9. NINE

NINE

T here are no windows in the bedroom, but light seeps in through the open door from the windows in the main room. Alone in the bed, as promised, I roll onto my back, stretching my sore arms out in front of me again. My eyes catch a flash of red against my skin. I turn over my right arm and read the words written across the inside of my forearm: I'M SORRY.

It's in all capital letters, with a small heart to the side of the 'y,' the bottom of which loops the way you'd write it in cursive. I don't know why that's the part that makes me smile, but it does.

Bone Saw is the kind of monster who makes a fancy little loop at the bottom of his 'y's'.

And it's written in blood—his blood.

I climb out of bed and make my way through the empty, open room to the bathroom, and then turn on the shower and wait for the water to warm up. It doesn't take long before steam fills the glass enclosure. I think, for just a minute, that I don't want to wash it off, but then I think of how he'd laugh at me from behind that mask silently, which would piss me the fuck off.

I scrub it clean before I wash my hair.

"Black licorice," a voice says from behind me. "Why are you making that face? Did you piss off someone else you shouldn't have?"

"I told you not to follow me home," I tell Fake Luca, even though I'm happy to see him. "And I don't know, probably. I really miss you."

"This isn't your home, though. Or is it?"

"It's not a home at all; it's a place where monsters go when they need rest."

"But you're not a monster, you're an angel."

"What if I am? I think they want me to become one…and I think it's working."

"Then I'll fix you again like you fixed me," he says. "It'll be fine."

"That's a nice idea," I say, closing my eyes as he rinses my hair. "You'd have to come back for me for it to work, though."

"What are you so worried about?" he asks. "You've seen real monsters before. And that monster out there…he's just a man, Teag."

"A dangerous one."

"Yeah, but at the end of the day, we all want something. You want freedom—"

"I want you. I want my best friend. Fuck freedom."

"He has to want something else, too, Teagan. He wrote a love note on your arm."

I scoff before turning to face him, tracing the 'T' on his chest with my fingertips. "I think we're the only two people in the world who would think that's what that was."

"Maybe," he says. "Or maybe he just needs a sweet, soft kitten to curl up in his lap, too."

My heart sinks, thinking of Declan again. I picture myself melting into him, wearing just his t-shirt, on a hotel balcony in Reno. I look down, squeezing my eyes shut, and try to push the image out of my mind.

"Yeah, I don't think that—" I start, but when I open my eyes, he's gone again. "…worked so well last time."

Sighing, I turn off the water and step out of the shower. I wring out my hair and then dry off, tying a towel around my body before stepping out into the main room.

The shades are drawn again, so that must mean he's awake. The room smells like coffee, too. I inhale deeply, scanning the area. Bone Saw is in the kitchen, his back facing me while he leans against the counter. He grabs a mug from in front of him and I freeze, watching his head tilt back slightly as he—I can only assume—drinks from it before setting it back down.

"Holy shit! You just drank coffee . I knew you had to be a coffee drinker."

He pulls the mask back down over his face and, without turning, shakes his head. "Teagan…"

I cross the kitchen and stop directly behind him, wrapping my arms around his waist. "Do it again," I tell him. "Drink coffee with your mouth like a human. I promise I won't look."

"I thought we already sufficiently established that I have a mouth," he says. "I don't understand the fixation."

"Oral fixation is very common among us humans," I say.

"That's something entirely different, Teagan."

"Are you going to drink it or not?"

"No," he says. "Not in front of you."

He reaches into a cabinet just to his left, pulls out an identical coffee mug, and fills it before shrugging me off and walking toward the door.

"Do you have any almond milk?" I ask.

"What do you think?"

I think I'm in a multimillion-dollar home with no fucking food in it—that's what I think. I pick up the coffee mug from the counter and take a drink.

Bone Saw reappears with a paper bag that smells like eggs and sets it down on the counter.

"Is that food?!" I ask. "Where did it come from?"

"Not DoorDash," he says.

"Aww, is it some sort of hunger relief program? Feeding America: Creepy Off-Grid Masked Serial Killers Chapter?" I open one of the biodegradable plastic take-out containers. "Oh, sweet—burritos! That's nice of them."

I pick up half of the massive burrito and take a bite.

I notice Bone Saw facing the other way, his shoulders shaking with laughter again.

"You're laughing again, aren't you? Just go ahead and do it; it'll be less weird."

Eventually, he turns back and grabs the other container from the bag in one hand and the coffee in the other. "You should put some clothes on. I'm going upstairs."

"Can I see your room?" I ask.

"I don't have a room. There are three more bedrooms upstairs, but this—"

"This isn't a home, I know. You've said that already. Can I see it?"

"You can look upstairs, and then go back downstairs," he says.

I speed walk toward the staircase ahead of him, scarfing down the rest of the burrito on my way up. Both the staircase and the landing have cable wire instead of wooden posts as a guard rail—every drunk girl's worst nightmare. I pass a sparsely furnished open loft, two bedrooms identical to the one downstairs, both seemingly untouched, and then come to a third one.

This room is also identical; it's clean, the bed is made with the same dark linens, and there aren't any windows. But there's a shelf lined with books and a computer with three monitors set up—all currently dark and powered off. And beside the bed sits a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo with a bookmark about two-thirds of the way through.

And there's one more difference—this room has an attached bathroom. I step inside and inhale deeply, immediately hit with the same piney scent of the cologne I noticed on his skin last night. The floormat is still wet when I step onto it, and condensation runs down the shower door. There's a razor and a toothbrush next to the sink. I pick up the latter and run my thumb over the bristles. They're still wet, too.

"I told you."

I almost jump. I look up into the mirror and see Luca standing behind me in its reflection. "Told me what?"

"He drinks coffee, wears cologne when pretty girls come over, and brushes his teeth. He's just a man, Teagan."

"Get out," Bone Saw growls. I drop the toothbrush as he grabs me by my arm. "This is not what I meant."

"I'm sorry," I tell him. "I didn't mean to."

He sighs, releasing me. "Who were you talking to?"

"I don't think you want me to answer that," I say. "I have some medications—at home—that I need. I see things that aren't there sometimes."

"Still?"

"Yeah…"

"Can you tell the difference? Between what's real and what isn't?"

"I think so. It just…makes me feel safe. I'm lonely."

"Were you taking these medications when you spent half a week in bed in a dark room?"

I nod.

"Then I think you're fine without them for a few days."

Days?

I gesture toward the books on the back wall. "Can I look at your—"

"No," he cuts me off. "Get out."

I turn and leave the room without another word, but if those are his books—and he's reading them, so I bet they are—then all of the classical music is probably his, too. And maybe this is more of a home than he's let on.

And if that's true, then Fake Luca must be right. Bone Saw is just a person.

"There are a few places on the body where you can stab someone to ensure they die quicker, or at least make it harder for them to come back at you or call for help. Do you know what they are?"

Bone Saw stayed upstairs in his room for the rest of the day. I spent mine looking through the house, searching for additional evidence of his humanity. When I didn't find any, I started going through his records for the same thing. But there wasn't anything with lyrics—nothing denoting definitive emotion—and when it became clear that was the case, I cracked a few in half for good measure before stuffing them back in their sleeves.

And then he came downstairs, gave me some loose, plain dark clothes to change into, and told me to braid my hair.

"Not really," I tell him. "The mushy parts? I didn't go to serial killer college. Or any college at all, actually."

"Major arteries," he says, ignoring me. He runs a knife over my neck, stopping at that soft spot just below my pulse. "Carotid…" He traces a line down the base of my throat, past my shoulder blades, stopping just above where Declan's initial is carved into my chest, and digs the point of the knife in just enough to draw blood. "And subclavian. This one runs across…like this. That's how close he was to killing you, Teagan; there's no way he didn't know. Maybe he even wanted to."

I swallow hard. Maybe he did—or maybe he was careful. He did say I was squirming too much.

What's left on the inside, this mangled version of my former self with no home and no real place to exist, looks the monster in front of me in the eyes and replies, "Well…he did it anyway, didn't he?"

He shrugs. "There's no going back and getting off the bus now."

"I wouldn't go back and get off the bus," I tell him. "I'd go back and let that girl shoot me with Luca in the bathroom."

"Get your fucking head on straight, or you're going to go in there and get yourself in trouble."

"What's the worst-case scenario?"

"You hesitate, and they get the best of you. He'll lock you up and use you for a few days, and then try to sell you to us if he hasn't figured it out, and then I'll set you free unless they want you dead." He moves the knife down to the inside of my thigh. "Femoral artery. It'll bleed a lot, it's great for slowing someone down, but it's also easy to miss. The base of the skull and kidneys are also good places to aim."

"Is there a point in telling you again that I don't want to do this?" I ask. "I'm not an assassin. Do you hate me this much?"

"It's not about you."

"Well, who is it about then?"

"You got out of bed to play monsters," he says. "You'll be okay. Better than okay, even. You don't get to be normal, Teagan, because you aren't. But your friends could be…or they're going to kill them…and make you watch. They'll make sure they know it's because of you before they go, too."

"They? Not you?"

He shrugs. "Maybe me. I don't really care either way. It won't bother me if that's what you're asking."

"But—"

"I'm not your friend, Teagan."

"How do I know you'll really let them go free?"

"I'll show you," he says. "The people running The Order aren't stupid. They're powerful, and part of that power is in their ability to exist unnoticed. There are only two reasons they kill outside of rituals—if the person is a threat to the organization or to control someone else. Your friends are scared like they should be, and they're running and hiding like they should be. The only threat to them is you."

"I'm not whatever you are. I didn't sign up for this—I want to go home."

He laughs. "You think there are sign-ups? When do you think we all signed up? A career fair? They'll be here in five minutes."

He puts his fingers in my hair, and I shrug him off. "Don't touch me."

"I have to," he says. "See this?"

He opens his hand and reveals a thin, metal object about six inches in length. There's a sharp point at one end, and at the other, it comes to a 'T' with the horizontal line decorated with jewels.

"It's sharper than an ice pick. I'm going to hide it inside your braid; it'll look like a hair clip. That's what you'll kill them with. Okay?"

I hold still while he buries it inside of my braid.

"I'll kill myself before I let them take me."

"You better fucking not. I'll kill your parents. I'll do it…personally. Because that will personally piss me off."

"How can you hate me this much?" I reach inside his hood, moving my hand to the back of his neck—to that tiny sliver of exposed skin between his hairline and the neck of his shirt. "You have to like me at least a little bit, right? Why don't you help me?"

"I am helping you," he says. "You look cute like this…helpless. If we had more time, I'd bend you over this couch and use that braid for leverage while I fill all of your holes with cum." He runs the braid through his fingers. "Don't talk to anyone. In fact, I should tape your mouth shut. I'm going to tape your mouth shut."

Shoving him off of me, I jump up from the couch. "No."

Rage flashes in his dark eyes, but before he can respond, I hear a phone. He pulls it from his pocket and glances down at the screen. "Let's go, little monster."

When we get down to the garage, there's a van waiting. Two men climb out, one older and the other maybe around thirty and muscular. He's shorter than Bone Saw and the other man, with a scar running across his face.

"So, all I have to do is drop her off, and my debts are paid?" the older man asks Bone Saw. "That's it? I'm free to go."

Bone Saw nods once.

"Why her?"

"That's none of your concern," he says. "But if this goes wrong, you and your entire family will pay for it."

"Open the back," the older man tells the younger one.

"She's too clean," the younger man says. "She doesn't look the part."

He brings back his fist and in a millisecond, it connects with my face. I fall into Bone Saw, my eye throbbing and nose gushing blood.

"What the fuck!?" I scream.

"That's better," the man says.

But when he goes to grab my arm, I reach behind me and pull the knife disguised as a hairpin from my braid and, in one smooth motion, drag it across his neck. The old man screams as he watches the younger one crumple to the ground, grasping at his throat, his body twitching in a pool of blood until he stops moving.

"Wow. You're right—that is sharp."

"What the hell was that?" the old man screams. "She just killed my bodyguard!"

"He had poor instincts," Bone Saw says. "He should have known what he was looking at. I was going to kill him when you were finished anyway."

I look the old man in the eye when I lick the blade clean. "Do I look the part now?" I ask.

Bone Saw takes the blade from me and cleans it on his pants before putting it back in my hair. "I'll put her in the back," he says. "And I'll be watching you the whole time."

"Are you okay?" he asks quietly when he pulls me around the back of the van.

"No," I tell him, whimpering just a little. I don't want to—not in front of him—but I can't help it. "I think he broke my fucking eye socket. It hurts."

"Well, you killed him," he says. "You're good and mad now, aren't you? That's not a bad thing." He reaches for the handle on the back door and then freezes. "Teagan, don't talk to them. You can't save them, so don't lie to them."

"What are you talking about?"

When he pulls open the van doors and escorts me inside, I see two other girls huddled close together in the back corner. They're barely conscious; they've clearly been drugged by the way they lean to the side, their eyes glazed over with their hands cuffed in front of them. Only one of them reacts when Bone Saw steps into the vehicle, and it's just barely. It's as if it's taking all of her energy just to show that small amount of shock and surprise at the masked killer's presence, and then her body surrenders—maybe because she's giving up or maybe because she knows there's no point.

I guess I know what he meant now by looking the part.

I sit across from them, and Bone Saw pulls handcuffs from his pocket, closing them around my right wrist.

I shake my head. "No," I say quietly.

"It'll be okay," he whispers before doing the same on the left side. "They're loose. You can slip out of them, and you know how sharp it is. You won't even need to. Remember to flash the lights upstairs when you're done, and stay put. I'll take care of the others."

I nod and look down at my feet.

He runs a gloved hand over my cheek and then beneath my chin, tilting it until I meet his dark eyes through the holes in the mask again.

"I don't want to play monsters alone," I say softly. My right eye is already swollen enough to impair my vision.

"You're not playing alone."

"I can't feel my face."

"It's not that bad," he says. "You're still beautiful. I'll take care of it when we get home, okay?"

I nod again, averting my gaze, and he slaps a piece of duct tape over my mouth. I shoot daggers at him with my eyes.

"It'll get you in trouble—you know it will. Keep your mouth shut," he says before leaving through the back door, sending us back into darkness when he closes it behind him. My two counterparts, either used to it or they stopped caring a long time ago, don't react. I practice slipping my hand in and out of the cuffs a couple of times before the engine starts and the van begins rolling back down that dirt road.