Page 10 of Pretty Lethal
He moves toward the kitchen while Wilder and I begin lifting up couch cushions and Hawk stomps off to check out whatever lies behind the other doors.
“Nothing here,” I call out after a couple of minutes of searching.
“I’m not finding anything in here, either,” Hawk hollers from the bathroom.
“Same,” Kai agrees, before moving toward the one remaining closed door.
Wilder and I follow, and Hawk emerges from the bathroom as we all descend into what must have been Mel’s bedroom. My stomach churns. If we’re going to find anything, it’s probably going to be in there—where most people keep their most prized and important possessions.
The door opens with an ominous creak, and we’re once again welcomed with a darkened room. Wilder flicks the switch, an incandescent glow illuminating the space.
“What the fuck?” Hawk mutters as I stare dumbfounded around the room.What the fuck, indeed.
I can’t decide if I want to run away screaming or hurl all over the outdated and questionably stained carpet. I’m bombarded with memories of waking up in that bunker and being confronted with photographs of myself and the guys. Just like then, every inch of wall space has been taken up with photographs, even the ceiling above the bed has a life-sized photo of me taped to it, and I hurriedly glance away, not wanting to think about what the hell Mel was doing while she looked at it.
It sickens me. All of it thoroughly repulses me.
Reluctantly focusing back on the walls, I notice that many of the photographs are from the last few weeks, and I recognize a couple of them as copies of the ones she sent us, but there are others, too. Older ones.
I find myself drawn to one side of the room, a chill seeping into my bones that I’m not certain will ever leave as I stare at photos of me sound asleep in my bed at Halston. My bed covers have been pulled back, and my top has ridden up from where I’ve been tossing and turning.
“I think I’m going to be sick,” I mutter, but I make no move to step away, too entranced by the horror unfolding before me.
“This is next level fucked up,” someone says from behind me, but the words reach my ears as though I’m underwater.
“Look at this,” someone else says, and on auto-pilot, I turn away from the wall of horrors before me and move across the room to where the others are gathered in front of the dresser.
Hawk steps slightly to the side, giving me just enough space to squeeze in beside him. I notice more photos. This time I’m awake in them, and Mel and I are huddled close as we smile broadly at the camera in each one. Now that I can see the past through Mel’s eyes, I can almost believe that we were a couple. Obviously, I know we weren’t. We were just good friends—or so I thought. But from an outsider’s perspective or from the point of view of a deranged lunatic, youmightbe able to convince yourself these are photographs of two people in love.
My gaze lingers on the red marks on each of the pictures. “Are those lipstick stains?” I ask nobody in particular in a monotonous voice devoid of all emotion as I lean closer. Some level of detachment is necessary to survive this room with my sanity intact.
My face scrunches in disdain as I confirm that, yes, there are lipstick stains covering my face in each one of the photos.
Ugh, gross.
As if this room of nightmares couldn’t get any worse.
Disgust has me glancing away, more than ready to get the fuck out of here.
“Is that… your hair?” Wilder asks, peering into a small box and looking absolutely revolted by its contents. I really,reallydon’t want to look, but curiosity and some deep-seated need to understand the depth of Mel’s depravity have me inching closer.
“Fucking hell,” Hawk gasps, having also peered into the box. “How the hell did she get your hair?”
I stare dumbfounded into the box, where a snippet of my hair has been carefully tied with a pink ribbon. I’m wondering the same thing when a memory of our freshman year hits me.
“She cut my hair once. I was tight on money and just needed the ends tidied up, so she offered to do it.” My throat closes over, and I need to take a second before continuing. “She must have kept some of it afterward.”
“Jesus. Just when you think this girl can’t get any more twisted,” Wilder mutters, snapping the lid shut and dropping the box back onto the dresser as though it burned him.
“I take it this is all yours too,” Kai says with a nod toward the underwear that I’d already noticed and deliberately ignored, too overwhelmed to process any more perversions.
“Yes,” I croak, officially reaching my limit of the amount of psycho bullshit I can handle in one day. “This is all…” I trail off, unable to voice the words, not that it matters since they have already summed up the situation. “Only it doesn’t help us. It doesn’t tell us anything about who she really was.”
I can’t even say her name.
“You’re right,” Kai agrees solemnly. “Let’s search the room, see if we can find anything, and then we can get the fuck out of here.”
He begins pulling open dresser drawers while Hawk searches through the bedside table and Wilder pulls open the closet and begins to rifle through it. Drained and completely numb, I simply stand in the middle of the room, not wanting to witness any more horrors or know what the hell else she might have stolen from me.
