3. Always Watching

November

River and I decided not to go to the cops after discovering the finger under my pillow and blood smeared all over my windowsill. Because of what happened to Carli, we assumed it was someone who witnessed the incident and wanted to fuck with us, which neither of us found amusing.

There have been no sightings of Shawn, and the cops, like Carli, haven't done much to find him. River is losing his mind without him around, even worse than he was after what happened to Carli. Melanie and I are perplexed, but we're afraid to question him. For the past week, he has been nothing more than a shell of a man, and I'm at a loss as to how to help him, so I try to avoid him as much as possible.

I can feel Melanie"s eyes on me as I sit on the couch and flip through pages in the manual from the prison I'm trying to work at, but she says nothing, which irritates me even more than her constant, incessant glares. Even though Halloween is long past, she sighs heavily as she watches reruns of the same two horror films. She sighs once more and taps the remote with her nails to get my attention. I slam the handbook shut and look at her, my eyes narrowing and squinting from tiredness.

"What, Mel?" I huff out, hearing the annoyance in my voice, so I know she can hear it too.

"Have there been any more fingers? Or body parts in general?" She asks curiously, referring to the single finger we found under my pillow a week ago, a grin appearing on her red-painted lips.

"No, and you know that, so why are you asking?"

"Please don't sit here and act like you tell me everything. I know there's something you and River aren't telling me."

"Like what?"

"I don't know, Scarlett, but this is too fucking weird. First, Shawn kills Carli by accident, and we bury her body in the cemetery; then he goes missing, and some random finger ends up under your pillow?" She hugs the pillow against her chest and grins, living for the horror surrounding the nightmare of our lives.

I shrug, taking a generous sip of wine from the coffee mug in front of me, trying to block everything out and wanting to forget about it for at least one night.

"You were there, Melanie. Nothing else happened. I don't know what to tell you."

"So you think Shawn's dead too, right?" She says calmly as if she knows something that I don't.

"I'd like to think that he isn't, Mel. But where is he?" I look out the window, catching a glimpse of Salem at night and the danger that lurks in the shadows. The thought of not knowing what's out there waiting for me sends shivers down my spine. In the alleyway across the street, something flashes in the shadows, but I only have to blink before it vanishes. I rub my eyes and sit up straight, fixating my sight ahead, but nothing's there when I focus.

"What is it, Scarlett?"

Melanie looks out the window, trying to see what I'm looking at, but I can't even be sure myself. My spine tingles in fear, but I can't look away.

?"I don't know. I thought I saw something." My throat dries, my hands get clammy, and my eyes stay stuck on the window, getting lost in the darkness outside.

"You look fucking possessed, Scar, damn. You're scaring me now." She tosses the pillow at me and gets up, stomping toward her room, leaving me clutching my coffee mug filled with wine and staring out the window into the eyes of the unknown.

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