Liars and Liaisons by Sav R. Miller
38
I can’t stopthe scream that rips from my throat as I’m yanked backward.
Can’t stop myself from slipping or being dropped into the puddle of blood still leaking from Micah’s corpse.
Oh my God. My chest cramps, caving in with the realization. Nausea rumbles in my stomach, angry and broken, as agony attempts to swallow me whole.
Tears sting my eyes, but I don’t have the chance to really let any of it soak in before I’m being pawed at once more. My assailant grips under my arms, and I try to ignore the fact that their hands are wet. Probably for the same reason mine now are.
Panic wraps its phantom limbs around my throat, constricting until I can barely focus on escape. Two deep breaths in, one out, and I let the person haul me back to my feet before ramming my elbow into their face.
A feminine grunt puffs near my ear, and I whirl around, ready to strike once more. My hands frantically search my sides for Elena’s knife, and I fish it out, flipping it open as I brace myself.
But when I turn, it isn’t an evil masked figure standing there, ready to off me for overdue debts. It isn’t even Nate.
Willow’s hunched over the island, cupping her right eye with one palm. Her striped pajama shorts are stained, her white tank top shredded almost in half.
The visible swatches of her golden-brown skin are flecked with crimson, and my heart spasms inside my chest.
I open my mouth to ask what the fuck is going on, but she leaps toward me, slamming her hand down over my lips. A swift shake of her head, and then she pulls me away from Micah, away from the carnage and into a walk-in pantry.
She eases the door shut behind us, then finally releases me. She presses herself into the door, cupping her face in her hands. Neither of us speaks, as if listening for something.
I’m not sure what’s out there, but clearly, whatever it is has a malevolent spirit.
I breathe slow, my brain struggling to catch up to everything that’s happened. I want to ask Willow who did that to Micah, if they’re in the house, if we’re in danger—though that last part seems self-explanatory. Why else would we be hiding?
Willow’s shoulders shake, and it takes me a second to realize she’s crying.
Silent, strangled sobs rack through her, evidenced only by her muffled breathing. “She’s dead,” she chokes, her voice just barely a whisper, and when she turns her head, a few tears of my own spill down my cheeks, matching hers.
Despair is a pit in my stomach as I reach out, pulling her to me; I wrap my arms around her head, and she buries her face in my chest, a solitary noise of anguish exiting her and rattling me to the bone. I smooth my palm over her head, while my own tears pour down, wetting my hand.
“We came down to get snacks,” Willow whispers, her breath hot on my neck. “H-he came out of nowhere. Hit me in the eye with some stick thing and then…”
Another broken sound cuts her off, and I hold her tighter.
“I ran. He was standing over her, playing with her while she wept and pleaded, and then there was this awful gurgling sound—” She gags, as if replaying the scene in her mind.
Pinching my eyes shut, I push her away, holding her at arm’s length. When I open them again, she’s the complete picture of despair, and I wish more than anything that I could do something for her. Take the pain away, erase the images that will no doubt haunt her forever.
But I can’t. Not right now, probably not ever.
None of it matters anyway if we’re next.
“Did you see who it was?” I ask, keeping my voice quiet as floorboards creak all around us.
She shakes her head. “No. I just saw that he was tall and wore a mask. The goat one Grayson favors, I think.”
Impersonating Grayson to frame him for murder seems like something Nate would do. Especially with him so intent on destroying his brother’s entire life. What better way to really strip someone of everything, just before you kill them?
I nod, pressing my ear to the pantry door. Other than the house’s normal moaning and groaning, I don’t hear anything. “Okay, we’ve got to get out of here then. I think there might be something going on with the estate’s security system that’s blocking my ability to call or text. Have you been able to get a signal on your phone?”
“I left it upstairs.”
Shit.“Okay, well, that’s fine. I doubt we could use it right now anyway.” I fold Elena’s knife into her hands, turning it so she sees the whole piece. “This little button at the side opens the blade. If you use it, keep your wrist turned out. That way, if you’re attacked, they can’t just bend your arm and stab you.”
She swallows, followed by a curt nod. “What about you?”
“Don’t worry about me. I have elbows of steel.”
I ease open the pantry door, scanning the room quickly. This time, I don’t even look at Micah at all, unable to let myself be dragged back down to a place I’m useless in. Willow whimpers behind me, and I squeeze her hand.
“You’ll do her memory no good if you die too,” I hiss, low so the sound doesn’t travel.
We tiptoe into the kitchen, and I grab a knife from the block on the island. The handle is sticky and warm, and I wonder where the blood came from.
Micah or her attacker.
Did she try to fend him off?Maybe she got to the block and was pulling out a weapon when he reached her.
Did he even care when she begged for her life?
My throat burns, acid churning in my stomach as we reach the doorway across from the patio. The one not soaked in our friend.
“The barn is on fire,” Willow says, the orange glow seeping in past the curtains. “I don’t know where Faun went.”
I just nod. Now, I’m fairly certain it isn’t just the barn. Smoke clings to the air around us, polluting the haunted halls, and it’s starting to get thicker. Heavier, like the source is close.
We take off down the hall, the dark paint and floors bathed in the apricot sky outside. Our backs stick to the walls, stuck in the shadows, giving us at least the advantage of not being sneaked up on. Our steps are slow, cautious, and it feels like a hundred years pass before we’re out of the staff wing and back in the main portion, heading for the front door.
On the stairs, up at their peak, something slips against the floor. A scuffing sound echoes out, like the low battery on a smoke detector, and we freeze.
Sweat drips down my forehead, and I can feel Willow’s uneven breathing on the back of my neck.
“What was that?” she whispers, stepping closer. She’s trembling, her fear permeating the smoky air, mixing with mine, even as I try to shove it down.
My eyes slide up while my face remains on the front door. The stained glass bars our view of just how much of the outside is burning down.
Anxiety solidifies into a vat of toxic waste in my stomach when my gaze stops roaming.
At the top of the stairs—a masked figure.
The masked figure who murdered Micah. It’s likely they started the fires, too, in an attempt to divert emergency sources if they showed or to trap us inside.
“Willow,” I say, trying to keep my voice steady. “We need to run.”
She exhales and gives my hand a little shake. Confirmation.
Things move in a blur after that. I don’t see the figure upstairs run down them, but in an instant, we’re reaching the door at the same time. Panting, Willow and I scramble back a few steps, keeping our eyes on the monster looming before us.
That goat mask sits securely on the man’s face, but he’s no Grayson.
Not even Nate.
When he lowers the hood covering his head, revealing gray hair I’ve never seen in person, terror ignites anew in my body.
As shock and fear give way to dreaded realization, Grayson’s father smiles.
Then, he lifts his arms and swings his walking stick right at us.
It catches me on the arm as we stumble back again, sending a splinter of searing pain radiating from my elbow up. The knife falls as my fingers spasm, releasing it from my grip as I turn, shoving Willow ahead of me.
Adrenaline pulses like electricity through my bloodstream, propelling me forward down the hall—away from the front door, our easiest course of exit.
Willow snags her ankle on a narrow table, yanking it as we bolt past so the glass figurines and sculptures fall to the floor, shattering in Ezekiel’s path. It’s only a second of a deterrent, but it’s enough for us to pick up the pace and launch into the door leading to the southern wing.
We slam it shut, locking it just as he rolls into it; a muffled grunt can be heard on the other side, and he begins banging while our hands stay on the locked knob. Keeping it shut.
“Don’t look in any of these mirrors,” I tell her, noting the deep purple skin around her eye and the blood we’re covered in.
I grab her shoulder, prying us away from the door in the direction of Sydney Scott’s old room.
Once inside, we use whatever bits of strength remain to barricade the door with the dresser. Its legs scrape against the floor, leaving deep grooves in the wood. The banging echoes down the hall, rattling the windows, Ezekiel’s angry shouts barely audible with all the space between us.
“What the hell is going on?” Willow asks, though the question hardly seems directed at me or anyone in particular. It’s as if her brain is just struggling to cope, trying to make sense with any pieces of information that it can.
I shake my head, aiming for the exit across the room. “I don’t fucking know.”
“This family is insane.”
One of my brows rises in agreement, and I unlock the glass door, sliding the curtain aside with a heavy sigh.
Willow’s scream scrapes along my insides.
Nate stands on the other side of the glass, embers raining down in the night sky around him. A sadistic grin curves at the corners of his mouth, and he lifts Micah’s decapitated head in his hand, gripping her red-tinged hair and turning it so we can see that he’s removed her eyes.
Her beautiful blue eyes.
Now, just endless voids remain.
With his free hand, he reaches down and grabs the opposite side of the doorknob. Twists it slowly so I feel each painstaking notch like a gaping wound in my chest.
The door opens, and he drops Micah like she’s a sack of fucking potatoes. Anger burns in my chest, a hurricane of fury. I clench my fists and back away as he slowly enters the room.
“Where is she?” he demands, and I assume he means Willow. That he wants to finish her off before taking me out.
I move to try and block her from his view. “Get fucked.”
“Wow, Vi, a couple of weeks spent with my baby brother, and you’re as foul-mouthed as he is. Didn’t take much for him to soil the sweet, innocent little girl I met months ago, did it?” He rakes his gaze over me, wiping his thumb across his mouth and smearing Micah’s blood there. “Can’t wait to give the new and improved version a test ride.”
Bile teases my throat. “You touch any part of me, and it’ll be the last thing you do.”
“Yeah? You gonna stop me?” He steps closer, his hand lashing out and grabbing the hair at the base of my skull in a punishing grip. “Gonna thrash and beg, like your little friend did? Every time she called out for her sister, her ass got tighter. Wonder who you’ll cry for. God or Grayson?”
He shoves me toward the bed, and I see Willow trip over herself, giving him a wide berth. Paralyzed by her fear.
I swallow. “Let her go. You have me, let Willow out.”
Nate clicks his tongue, shaking his head. “No can do, Violet. See, I might be a piece of shit, but the man on the other side of this hall? He’s the real monster. If I let her go, he’ll just take her for himself. I’m trying to help you here. He won’t want my spoils.”
As his hands start groping, sliding my sweatshirt up and squeezing my breast, I see Willow stand up behind him. She grips Elena’s knife, her eyes on Nate’s back, wrist twisted outward.
Seeming to somehow sense her presence, Nate chuckles, pausing. He reaches behind him, under his shirt, and pulls out a pistol.
“I didn’t want to use this,” he says, shifting to fit the gun’s cold, smooth mouth beneath my chin. “But if you insist on being a hero, Willow, I’ll just kill Violet before we’ve gotten to the fun part. Do you really want to be the one to deprive your boss of seeing the woman he loves die?”
Willow freezes. A tremor shoots through her arm.
“Drop the knife.”
Her hand opens, fingers uncurling, and the blade falls with a thud to the floor.
“Now,” he says, leaning down to drag his nose across my chin, down my neck. The sweatshirt’s all twisted, exposing my breasts, and he swoops down, latching on to one with his teeth.
When he bites, my fist rears up, catching him in the back of the head.
He grunts, then backhands me with the gun.
Stars burst across my vision, and pain explodes along my jaw, throbbing in my cheek. My upper lip tickles, and it’s not until I manage to slide my tongue up that I realize my nose is bleeding.
“Goddamn, Vi, you do look good in blood. Guess my brother knows what he’s doing.”
I don’t know what he means by that—has he been… watching us? Listening in?
As if reading the confusion on my face, he smiles, laving his tongue across my lips. “Oh, yes, I know all about your little deviant tendencies. Did Dad’s mask do anything for you? Or is it only if you’re being chased at night?” He shifts, digging his erection into my stomach. “It pays to have traitors on your payroll. Should’ve killed Janus when you had the chance. Your brother’s a big hotshot murderer, and you couldn’t even get that right. What a waste.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask.
“Oh, you didn’t realize Janus was the one you gave a concussion at the lake? God, you really are an idiot. Maybe your gene pool didn’t mix with Kal’s after all. No wonder you couldn’t actually kill him.”
Willow lets out a little sob, and he blindly turns the gun toward her.
“Shut the fuck up. You’re next, sweetheart; don’t worry. Though my dad might want to have a go at you. I’m not sure.”
“Why are you doing this?” she cries.
Sighing, he turns his head, shooting her a dirty look. “Because I’m hoping it draws that Sydney bitch out of the woodwork.”
“Sydney’s dead,” I rasp, turning my head when he tries to capture my lips again.
He grips my chin, pinching it tight. My entire body aches in agony.
“She’s not dead, you stupid cunt. She’s been hiding from us, and I know she’s here. Janus said so—that he saw her one day in the southern wing, before Grayson decided to lock it up. She’s alive, and she’s going to try and ruin our entire fucking lives with her lies.”
Shoving my thighs apart, Nate starts yanking at my pajama pants, sliding his fingers beneath the fabric and plunging them into me. It burns, and I twist to try and get away, but he just comes up the mattress with me, keeping his gun trained on Willow.
“I tried to help her, you know? Tried to keep her from getting in too deep and seeing too many things. She wanted to go to the parties, wanted in with the elite, and would’ve done anything she could to get there. Talent or no talent. When she got pregnant, I offered a solution. She didn’t like it.”
My mind whirls, tilting like a carnival ride.
“It wasn’t even mine. The baby. When I asked what she wanted to do, she told me it wasn’t and she didn’t want my input.” A bitter laugh puffs against my skin, and he pumps his fingers slowly, adding another, increasing the burn. “It was my dad’s, and he wanted her to get rid of it. Said he couldn’t take the scandal that having a baby with a young woman would cause, not after Grayson nearly ruined his reputation by being born, and then becoming a boring ass teacher. And still, when I offered help in that free clinic on Aplana Island, she refused.”
“Her doctor, Kal Anderson, kicked me out of the exam room. Since I wasn’t the biological father, I had no right to be there if she didn’t want me to be. And as it turned out, she didn’t want me to be around for anything anymore. It drove me fucking crazy.”
I’ll say. No wonder he balked when he realized who my brother was.
“When she died, I figured my dad had just taken care of things. He’s done it before—dozens of times, to countless women. It’s a real bad habit of his, honestly, but at that point, I felt vindicated, so I didn’t give a shit. Plus, I had started seeing you and was morbidly curious about how much of a prude you seemed. After fast and wild with Sydney, I liked the slow pace you gave me. Clearly, I was the problem since you opened your legs for my brother pretty early on.
“But then Janus said he’d seen her. At the James estate. And I realized Grayson was just hiding her… keeping her from us because he didn’t want to share. His talented little star.” Nate scoffs, withdrawing his fingers finally before pushing them into my mouth. I retch as he breaches the back of my throat, too far for me to even taste. “So, I decided that if he wanted to play games with us, I could do that too. Ruining his life and getting to Sydney became my sole focus, which is why we’ve ended up here. I personally would’ve preferred much less gore, but my father is a bit dramatic. He didn’t want the bitch’s sister tattling.”
“You’re an idiot,” Willow spits, reaching for the knife again. “Sydney’s dead. I’ve lived here all this time, and I’ve never once seen her. Micah never saw her. You murdered my best friend for nothing. You’ve ruined my life for nothing!”
She launches forward, sinking the knife into his shoulder blade; he releases me with an angry shout, spinning around and driving his fist into her face. She crumples immediately, knocked out cold.
The banging from down the hall becomes suddenly closer, and Nate walks over to it, pushing the dresser out of the way. He flips the lock, and then his father fills the doorway, that goat mask resting on top of his head.
A cruel smile takes over his mouth when he sees me half-naked on the bed. “Perfect. You didn’t fuck her yet, did you?”
Nate reaches around to his back, removing the knife there. He shoots me an irritated look, then answers his father, “No. Though I can’t promise Grayson didn’t.”
“Oh, that’s fine. It’ll hurt him more when he finds us then. You still have his security team and that Kohli bitch tied up outside, right?”
Nate nods, and his father claps him on the shoulder, beaming with pride. I almost throw up.
“I’ll take her first, and you can have whatever’s left when I’m done filling the little cunt with my cum.”
I push up, slinking away on the mattress even though I’m aware there aren’t many places for me to go. I won’t make it easy for them either way.
I’m too busy panicking, trying to find a single potential exit strategy, to notice the bathroom door slowly easing open. The two men approach me, almost blocking my view, but not before I spot yet another masked figure lurking in the shadows.
This one’s smaller, dressed in a red cloak, half of their face obscured by a satin purple mask.
They’re holding a gun.
When they shoot, they step into the light, revealing big blue eyes and nothing else.
