor.

That’s when he crushed her windpipe.

The sound it must have made. The crack of her bone. The lifeless glaze over her eyes. I’ve imagined it all a hundred times. No, a thousand.

But even after all that, he wasn’t done.

He took her to the docks where they cleaned fish, where there would be enough plastic wraps to keep the blood from spilling to the floor.

That’s when the saw came out.

Some of the investigators thought she could have been alive then. It was hard to do an autopsy on human flesh that’s been cut into pieces and soaked by the river.

But I’m praying she was dead.

If she was alive when he was cutting into her body…

Please! Please! Ah! It hurts! It hurts! Stop! Please!

I press a hand to my head, hunkering down to hide from Sloane’s tortured screams. My heart is about to burst. My entire body. I’m a bomb set to explode at any second.

“Come here. Come here.” Zane pulls me into his chest. He smells like soft cologne and a gentle rain. His arms surround me, blocking out the sight of the prison.

I hug him back, desperately.

My elbow jostles his wrist, but he doesn’t give any sound of pain. Instead, his good hand runs up and down my back.

“Breathe with me, tiger. Breathe.”

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