Page 116 of Forged in Rain

She sucks in a breath and staggers back, staring at the door with wide eyes.

“Iris?” I ask, touching her shoulder, but she brushes me off and steps forward, pulling the doors open.

I’m so freaked out, I expect John to be standing on the other side with his icy eyes, but once again, it’s empty, with nothing but dust motes dancing in the air.

Iris steps inside, and I follow. Through the center of the corridor, sunlight shines off the dirt on the ground, indicating that the stall doors are open.

Old farming implements hang from hooks inside the door, and paint is chipping inside, the swaths of color an ugly brown hue but . . .wait.

That’s not paint.

Horror freezes me in place and I cup my mouth, muffling the strange sound gurgling in my throat.

It’s blood. Dried blood. It covers the walls in swirls of darkness that slide to the floor and empty into a drain near a sink opposite the doors.

“Holy fucking shit,” I breathe.

Iris is panting beside me, and I reach out blindly to grab her hand, but once more, she steps away.

“We should go,” I say, but she doesn’t hear me.

She’s visibly trembling as she stalks farther into the space, stopping before the mirror hanging above the sink. Wide eyed, I stare at her, my stomach roiling when she steps in the dried blood.

She raises a hand and points, drawing my attention, and stepping closer, I see a message written in what I hope is red ink.

Wherever you go, there I’ll be.

“Iris?” I whisper and she steps back, tripping over her feet before landing on her ass.

Spinning away, I grab her arm and help her up, but she’s out the door before I can ask.

I watch her stumble back to the car before glancing back at the mirror. What does it mean? John’s message to Iris?

If so, did he expect her to come here? Shit.

I follow Iris back to the car, and she pulls out before I have my seatbelt on.

“Iris?”

“Yeah?” she rasps.

“What does it mean?”

“I’m fucked.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Iris refused to speak on the way home, and I watched powerless as she shook uncontrollably the entire way. When I tried to engage her, she brushed me off.

It’s Monday morning, and I roll over in bed and stare at the ceiling. The revelations of the past few days have been circling my brain, leaving me with a dull ache in the back of my head.

What we saw in the barn was horrible, and I’m worried for Iris because either John is toying with her, or someone equally insane is sending a message.

Is it possible that he left, knowing we were up to something? Or was he suspicious of Pam? Something’s missing from the puzzle, but as usual, I have no fucking clue what it is.

Not only that, I’m overwhelmed by the thought that I’m further risking Cyn and the guys. How do you battle pure evil?

I sail through my classes in a fog, barely noting the people around me, and trudge into my fourth period class with a blinding headache, which is only exacerbated when Jig looks away from me.

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