Page 86 of My Turn

“This is cool,” he noted. “Is it finished down here?”

“Mostly.”

We reached the bottom and turned to the left. The hospital bed was in its usual place with plastic covering it. He stopped, his brow furrowing as he stared at it. When he looked down and saw Alana, he let out a startled sound.

“Jayce, what the hell?” He knelt beside her and put two fingers to her neck.

“Shh,” I said, coming up behind him.

He tensed, but it was too late. My arm wrapped around his neck, locking him into a chokehold. When I dragged him upward, he kicked his feet out.

“Relax. You know I’d never hurt your sister.”

“Jayce,” he choked out.

“You, of all people, know what happens when someone gets in my way, Ben. You didn’t even flinch when I asked you to help me kill Jake. I think it’s because you know I’m better for her.”

He shook his head as much as he could manage. The fight was going out of him. All the adrenaline in the world couldn’t give him enough strength to escape me.

“Everything could’ve been fine, Ben. Nothing had to change between us, but you know too much and you were dumb enough to drop hints. Now, you’re a liability. The thing about being a criminal is that she won’t even be surprised when you go missing. You didn’t talk for three years, man. How hard do you think she’ll push the cops to find you?”

A faint whimper left his lips. I leaned close to his ear.

“Not very hard. Thanks for getting me here. Your sister owes me some words of gratitude, so let’s get on with this.”

Shifting my arm, I jerked it quickly to the side. His body went limp immediately. I dragged him over to the bed and hoisted him into it, then cocked my head as I stared at him.

Okay, maybe things had gone downhill a bit.

Chapter 32

Alana

It smelled like… woodchips? And grass, maybe. I wondered if I was still at the park. Those scents would fit.

When I woke up, I immediately remembered what had happened. I definitely should have been more freaked out, but I figured that if Erebus wanted me dead for my outburst, he would have killed me. There might have been worse things than death, yet I still didn’t feel as unnerved as I should have.

Maybe I was broken. Like, well and truly broken, fucked in the head, loony toons. Maybe I got into drugs after Jake died and I was actually having the worst trip of my life. It would be a really long trip, but time probably felt different when you were high as balls.

With a groan, I rolled onto my back. There were lights set into a ceiling, so we weren’t outside. The floor was smooth and solid; not concrete. Maybe marble.

My first, very unwelcome thought was that concrete was porous, so it sucked in terms of blood spillage. A floor like this would clean up easily and it could be scrubbed nicely with bleach. No little spaces for bodily fluid to get trapped and give away your secret serial killer status.

That was enough of that.

I sat up straight and was surprised that I didn’t feel woozy. Waking up from being choked half to death wasn’t as bad as I’d expected.

There was a creak like a door opening, then heavy footsteps. I scrambled backward and ran into something. With a pained cry, I turned around. Was that a hospital bed? Oh, he was definitely a serial killer.

“Erebus?” I called.

He reached the bottom of the stairs, mask on and probably ready to kill. In hindsight, I shouldn’t have mouthed off to him. I got too comfortable. This was a punishment.

My eyes burned as I wrapped my arms around my knees. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Is that a joke?”

“It’d be a really bad joke.”