I wake to the sounds of my own screaming.

"No!" I shout over and over until I realize I'm here. I'm home. I'm on the floor but I'm not at Luke's house. I'm not pinned beneath him anymore.

I feel the tears wetting my face and I wipe them away, breathing heavily and clutch my hands to my chest.

I'm not there.

But I am here.

In this fresh different sort of hell.

Not in the betrayal of the person I had grown to trust more than anyone else. Not with the person who took the love I tried to give him and twisted it and me into something dark and unrecognizable.

I'm on the floor of my parent's room.

Surrounded by the walls that held the two people who should have been there for me. Who should be holding me right now and telling me it was just a dream. Assuring me I'm safe here with them.

But they'd both betrayed me too.

My eyes drift to the crude word painted across the wall and my shivers take hold. I'm so cold. Everything is dark around me, nothing but the soft morning glow coming from the window.

I roll over and push myself up to my hands and knees, my body aching, when I hear the bottle fall beside me.

Little white pills sprinkle the floor and I jump to carefully pick them up, making sure not to miss a single one. Then slide them back into the bottle and close the lid.

I sit back on my haunches and just stare at the wall for a long time. So long the sun is shining much more brightly when I finally unlock all of my stiff joints and stand, fisting the bottle in my hand.

My mouth is dry and my head is filled with white noise as I stand, little black dots dancing in front of my vision.

I place a hand over my eyes until I feel steady again and I stumble out of the room.

I grip the doorframe as I cross into the living room, my eyes going to the fireplace.

No wonder I'm so cold.

It's out.

I glance around and realize all of the lights are off as well.

I'm worried for a moment that the power has gone out but when I put my hand to the switch, it's turned down. I test it, and the light comes on.

I don't think I came back out and turned all of the lights I'd turned on last night back off...but I can't be sure of anything anymore.

Not with the bottle in my hand.

I start to cry as I stare at it.

Why had I taken them? Why couldn't I just put them back where I'd found them? Why did I always have to screw up?

I stomp over to the sink and twist the cap off of the bottle and start to pour them down the drain.

As I hear the first one tink off of the metal sink I drop the bottle onto the counter and my hands fly frantically to grasp the ones circling so close to falling down the drain.

"No, no, no." I cry, grabbing them back out, my body reacting physically to the loss of the one I hadn't been able to save.

I scoop the rest out of the sink and off of the counter top and pour them carefully back into the bottle and then I sit on the floor in front of the sink and rock back and forth in the floor.

I can control this. I can.

I can keep them and just not take any more. I'm sure I can do that. I just need to have them for when it all feels like it's too much. As long as I have them I'll feel safe. I don't have to let them make the rules. I can make them. I can be in control.

I don't have to throw them away...

I just can't take any more.

I sit there and rock until the buzzing in my head and the numbness from my hands and feet start to reside.

I steel myself to stand again.

I will not let this stop me.

I need to call the police about the break in and what someone wrote on the wall.

Murderer.

I shove the word away and go into the living room to look for my phone. I'll have to walk, find the closest neighbor, though it'll be a long walk, and borrow a charger.

I have my ID and my debit card now, and I can get my car back. I need to get the hell out of this town and away from everything happening here. I can't be here anymore.

When I stop at the recliner where my bag is, I stall.

My phone is sitting on the arm of the chair closest to the wall and attached to it is my yellow charging cord, plugged into the wall beside it.

I press a button and my screen lights up.

No, no, no.

It wasn't here. I'm not crazy. I'm not making this up. I'd searched for that charger and it wasn't there.

I spin around, looking everywhere. Any clue at who has been in the house and why? But I can't find anything. I can't make sense of why someone would be doing this stuff to me.

I snatch my phone off of the charger and walk to the front door making sure it's still locked and it is, the back door as well.

I unlock my phone to dial the police but I have hundreds of missed calls and voicemails and texts.

Most come from numbers I don't have saved. A few from Mrs. Statham. A couple of texts from Kelsea. A message from Aries.

I click that voicemail button and listen to his voice come over the speaker.

"I know you're mad at me, Miss, and I don't blame you." He sighs into the phone. "I just want to make sure you're ok. Despite how you feel, please just call me if you need anything." I think the message has ended but then softly. "I'm sorry."

The message ends.

It came before he was arrested.

I dial the number back but it goes straight to voicemail and I hang up before the beep.

I click out of the voicemails and pull up the call screen, my fingers dancing slowly over 9-1-1. I get the first two numbers typed with shaking fingers but then my thumb hovers over the call button.

What would I even say?

I can't have the police here snooping around in that room especially. Not with the things I have hidden in there. If they find my stuff, I'm done with. Being present at the scene of one body is suspicious. But being at the second as well? They'd never believe I don't have something to do with all of this.

Fear and doubts cripple my mind and I call Kelsea's number instead.

"Missy?" She answers on the second ring.

"Hey," I say weakly, trying to keep the fear out of my voice. "I'm...I'm really scared." I admit and I hear her moving things around in the background.

"So am I." She says back and I hold the phone tighter to my ear.

"Why are you scared?"

"I got..." she pauses, collecting herself. "I got another note on my car this morning."

My chest tightens. "What did it say?"

She exhales a long breath. "It said stay away from her."

My stomach churns and I press a hand to it. "Did anyone see who left it? Or if there was someone suspicious hanging-."

"Missy, you were right." She interjects. "They found that girl this morning. Just like you said. They held a conference about it an hour ago. They're enforcing a strict lock down at night for the whole town and school is canceled this week."

"Wait." I stop her, squeezing my eyes shut. "They found her? I was just at the police station yesterday telling them to look there and they said they already had. That there was officers guarding the whole area."

"They were, Missy." She tells me. "That's the thing, they'd already checked and said they had hourly patrols all through those fields and then this morning when they went through, they just found her there. They don't have any trace of someone coming in or out of those fields. They don't know how someone was able to get through and dump her there. I'm freaking the fuck out. I'm packing right now."

"Good," I tell her. "You should go home for a while."

I don't want her to go.

The only friend I have here.

But I'm too afraid for her to stay. Too scared it's gonna be her face I see on the news next.

"Missy?" She whispers. "They took Aries in for questioning." She tells me. So the news has already circled the town.

"He didn't do anything." I tell her.

"I want to believe that," she says. "He seemed like a good guy. He really helped out with you and knew what to do, but they're saying they have eye witnesses putting him at the crime scene for that girl...what was her name? The one they found in the alley."

"Courtney Tolbert." Her name is sour on my tongue. I can still feel her cold skin whenever I close my eyes.

"That's the one." She says and I hear a door shutting on her end of the phone. "They have witnesses seeing him there and like some other kind of evidence but no one knows what it is."

"There's no way." I whisper, my heart beats so closely together I can't separate the pumps of the muscle anymore. "He wouldn't do this to me."

He wouldn't.

"But are you sure?" She asks. "Like bet your life on it sure? Because a lot of people are starting to say stuff."

"Of course they are!" I shout. "They're always saying stuff. All this town does is gossip about any and everyone. Do you know how many different people they accused in the beginning? How many supposed leads they'd gotten that led to all of these arrests and them going on TV saying they were sure they got the guy? Only a couple days later they'd find out they had an alibi or something to prove it wasn't them and then the whole town would start pointing fingers at everyone else. Every weird neighbor, anyone they thought seemed weird. It's a shit show!"

"I hear you, Missy." She tells me. "I'm sorry you're going through all of this again, I am. I hope you're right. I hope it isn't him. But I also..."

She also kind of hopes it is. Because if it is him, he's been caught. If someone is in jail, the town can relax and breathe easy again knowing the monster isn't lurking in the shadows anymore.

"I'm...I'm sure." I say, but it comes out broken. How many times had I trusted people only to have been betrayed? I want to have a stronger resolve in my belief that Aries couldn't be hurting these girls...and until I have definitive proof, I'm not gonna let the town's opinion sway me. I want to hold onto my faith in him just a little while longer.

"Missy?" She's whispering again, her voice low and hollow.

"Yeah?"

"What happens next?"

Her questions catches me off guard.

What happens next?

So far everything is unfolding just as before. Everything my father did is being repeated, one by one. I'd been right when I told her where the body would be found next. And now she wants to know how the story goes.

"He was reckless with the first three." I whisper back. "They were back to back and he dumped the bodies in places they were sure to be found. But he got scared. He...he didn't want to get caught and he was afraid they were going to find him out so he got smarter. He cleaned up the method. Only bits of remains were found of a couple of the next few victims." I can still see all of the police cars all over the yard, my father in handcuffs as he led them out passed the house.

"He started..." I try to go on but the gruesome details are just so hard to bring back into the light. "There used to be this shed, a little ways out passed the tree line behind my house. He said he would pick them up and bring them back here, kill them in the shed and then leave them there for a while. He didn't say how long. Then he'd take the bodies out into the woods...out to the bluff and throw their bodies over into the water. They never could find another body intact. They found pieces of clothing where I guess some had hit the rocks on the way down. Some DNA too. It flows into the Missouri River. They couldn't find any of the other girls."

"So when you said they won't find another body..."

"I was speaking from experience."

"Did he...did he ever say why?"

Why

Why

Why

"Not really." I rub my temples. I can still see the coverage of them taking him out of the courthouse to a waiting police SUV surrounded by guards.

Reporters were shouting that same question at him over and over as he ducked his head trying to get through the crowd.

"I'm sorry." He'd said, looking into the camera, looking right into my eyes through that screen. "I'm so sorry to everyone I've hurt. All of the families. I'm so sorry." His eyes had welled with tears. "To the families of those...of those children. I'm so sorry. I have no excuse. I won't try to offer one." Again he looked right into the lens. "And to my own family. I'm so sorry what this is doing to you. I'm sorry I wasn't better. I tried...I didn't try hard enough. I'm so sorry. Please forgive me. Please." Then he was shoved into the back of the car and I never saw him or heard him speak to me again.

That was the last time, through the TV screen in my living room sitting in my mother's lap as she cried, that I saw my father alive.

He'd written a few dozen letters before he died, but I'd never opened them. I threw them away. He had already ruined our lives and the picture of the family we were supposed to be. I didn't need anymore of his words.

But sometimes...sometimes I still watch that recording. I still look into his eyes. And when he asks for forgiveness in the end...I always tell him no.

"Kelsea?" I say, making sure she's still on the line.

"Yeah."

"I need you to do me just one more favor before you go, ok? Then you need to get as far from here as you can."

"Ok." She says then agrees to come pick me up so that I can go get my car. "But promise you're gonna leave too? I'm scared for you. It's all too close to..." she lets the words fall.

Too close to home.

This tainted place.

I shove the rest of my things into my bag. "I promise."