Page 66 of Virgin Sacrifice

Only an idiot would feel safe around the twins. Nixon was a charming viper, and my exchange with Alister had shown just how dangerous he could be—knowledge was power, and he had dug up an impressive amount on me . . . How much longer would it take him to find out about Penelope? And what would the consequences be when he did?

Heat flashed through me, rushing through my face, down my neck, and across my chest at the memory of him ordering me to suck. For a man I once thought of as quiet, Alister’s voice had a commanding, no, dominating presence that overtook me in the moment. It should have felt degrading, but there was something heady about obeying, about surrendering to a worthy adversary.

The heat of his gaze bore down on me, intensifying the flush I felt even as the fall winds began to pick up. Always there, always watching . . . How much of me had he seen?

A quiver ran through me as I finally entered the dorm and headed up to my room. Once inside, I was quick to ditch the crutches and flop down on my bed, seeking the comfort of warm sheets and soft pillow. Running the forest trails behind campus had been my escape, my safe place. Now, I had this.

My heart continued to thump viscerally, keeping time with the throbbing in my ankle. Fatigue tugged at my mind. I was on the verge of crashing from the adrenaline high of Alister.

I closed my eyes. Sleep should have come easily. But instead of giving in to the exhaustion, it was as though my brain was defenseless against ruminating over everything that had happened. Apparently, my subconscious had decided I’d avoided dealing with the implications of Halloween and Sandra’s murder for long enough.

Despite the lack of evidence linking them, I had to believe the two events were related. It wasn’t clear what the connection was between the sheep and Sandra’s murder, but there was something there . . . Maybe whoever had called off the chase that night.

If the goal was to scare me, both the sheep and the killer had succeeded. Just as I couldn’t stop thinking about Sandra’s death, I couldn’t get the sight of those masks—the horrible emptiness of them staring back at me—out of my head. The desperation I’d felt when my ankle gave out, knowing that my pursuers were at my back, took me back to when I was a child, the same as seeing the name Penelope did.

Even now, trapped inside my dorm room, cocooned in my blankets, I was protected, less exposed, but was I any safer? The sheep had been able to get into my building. The killer had been able to nail a bloody heart to my door. Stickers were popping up all over campus. Was the lock on my door really enough to keep away someone who wanted me dead?

I shuddered, burrowing deeper and blinking back the watery sensation in my eyes.

Mami had made me strong enough that I rarely let myself feel helpless, and I hated that Hollow Oak had brought me back to that place.

Dead girls had nothing to lose, so we never gave up. Not to sheep and cowards who hid in the shadows. Not when we had lost so much already at the hands of the devil himself.

Death was inevitable. Life was the contradiction.

I didn’t look forward to the suffering that would likely accompany my end—I had a functioning nervous system—but I had always told myself that I would welcome my final death with open arms.

But what about Penelope . . .

Sometimes I wasn’t sure who had died and who lived.

I was the dead girl, but Penelope was the one who died.

I was alive, but I died so Penelope could live.

Penelope couldn’t die again, but I could.

Someone had to die and someone had to live.

So why did I have to be the one to die?

It felt petulant, whiny even, to ask the question. A woman had been murdered; her heart ripped out for the world to see. Why did I deserve to live any more than her? Death came for everyone.

Stop . . . start . . . stop . . . start . . . How many times can you break a heart?

I never understood the goal of my father’s experiments. I think he just liked playing God. But I couldn’t deny that he had mastered the art of bringing someone back from the brink of death. Under his careful eye, I was strangled, suffocated, and drowned before being resuscitated, over and over again. He learned to restart my heart with almost surgical precision. Considered it his gift. Were the hearts the killer was sending me some sort of twisted homage to his work?

It didn’t entirely make sense. There was no reviving someone whose heart had been removed from their chest cavity. But then again, Sandra had been missing for months, not to mention the other girls.

What had she suffered during that time? What was happening to the others at this very moment?

I rushed for the wastebasket. My stomach was empty but that didn’t stop the bile from rushing out of me, burning my throat with its pungent, mineral taste. My stomach cramped in protest, and tears ran freely down my face. My cheeks swelled, causing blood vessels to burst as I expelled what felt like every last drop of fluid inside me.

The idea of someone else being subjected to the same experiments my father had put me through terrified me more than any mask or bloody bits. Ripping someone’s heart from their chest was a barbaric and horrifying act. But at least they only suffered through it once.

Forcing someone to die again and again . . . to make them experience the agony of knowing they were living their last moments, over and over. It was evil in a way I couldn’t put into words.

When my body finally had nothing left to give, I was left shaky and weak on the floor, unable to distinguish if my tears were from vomiting or fear.

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