Page 8 of We Are All Liars Here

Care.

Care-Bear.

Carmine.

“Carmine,” Billie chokes out a guttural sound and lunges forward. “No, god please, no—”

Billie grabs onto the still-warm body of her oldest friend, and she shakes. She shakes her with too much force, too much violence, and all she can do is scream something guttural and desperate.

Carmine doesn’t move. No moan or sigh or wave of the hand to show she can hear Billie, to tell her that she’s alive.

No, she’s just… limp.

Billie grips Carmine’s side, her bony hip and hard shoulder—and she heaves. She heaves with a cry as her head bursts with flames and she rolls Carmine over.

Carmine thuds onto her back.

Billie falls to her bum with a sigh, then smacks her palm against her own forehead, as if that’ll stop the searing sensation from shredding through her brain.

But the pain’s revival is quickly forgotten.

It’s like it vanishes completely, or maybe she just no longer feels it when she lays her eyes on Carmine. Carmine, who’s lifeless eyes stare up at the ceiling, whose torso oozes dark blood onto the floor.

Billie’s scream curdles with her blood.

She scrambles back, back until her spine hits the wall, and her feet are slicked in the fresh blood that flows from her friend.

Her butchered friend.

Billie should run.

She should run for her life or run to find Kate. If she’s still alive.

But it’s all she can do to just stare at those thick, deep gashes on Carmine’s body—

Those sorts of gashes so wide and deep they could only be made by a hunting knife.

Dead. Her friend, her Care-Bear,is so fucking dead.

Nausea strikes through her like an arrow to the chest.

She swallows back bile that crawls up her throat and, with a shuddering breath, leans to the side. Her legs are shaky as she slides up the wall, standing but as far away from Carmine and the blood as possible.

Can’t bring herself to look. Her head is turned away from the horror on the landing as she inches around, sticking to the wall, to the next set of stairs. The ones that will lead her to the front door—

Her escape.

Where Kate is, she doesn’t know. But Kate’s smart, so she wouldn’t have stuck around to be butchered.

But Grace? Billie truly couldn’t give a shit about her right now.

Not when she’s so close now.

She staggers down the last of the steps. Down in the foyer, it should be dark.

Should be.

But outside, cop cars are screeching to a halt, their sirens barely audible through her daze. But their blue and red lights sweep through the open door.