Page 94 of The Player
Until now.
“He’s been planning this for years,” I said, turning my back on the altar. “He’s held onto all of it for twenty years, and now, there’s no stopping him.”
“Held onto what?” Tyler asked, but Adam and I ignored him. We’d fill them in soon enough.
“He was one step ahead,” Adam snarled. “He’s always been one fucking step ahead.” He turned to face me. “He walked right into our home, knowing you’d know who he was. He wanted to get caught. He wanted to be brought down here, just so he could fuck with us and do this shit.”
Devon lifted a backpack that he’d found by the empty spray cans. “He planted this stuff. It was all in here waiting for him to use.”
“But how did he pick the locks on the cuffs?” Tyler asked.
“If you have the right tools, the right know-how, you can get yourself out of anything,” Adam replied with caustic venom dripping from every word. “He thinks he’s so fucking clever.”
“But what does it all mean?” Tyler replied.
It was then that Adam started filling them in on the whole Clivesdon House of horrors story.
I left them to it. I wasn’t about to take another trip down that memory lane that paved the way to Lucifer. So, I wandered back over to the bucket and spade.
“I said I’d take him to the beach,” I mumbled to myself. “I told him we’d make sandcastles. This was his way of showing me he hadn’t forgotten. One of his fucked-up calling cards.”
I pointed up at the mannequin, knowing my ramblings weren’t making sense, but to me, they did.
“He can’t speak,” I stated. “He’s chained, hidden from the world. He’s silent boy.”
I turned my attention to the wall of words and whispered to myself, “The only time I ever saw him smile was when I promised I’d come back and help him. He thought I was going to save him. Am I the God he’s talking about? Am I the devil too now? Or didheturn into the devil?” I knew I was talking in riddles, muttering to myself, trying to make sense of it all.
But then panic wrapped its ice-cold bony fingers around my heart and lungs, making it impossible to breath as I noticed something hidden in the corner of the room.
Bryony’s black cat mask that she’d worn at the masked ball was discarded on the floor, hidden in the shadows in the corner of the chapel. And lying next to it was a Barbie doll, no head, just the body.
This was his last message, and it was the worst one yet because it made my ears screech with terror and my heart race with panic. Everything else became a blur as I shot across the chapel, scrambling for the door.
“We need to fucking go,” I shouted. “He’s out there. The fucker’s out there and he’s gonna hurt Bryony.”
I burst through the door, darting towards our van and flinging the door open as I tried to ring her on my mobile. It went straight to voicemail, so I left her a message, telling her to lock the door and stay where she was. I was on my way. Then I cut the call and tried again, but all I got was her fucking voicemail.
“I’ll drive,” Adam snapped, jumping into the driver’s seat.
I saw the others clamouring in too as I got into the passenger seat.
“Fucking floor it, mate,” I growled, and Adam did just that, revving the engine and spinning the wheels on the gravel as he raced down the drive onto the road, hurtling forward at breakneck speed.
I rang her over and over again, my eyes pinned to the road ahead, willing us to go faster as I cursed the bloody voicemail that kept answering me.
I had to get to her before he did.
I couldn’t bear to think what would happen if I didn’t.
But one thing was sure.
This was Isaiah’s last day on earth.
ChapterForty
BRYONY
I’d had some pretty rough days lately, but telling my sister what’d happened to our dad was the worst. I’d sat Shelley down and explained as best I could about the absolute shitshow that’d happened to us and how Dad had been drawn into it all. She’d cried, sobbed in fact. She didn’t understand why he’d been killed, and in all truth, neither did I. I knew, like me, it’d take her time to come to terms with it, if she ever could. I think you have to find a new normal after something like this happens to you. Life can never really be the same again. It was all so unfair, so utterly cruel.
