Page 61 of Wicked Nightmare

Chapter Twenty: Lakey

I jolted awake, my heart slamming against my ribs. Janine's face—only it wasn’t her face. Her face was a distorted memory—twisted in that grotesque smile, burned behind my eyelids. My legs moved of their own accord, carrying me up and down our hallways. Fuck. I couldn't shake this feeling, like maggots crawling under my skin.

I paced our apartment, the streetlight outside throwing shapes across the walls. My feet slapped against the cold floor as I circled back to the bed where Cam lay sprawled.

"Cam," I shoved his shoulder. "Wake up, you asshole."

He grunted, rolling over. "The fuck, Lakey? It's ass o'clock."

"We gotta deal with Janine. Now."

Cam's dark eyes cracked open, fixing me with an annoyed glare. "Can't this wait 'til morning?"

I shook my head, my fingers twitching with restless energy. "No, it can't. Something's off. We need to handle this bitch before she causes trouble."

He sat up with a grunt, running a hand through his messy hair. "You and your fucking intuition," he grumbled.

"Don't pretend you don't love it," I was already pulling on my leather jacket.

Ten or so minutes later, we roared up to Janine's address on our bikes. The engine's rumble faded to silence as I cut the ignition, leaving only the faint chirp of crickets.

I stared at the structure, memories flooding back. How many nights had I spent in that tree, watching that little girl through her bedroom window? My fingers tightened on the handlebars as I remembered her wide eyes, the pink curtains, the way she'd wave at nothing in the dark as if she knew I was out there. How had I not known that fucking Janine lived here? All this time. Seven years of sitting in that tree, seven years of watching this house, and the woman inside it was one of the people who'd broken me before I was old enough to form memories of it.

The house where my girl lived was Janine Almine's house.

The realization hit me in the stomach, not the chest. Lower. Deeper. In the place where the surgical scars sat, the ones I couldn't explain, the ones that belonged to memories I didn't have. Janine had been part of whatever happened to me before Carmen's house. Before the fork. Before Cam. And she'd been raising a child this whole time, right here, right under my nose, while I sat in a tree thinking I was protecting something.

I remembered the day she came out and told me to leave, only I hadn’t recognized her then. My brain had been so muddled from SINNERS, she felt familiar but strange. Now, I was kicking myself for not remembering. For not slitting her throat when I had the chance.

"Earth to psycho," Cam's voice broke through my thoughts. "You gonna sit there all night or are we doing this?"

"Let's go," I said, swinging my leg over the bike. "Time to pay our old friend a visit."

As we approached the dark house, adrenaline hit my bloodstream hard. We looked in all the windows, but the place still looked dead. The pink curtains were still gone. The girl's nightlight still wasn't on. The driveway was still empty. No car, no toys in the yard, no shoes by the door.

The house had been cleaned out. Exactly as it had been the last time I came here.

They were gone.

"Brings back memories, huh?" Cam stretched and his neck cracked with the movement. "You used to be so fucking obsessed with this place."

"Couldn’t help it. Just mad that I didn’t recognize who she was sooner. I guess I still am obsessed, as you so politely put it."

He chuckled, but I caught the concern behind his teasing as we walked back to the bikes and sat on the sidewalk. "Seriously though, you good? This shit's got you wound tighter than usual. Or maybe it’s not that little girl, and Janine was here after they moved and now she’s gone too."

"That’s stupid. Ugh. I’m fine. I'm fine," I snapped, then softened my tone. "Just... something's off. I can feel it."

“I trust your instincts, Lakey. Shit-stain Skeeter gave us the wrong address again. Maybe if we wait a bit, someone will come by."

Hours crawled by, the monotony of surveillance settling in. Cam had asked three times why we weren't going up and checking the house. The truth was, I didn't know why. I wasn't used to feeling the intensity of emotions running through me, rampant, unchecked. I desperately wanted to know. To see her. To save her. But I couldn't force my legs to move my body any closer.

Because what if she was inside? Dead. Cold. On a table with tubes in her arms and a mask on her face and a scalpel poised above her stomach, the way Lydia had been. What if Janine had done to her what they'd done to us? What if the pink curtains and the juice boxes and the waving in the dark had all been a performance, a set piece in a play I'd been watching from the wrong side of the glass?

I couldn't go in there and find out. Not without knowing that I could survive the answer.

Eventually, Cam just stopped asking, opting to wait in silence while I tried to figure my shit out and shove those feelings back in the box.

My eyes burned from staring at the lifeless house, willing something to happen. My fingers drummed an impatient rhythm on the bike's frame. The fucking sun was rising and nothing was happening.