The Merciless (The Merciless #1)(57)

Something drops onto the floor behind me with a thud. I spin around, heart hammering in my chest.

It’s just a book. Books have been pulled from all the shelves lining all the walls, their pages ripped from the covers, crumpled and tossed around the destruction like confetti. Brooklyn dragged her knife through the curtains, shredding them. She smashed through windows. Shattered glass glints from the carpet, and warm, sticky air moves what’s left of the curtains. Eerie red twilight spills onto the floor, painting the entire room the color of blood and fire.

“Riley?” I leave the living room and head to the staircase. “Riley, are you there?”

I wrap my trembling fingers around the banister. As I climb each stair, they creak beneath my rubber boots. Brooklyn could be hiding inside any of these rooms, carving up Riley’s body with her pocketknife like she did Grace. Waiting for me.

My hands shake. I stop in front of the first door and wrap my fingers around the doorknob. I’m allowed to be afraid, I remind myself, taking a deep breath of the hot, stale hallway air. I’m just not allowed to run away.

I push the door open.

It’s just a coat closet, empty and dark. My shoulders slump, relieved. I reach forward and tug on the metal chain hanging from the ceiling.

The light switches on, glinting off the fresh, bloody handprints covering the walls. The porcelain doll from the attic hangs from the ceiling, a thick rope knotted around its neck. Fire blackened most of her face and burned off her hair. Stuffing pokes through the ripped seams at her arms. Her eye sockets are empty, the cloudy glass eyes long gone.

“Shout to the . . . Shout to the . . . Shout to the . . .”

The music blares to life, startling me. I choke back a scream, searching the closet until I see the pink CD player on the top shelf. I stand on tiptoes and yank it down, letting it crash to the floor. Dropping to my knees, I rip open the deck and pull out the CD, flinging it back into the closet. I stand and slam the door shut again, heart racing. I squeeze my eyes closed, collapsing against the wall behind me. It’s just a CD player, I tell myself.

I make my way down the hallway one room at a time. I open every single door, steeling myself for what I’ll find behind it. I’m greeted with more destruction: a bathroom filled with shredded toilet paper, a guest bedroom empty except for a few broken pieces of furniture.

I save Riley’s bedroom for last.

I approach it slowly, like I’d approach a rabid dog or wild animal. I turn the knob all the way around, so the lock won’t click when I open it. Then I lean my head against the wood, listening. Silence. At first. Then I hear whispering.

“Riley?” My voice shakes. I push the door all the way open and stumble into the room, preparing myself for what Brooklyn’s done.

But Riley’s room is perfect: no broken furniture or shattered windows, no blood on the walls. I cross to her vanity table and flick on her lamp. Golden light spills over the scarves and glass bottles lining her vanity table, sending broken fragments of colored light flickering over the wood. It illuminates Riley’s porcelain doll’s glassy, lifeless eyes and the collage of photographs covering Riley’s mirror.

I pause in front of the mirror, running a finger along a photograph’s edge. It’s a picture of Riley, Grace, and Alexis at the lake house, all of them carefree and happy. When Riley first invited me into her room, I remember wanting my photograph to make it to her mirror collage, wedged between snapshots of Grace and Riley. Now that doesn’t seem possible.

I unpeel the picture from the mirror, studying Grace’s and Alexis’s faces. There’s something hideous about their smiles, especially when I think of how they ended up. It’s like the world played a cruel joke on them. Still, I slip the photograph into my pocket. Better to remember them like this, the way they were.

I hear it again—whispering.

I slide the photograph into my back pocket and start to turn. Out of the corner of my eye I see Riley’s bed reflected in her mirror. I freeze. Someone’s there, lying beneath the comforter.

“Riley?” The tension building in my chest suddenly releases. I exhale and race across the room. “Jesus, Riley, I’ve been yelling for you. Are you okay?”

I fumble for the blanket’s edge and pull it back.

Alexis’s dead body flops onto its side. The few remaining wispy blond strands of hair attached to her skull flutter away from her face. Blackened flesh bubbles like tar around the hole where her nose is supposed to be, and crispy red flecks of skin stick to the pillowcase. Skin peels away from her cheeks, letting bone and muscle poke through.

Bile rises in my throat, but I can’t look away. Alexis’s teeth remain intact, but blackened, and fire ate away her lips, leaving her mouth in a permanent snarl. Even her eyes are gone. All that’s left are two sunken, empty sockets.

The sound starts again. It’s not whispering, not exactly. It sounds more like dull clicking, like fingernails snapping. I freeze, and my stomach turns.

Alexis’s mouth drops open.

“Holy shit.” I stumble backward, staring. Something moves deep in Alexis’s throat. It twitches in the darkness, and a tiny, hairy leg stretches over her teeth.

The cockroach crawls across Alexis’s tongue and spills onto her chest. A second clings to the roof of her mouth, antennae twitching. It watches me with glassy black eyes.

Dozens of cockroaches pour out of her mouth and scurry down her body. They nestle into the charred remains of her clothes and dig into her blond hair. A few burrow into her ears. They crawl on top of one another, gushing out of Alexis’s nose and mouth and cracks in her skull. An antenna appears in the tissue of her cheek as a cockroach digs through the remaining rotten, weak flesh on her face.