Page 39 of Like Grim Death: Part One
Someone else… someone has his phone. Maybe it’s not Atlas I’m texting at all.
Shit, shit,shit.
I hold my breath, trying to hear beyond the drumming of my pulse.
Then I feel it.
Something cold seizes my ankle from under the bed.
A short, violent scream leaves my throat, scratching at my vocal cords on the way up. I stumble backward, kicking my leg out, and the cold fingers leave my skin. The floor creaks, my breaths coming in loud pants, but I keep moving.
Run downstairs. Scream for Cain.
But my eyes are glued to the space underneath the bed.
Nothing there. There’s… nothing there.
I edge past the bathroom, toward the bedroom door. I hear nothing, and there’s just no way. There’s no way someone was under my bed.
Get your shit together, Ella.
I fumble with my phone and flip on the flashlight, then squat down, and with terror in my heart, I aim the light to underneath the bed.
I see…nothing. Only a long, wooden box shaped like a coffin where Maverick stores stuff he writes that he won’t keep in his office because he doesn’t want anyone to read it. Nothing else.
Nothing.
Slowly, I stand to my feet, clicking off the flashlight. I turn around and reach a shaky hand out for the door, unlocking it and pulling down on the handle while I hold my phone in the other hand.
I’m going to wake up Cain.
I don’t care how mad he gets.Someone may be in here,which echoes his question. With that thought, I don’t hesitate as my phone lights up in my hand again. I run from the bedroom, my heart crashing in my chest.
I sprint down the stairs, one hand on the railing, the other holding my phone over my face to read Atlas’s text.
Him: Be very careful tonight. Stay where you are.
No. Fuck that. I push my phone into the pocket of my jacket as I hit the landing, looking toward the living room down the hall.
I freeze, listening as I hold my breath.
I hear Cain’s soft snores.
I glance up the stairs, debating on waking Cain, or getting the hell out of this house. Maverick isn’t here. Atlas knows something is up, and Cain is refusing to talk.
Fuck this.
I head toward the door, flipping the locks and disarming the keypad.
I’m going to find out where you are, Mavy.
Somewhere uncomfortably close,a raven caws and it sounds like a death sentence. Splinters of past Halloween nights, parties at Raven Park in the abandoned asylum, they’re jagged as they play out behind my eyes.
Girls I’ve used, clouds of forgetting smoke, the burn of marijuana in my lungs. Shadows scattered through with vague wisps of Malachi Astor, but I know my brother was a fully formed person maybe only Brooklin ever saw. I protected him, but did I have fun alongside him? Did I get to know him? It’s like being buried beneath a tunnel. I hear his laughter, but I can’t see his smile.Did I ever make any part of your precious life worth living?
“Where does he sleep? Inside the Malikov home?”
I blink open heavy eyes, the sensation of space dense and wavy as it curls around me. I’m not sure how my body is positioned in the universe or what’s happened to my limbs, because I can’t feel them.
