Scarlet Angel (Mindf*ck #3)(28)

“Un-fucking-believable.”

“Besides,” Donny goes on, ignoring my comment, “it’ll piss off Captain Douchewad something fierce.”





Chapter 11


If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?

—William Shakespeare



LANA



Shakespeare was one of the few philosophers who believed in revenge. Then again, he was a romantic. Romantics always believe in revenge, because romantics love harder, suffer loss more painfully, and hold onto a grudge that has shattered their hearts. Their hearts are of the greatest importance, above all else—body, soul, or mind.

My body grew stronger and my mind turned calculated when I lost my soul to avenge my heart.

I guess that makes me a romantic.

I’m in the middle of texting Jake, who is also a romantic, when there’s a knock at the door, interrupting me.

Logan wouldn’t knock.

Warily, I go to the peephole, and I spot a very distinguishable redhead with her back turned.

I open the door, wondering what she’s come to say this time. But when she turns, there are tears in her eyes.

She walks by me, shouldering her way in.

The burden of my secret is apparently weighing on her too much. Fuck.

I’m so close now.

Silently, I shut the door, and she takes a seat on the bed, while I lean against the door.

“Sixty-nine pictures and seventy nails,” she says, confusing me for a brief second. “Something tells me you’re not one to miscount.”

Realizing her meaning, I take a seat in the corner.

“This is about Ferguson?”

“I finally had the courage to look at the file today. I got up early to go in and look at it, then some things happened afterwards that we need to talk about. The point is, there were seventy nails and sixty-nine pictures. What’d you do with the other picture, Lana?”

My lips tense. She knows it was her picture I took. I don’t know how she’s going to react now.

“I burned it.”

“Why?” she asks without a flicker of emotion.

“Because the mind is a fragile thing. Your friends would have seen it; you’d have seen it too. It would have been the thing that broke you. Hearing it existed isn’t as critical as seeing yourself as that child who was exposed and vulnerable, then knowing proof existed all along. Hearing it is processed differently than seeing it. The mind is more delicate to sight than it is to sound. I didn’t want you broken. I didn’t want him winning from the grave. So I burned it.”

She wipes away the few tears that have managed to trickle down her face.

“I’m with you,” she says quietly. “Whatever you need, I’m with you.”

That…confuses me even more.

“Why?”

“Because a psychopath wouldn’t care about someone, who by my own admission, has made your plans so much more difficult. You show genuine compassion. It’s an obvious confliction with a psychopathic personality.”

“I have psychopathic tendencies, but I’m not a psychopath,” I say on a sigh. “I’ve told you this.”

“Yeah, but I didn’t believe it until I saw sixty-nine pictures and seventy nails. Now you have my trust that you’re really just someone who is avenging only the wrongs. And if anyone can relate to needing to kill the demons in the world that won’t die otherwise, I can.”

I blow out a weary breath, not realizing until this moment how much her indecision has been bearing down on me.

The string has been glued into place now, no longer threatening to be the unravelling of this entire thing.

“Then SSA Miller Johnson shows up today, as if more of a sign was needed.”

Just his name has my back stiffening, and she notices it.

“He covered this up, didn’t he?” she asks, ciphering my reaction too well.

“He did more than cover it up.”

“What else did you not tell me?”

“I told you everything that happened before. I didn’t tell you anything that happened after. You’ll need to learn it with the rest of your team.”

“Why? Why not just tell the story to them in a note or something?”

I lean forward. “The mind is a fragile and delicate thing,” I repeat. “Hearing it from a letter or from a killer has less of an impact than hearing it from someone who has been dying on the inside from holding in the secret. Several people know the story, Hadley. Find one to tell it. Not to mention, I need that town to feel haunted. The longer it takes for the story to be told, the more questions you and your team will ask. And the more people will start to tremble in fear.”

“You want that fear,” she states, studying me.

“I can’t kill them all,” I say with a shrug. “But terrorizing them will remind them to never hold their silence again when the innocent are screaming for help.”

She nods once, trying not to show how uneasy that thought makes her. She’ll change her mind when they finally get to Delaney Grove.

“I convinced Logan to ask you to come to Delaney Grove with us,” she says, shocking me.

“What?”

“You can’t just walk around a town and not be noticed by our team. Your face was all over the news after the brush with the Boogeyman. People will know you, and it’ll be suspicious if you’re in town and you’re not with him.”