Page 73 of Love You To Pieces

Deacon snorts from where he’s leaning against the front of the truck, sunglasses on as he watches us. “Maybe I’ll just get you a new chainsaw,” he suggests instead. “Why did you call it Sally, anyway?”

“Why not?” I shrug and pull away from Fox, wishing I had a hair elastic to pull my hair up with. It’s hot enough in the Texas summer to be irritating, and I make a mental note to find some rubber bands when we go back to the house.

I don’t wait, even though I’m not sure what to look for. The ledger was the only real piece of evidence I found, but I hadn’t exactly been looking hard the last time I was here. Fox makes a concerned noise and reaches out to me, but I stubbornly evade his hand, keeping Pearl close to my side, before pushing open the broken glass door of the auto shop.

The memories are immediate and painful. From outside, I can hear Deacon and Fox talking, discussing license plates and the idea of running them through the system. Their words are careful and terse, and I can feel their eyes on me, like they’re scared I’m going to fall apart just from coming inside.

In all honesty, I might.

“No, nope. You can do this, Sadie-Rae,” I whisper. I made it out of this place before, and I refuse to let it break me this time. While I tell myself that I’ll just look around up here, where it’s safer, I find myself drawn to the basement door, as the voices of the guys fade with the distance between us.

The door is closed, and I’m so careful as I reach forward to wrap my fingers around the old, dented knob. It doesn’t turn easily under my hands, but when it does, the door opens and swings back hard on shitty, half-broken hinges.

Pearl growls, and I put my hand back on her head, feeling her tremble as I look down into the darkness of the staircase.

“Yeah,” I whisper. “I know. But we can do this.”

Victims don’t get better. I heard that somewhere, once, and as long as I see myself as a victim of this awful place, I doubt there’s any way I can figure out how to move on and live my life again. Whatever that looks like now.

But God, it’s so hard to walk down the first step. The second is easier, the third easier still, but when I get to the bottom, I stop dead, my legs as stiff as marble.

The smell hits me hard enough that I gag. My hand comes up to clap over my mouth, and I reel backward, eyes watering at the smell of rot and sour meat. I will not throw up, I tell myself over and over, my stomach disagreeing with that statement.

Feeling along the wall with shaking fingers, I manage to find the switch I know exists there, and I flip it on, causing the entire basement to light up all at once.

Somehow, nothing at all has changed. Whatever I expected, it wasn’t for the basement to look exactly the same as I left it.

The only difference is the lack of bodies. The man I killed is no longer on the floor, and the table that held Scotty is bloody but empty.

Get me out! Scotty’s words and his desperate screams, suddenly echo in my ears. They’re just as real as they were that day, and it’s hard for me not to clap my hands over the sides of my head to get them to stop.

You have to get me out⁠—

“I’m sorry!” I gasp suddenly, my words echoing in the empty space. Scotty’s blood is a dark stain on the metal worktable now, but I have to physically force myself to stumble away from it before I puke. My feet take me to the back of the room, unintentionally following the path that I crept along when I made my grand, murder-fueled escape.

The rusted doors to the ‘cells’ are still locked; their padlocks are just as old as the doors themselves but still sturdy enough to hold. I will not be Hillling through air shafts again, so I only look at the rooms that are open along the back wall, finding nothing except stains I refuse to identify.

Not that I need to.

I know what’s down here. I know why it smells like this, and why Pearl’s ruff is up, giving her a very displeased and bristled appearance.

“I hate it here,” I grumble, searching the rooms at the back where I was kept. They’re the safest in my mind, though I won’t admit that out loud. But they also yield absolutely nothing.

Neither do the rooms where I found Tyler and Pearl. Just more bloodstains, more rust, and more of that smell that makes everything inside me revolt.

Going to the other side, where I found Ariana, is so much harder. Every step feels like I’m forcing my way through quicksand, and I check the other rooms first, somehow knowing that the other two will show me absolutely nothing.

I’m right, unfortunately.

When I get to the last door, Pearl growls, and I jerk my hand back from the handle. Her dark eyes are fixed on it, and she looks braced, like she’s ready for ghosts or demons to come spilling out. And hell, maybe that’s what I should be ready for too.

“I know,” I whisper. “But I have to do this. I gotta face this, Pearl. Just once.” It can’t be that bad, right? I’ve seen everything else. I’ve walked this whole basement, with the fluorescent lights buzzing above me and the stink of blood invading every pore. One more door, and I’m done. Just one more room, and I can leave this place with no intention of ever returning.

I won’t let this break me.

When I open the door, the smell from the room hits me like a physical thing, and I stumble backward, coughing, eyes watering. The week of it being closed, considering what had been there, apparently has brewed up a very unfortunate concoction, and it takes over a minute for me to stand up straight again, though I wish I had something to put over my face to somewhat mitigate the fetid stench.

The last time I was here, all my focus was on Ariana. I hadn’t noticed the differences between this room and the others, though when I turn on the light by the door, I’m able to see that there are things I missed before.