Chapter 17

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CAT

" O h, god," I breathed when I waddled out of a hot shower the next morning, stiff and sore everywhere. I was walking like a damn cowboy; how was I supposed to blackmail someone like this? Not that I'd reveal the printed copy of Justin Merchant's medical record if he did what he promised and tracked the photo. If everything went well, I wouldn't have to reveal that little secret.

I took a step to grab a towel and winced. Damn, I was sore. It was the best kind of sore and I had no regrets, but still. Ten orgasms took a toll on a girl, and Death was a literal god in bed.

"If anyone asks," I told my reflection, ignoring the ever-present dark circles but eagerly lingering on the marks Death left on my body, "you sprained your ankle on the stairs."

It was feasible. Ford had a shit-tonne of stairs. Old buildings weren't exactly equipped with lifts as standard. If you weren't able bodied, you were screwed here. No ramps, no lifts. It was on brand; Ford was nothing if not hostile to everyone.

I managed to get dry, dressed, and pull my hair into a messy bun without too much discomfort 1 and headed down to breakfast to find Justin.

I glanced at Honey's door as I passed, listening to the sound of soft snoring within. I didn't wake to wake her; I knew she slept about as well as I did lately, and needed all the rest she could get. I backed up from the door, startling when something crunched under my foot.

"This again," I whispered, bending to pick up the red rose and its crushed stem. I was lucky I'd worn actual shoes; the thorns would have shredded my feet. Then I'd really be waddling down to the breakfast hall. "Who the fuck is sending these?"

I took the rose with me, not wanting Honey to get distressed like she did every time the creep left a rose for her. I knew it wasn't Alastor because I'd seen him genuinely irritated over Honey's secret admirer, but who the fuck else would be sending my friend roses?

"Whoever you are, she's not interested," I said, dumping the flower in a bin as I crossed the dining room, scanning the many tables and their sparse occupants. I'd expected early mornings to be crowded with people given the amount of pressure to get perfect scores that came from universities of this level of prestige, but things had gotten lax since the murders started.

I wondered how many people had tried to go home and discovered there was no way off the island, like Duncan had. Anyone who'd been cursed would know exactly why, but what did the others think when they realised we were stuck in a giant fishbowl? Maybe they'd come up with a rational, completely ordinary explanation. Human minds were good at that. I'd been good at that before Halloween.

I didn't know what I was now. Was I even human, after being cursed, after being the wife of Death, Misery, and Torment?

I chewed my lip as I approached the breakfast station, grabbing an almond croissant and a latte with a double shot of caramel. If I was going to be awake at this time, I might as well make the most of it. My mind strayed to all the mornings Tor had woken me with his tongue on my clit, his warm hands stoking up my body, and I had to shake my head hard to dislodge the memory.

Just because Death and I had been physical didn't mean everything was back to normal. Nightmare had ruined any chance I had of a future with them. She took her fancy heeled boot to my happiness and poked it full of so many holes it had bled out.

Just because Death wanted me didn't mean Tor did. Miz certainly didn't.

I jumped when a voice sounded close to my ear. "Did you do it?"

I whipped around with a glare, my shoulders dropping when I saw it was Justin, his clothes as rumpled and slouchy as ever and a cap backwards on his head. My heart didn't get the memo and kept beating like crazy. "Yes. Your medical records are gone from their system."

His green eyes sharpened, something desperate and hungry in his drawn face. "And the paper file?"

"Gone," I lied. "I burned it."

His grin was swift. He clapped me on the shoulder, all the tension leaving him until he returned to his regular slouchy self. "I knew you could do it, Cactus."

"You could try calling me by my actual name. Cat. Wallison is acceptable too."

"Sure, Wallis," he agreed, leaning past me to put a latte glass under the espresso machine and filling it with a dangerous number of shots. "Right, come with me. I've got the phone plugged into my computer; you can watch me trace the photo. It won't take long."

"You do realise that amount of caffeine could give you a heart attack?" I drawled when he turned away, not even entertaining the breakfast buffet.

"Eh." He shrugged. "It hasn't killed me yet."

I shook my head and followed but fished my phone from my pocket to send a swift text to Honey. I hated to wake her, but needs must. I wasn't following a veritable stranger into an unknown room without someone knowing my whereabouts.

Justin Merchant's helping me get back into coursework. If I don't message back in an hour, murder him for me.

Sharpening my axe as we speak.

I smiled and tucked my phone away. I already had Find My Friends switched on so she could track me down. Tor could too if he wanted to. I debated texting him too, but he'd only have the same questions Death did last night, and I hated lying. But Virgil needed me, and I wouldn't let him down.

A subtle brush of my hand in my other pocket confirmed my knife was ready and waiting if Justin caused any trouble. So was a copy of his medical record. I'd come armed and ready.

"It's just up here," he said over his shoulder. "You always this quiet?"

"Yup," I confirmed. With strangers, anyway. Just being near someone I wasn't familiar with filled my mind with a dozen different scenarios, all of them ending in embarrassment, misery, mutilation, or death. I'd take making a fool of myself over murder any day.

I bit into my croissant for comfort, the flaky almonds giving me a moment's distraction as I focused on the texture of them breaking between my teeth. What if he was a psychopath, and he was leading me away to cut me into tiny, little pieces? What if he slipped something into my latte while I wasn't watching? What if his room was full of scalpels and blowtorches? Somehow worse—what if it was full of England flags and Swastikas? Elite schools like this were breeding grounds for far-right dickbags. What if—

"This is my room," Justin said, unlocking a door that swung open on—a shithole. Huh. There were no scalpels, no flags, no knives, but that didn't mean I'd be safe if I went in there. "Leave the door open if you want," he added with a shrug, reading me far too clearly.

I absolutely left the door open, chanting for Virgil, for Virgil inside my head as I stepped into the room that stank of sweat and days-old fries, fighting the wrinkle that wanted to form in my nose. There were coffee cups everywhere, empty cans of Monster crushed on the floor, plates with half-eaten food on every surface, alongside takeaway containers with remnants of pizza, Chinese noodles, and a burrito.

"You have a very distinct style of décor," I said, edging a pile of clothes out of the way with my foot and following Justin to the computer set up beside his bed. It was the only thing in the room he took any sort of pride in; strangely, it was immaculate.

"Yeah, it's a pig sty, but I'll get around to cleaning it eventually."

Famous last words. I said them often. "I'm not judging."

Justin shrugged, sinking into the gaming chair in front of his computers. Plural. Or was it screens plural and a single computer? I wasn't techy enough to know what I was looking at. "I don't need a clean room to do my job."

I moved closer, hanging back a few feet but near enough to see the screens. "Your job not being coursework, I'm sensing."

"Nah, this is just a cover to keep my parents for looking too closely. They expect me to become the next link in a chain of illustrious Merchant plastic surgeons."

"Not your plan I take it?"

Justin gave me an arch look over his shoulder, amusement in bright green eyes. "Fuck no. Cutting bits off, adding it elsewhere, rearranging people's faces so they look like whatever celebrity's trending that day—no thanks."

"Plastic surgery can do a lot of good," I pointed out. "Especially reconstructive—"

"Yeah, yeah, you sound like every family gathering I've attended for the past five years. Do you want me to track this photo or not?"

"Yes," I agreed quickly and shot a glance at the door. Maybe I should have closed it. What if someone walked past and saw the picture of Virgil? What if Honey saw it, and told Mum and Dad, and then Nightmare took revenge on me for trying to save him by killing them all and—

"Guessing it's the only photo on this phone. What is it, a nude?" Justin double clicked on the photo, opening it in horrific detail on one of his super-screens. Asshole. "Well, shit. Who is that?"

"None of your fucking business, just trace it."

He raised his eyebrows at me, looking strangely impressed, but he turned back to the screen and did as I asked. I didn't know what I was watching, didn't understand a single box that opened up or a single line of code, but I had to trust Justin to do his job. Even if he was a dick who'd gleefully opened what he thought was a nude of me, and that made my fingers itch to grab my knife.

Drive it into the back of his head for the sheer nerve of thinking he could see your body. Crack his skull open until his brain leaks out and he can never look at a single woman again.

I dragged in a slow breath, ripping my stare away from Justin and the photo of Virgil on the screen, gazing out the window instead. It was raining today, clouds dark overhead. I swallowed, remembering the sudden rain the day Caroline was mauled.

I'm not killing anyone, I told the darkness in me. Never again.

"Whoever put this photo here encrypted it," Justin told me, his voice tight with frustration. He took off his baseball cap and scratched his head. "I've never seen this type of encryption before. It's going to be a bitch to decrypt it."

"But you can, right?" I pressed, a swooping sensation of dread in my stomach. Please say you can. Please say you can lead me to my brother so I can get him out of there and stop whatever traumatic plan Nightmare has for us both.

"I can," Justin agreed, twisting his mouth to the side. "But it's gonna take longer."

"I don't care how long it takes." As long as it got me to my brother, I'd wait all day. All week. But did Virgil have a week left? His haunted eyes stared at me from the picture, hopeless and pleading all at once.

I'll get you out of there, I promised.

"This is gonna be boring as fuck for you, but you can stay and watch if you want," Justin offered, taking a long gulp of his espresso.

"I'll stay," I confirmed, not budging until he had a location for me. I took his lead and drank my own coffee, finishing off my croissant as he worked, typing away at his backlit red keyboard for minutes. Long, long minutes. I was either adjusting to the stench of this room, or the old food and sweat scent had permanently burned away my sense of smell.

"Whoever encrypted this knew what they were doing," he said twenty minutes later, stretching his arms with a groan. I understood exactly how his clothes got so creased if he was hunched over his keyboard for hours every day. When did he even find time to attend classes?

"Are you in?" 2

"Very, very close to it," he said, bending his fingers until his knuckles cracked, the sound driving needles into my nerves. "Just a few more lines and I should— what the fuck?"

"What?" I demanded, launching forward at his urgent tone, scanning the screens for whatever he was seeing. In one of the black boxes, text was writing itself, scrolling at a rapid rate. "That does not look good."

"It's… erasing itself. Shit!" Justin's fingers hammered the keyboard. "There's a built-in fucking self-destruct mechanism. I must have triggered something with that last line of code."

My breath iced in my lungs. "It can't self-destruct, it's all I have. You're the fucking computer genius, stop it destructing right fucking now."

"What do you think I'm doing, Wallis?" he bit out, frantically typing.

But movement on the biggest screen drew my eye away from the boxes of code and my heart crashed when I saw the photo of Virgil had tiny squares missing. I had a copy on my phone, but it wasn't the same as the original, and I knew as the pixels vanished one by one, I was watching my chance of finding Virgil disappear.

Why hadn't I thought to send the picture via Bluetooth or file transfer instead of taking a photo of a photo? I was so stupid, so fucking stupid.

"It's gone." Justin swore viciously, thumping his desk with a closed fist. "There's nothing left. Motherfucker!"

"It can't be gone. Keep typing!"

"It's done," he sighed, scratching his head, an air of defeat hanging over him. "Fuck. Look at it; it's devouring itself."

I saw what he meant; line after line was rapidly erasing itself from the black boxes of code, all his work undone.

"There's nothing I can do," he said with a wince. "I'm sorry."

Blood pounded in my ears as the last pixels disappeared, leaving a THIS MEDIA CANNOT BE DISPLAYED message on his screen.

Make him pay for this failure. Make him scream as a lesson to everyone never to wrong you again. Carve the word into his chest and leave him as a warning to all failure.

I gritted my teeth. "There must be something. Metadata or a trace of code or…." I scrambled for what I knew of digital photos.

Justin laughed bitterly, clearly pissed off to have been bested by a photo. "It's all gone, Wallis, every last fucking megabyte, data and all. Sorry, but there's no way to track that photo now."