Heart So Hollow (Dire Wolves Book 1), page 59
After a few hits, the screen pops out and falls to the ground. I grab my bag and chuck it out the window into the grass, then carefully step through the glass-laden carpet, hoping to God a shard doesn’t get stuck in the bottom of my Vans and slice into my foot. There’s no graceful way to do it. Head first, I reach out the window to the exterior portion of the sill where there’s no broken glass and grab the edge of the siding. Then I bring one leg up and try to step out onto the same ledge. Keeping crouched so I don’t bump my back against any remaining glass on the top of the frame, I half jump, half roll out the window.
I land and stumble over onto the grass, but escape without any cuts. Whipping my head around, I scramble up, grab my bag, and run as fast as I can to the driveway. I ditch my bag next to the driver’s side door and hurry to the garage keypad. Waiting for the door to go up, I glance around with my head on a swivel, making sure there’s no one around. The extra house key is hidden exactly where it should be and I’m back inside the house in seconds.
Waylon stares at me with curiosity as I run to the front door and grab my bag, making sure my keys and phone are still inside. I swing the bag over my shoulder and then skid to a stop. My personal laptop is sitting on the island. I rush over and grab it, sliding it into my bag, and then pause again.
You might not be coming back here. Ever.
Gazing around for a few seconds, I make my way to the bookcase and scan the second shelf. The worn-out paperback copy of The Outsiders sits next to an even more worn-out and older copy of The Sun Also Rises. I grab both from the shelf, lamenting the fact that I have to leave all my other books behind. Then I reach again and grab the first edition of Carrie, a lump rising in my throat. At least I remembered these—my favorite book that made me want to be an author, my mom’s book she picked my name from, and the one from Colson…
I slide them into my bag and then look around again, my gaze falling on the closet door next to the entryway. There’s a safe box on the top shelf of the closet that contains all of our important documents. I drag a chair over from the kitchen and climb onto it, reaching for the box, big enough to hold file folders. I assume it’s heavier than it is, and when I lift it, it slams into the ceiling and dislodges the hatch to the attic crawlspace.
“Shit!” I shriek as the hatch falls out of the ceiling, throwing a puff of dust in my face.
I drop the safe box and it tumbles to the floor with a crash, along with the crawlspace hatch. Brushing dust particles off my cheek, I jump down and throw open the box, rummaging through it until I find a black leather passport holder that also holds my social security card and birth certificate. I slam the box shut again and throw the documents into my bag.
I’m about to leave the entire mess behind when I look up and see a sliver of a box sticking out over the edge of the crawlspace hole. It's only odd because, to my knowledge, nothing is stored up here because it’s too inconvenient and the basement has ample space. I should just go, but curiosity gets the better of me, and I climb back up onto the chair. If Bowen was here, I think he would’ve made it known by now.
I reach up and slide the edge of the box to the side. It’s surprisingly light and easy enough to pull down, unlike the safe box. When I set it on the floor and tug open the flaps folded in on one another, I’m not even sure what I’m looking at.
There are two plastic bags; a rolled up black trash bag about a foot long and another white one rolled up in a similar fashion. Underneath the bags are an envelope and a few pieces of folded up white paper. I set the bags aside and pick up the envelope. Inside are two photos and two sheets of notebook paper.
When I unfold them, I realize it’s a letter.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Emily
Two Years Ago
(Page 1)
December 20
Bowen,
Last night I was thinking about the first time I met you. It was the first weekend I ever came home with Hildy. We were sitting in your parents’ living room, watching TV, when you came home. You sat down next to me and stayed up with us watching Squid Game until Hildy couldn’t stay awake anymore. Then you stayed with me, just talking, until 3AM. After only a few hours, I felt like I’d known you for so much longer and I could talk to you about anything. And after 2 days, it nearly broke my heart to leave you and go back to campus.
I’ve never felt a connection with anyone like I did with you. You were the one person I could tell anything and you would never judge me. There were times I couldn’t believe that you loved ME and you wanted to be with ME, and only me. I wanted a whole life with you, to do everything with you, and to grow old with you. You made me feel like the most important person in the world and, after growing up in the family I did, I never thought I would find anything close to that.
But then, slowly, I started to doubt myself. I think it started when I began studying for the MCAT. It was so stressful and time-consuming, but you seemed so supportive and excited. I didn’t notice at the time, but that’s when everything suddenly started going wrong. Everything seemed slightly off, but I didn’t know why. I knew it wasn’t my depression or bipolar disorder, because I’ve managed it well and there’s no reason my meds shouldn’t be working. And, more importantly, depression and BPD don’t cause things to disappear and reappear in your house at random times or make you lose your memory and imagine things. And then, one day, I finally realized what was causing it.
You. You are the reason behind everything in my life falling apart.
(Page 2)
When I never heard back from any of the med programs I applied to, I thought I truly had gone crazy and this was culmination of all the stress and all the depression and all the strange things happening around me. But it wasn’t.
I got into medical school, by the way. But you already know that. I didn’t know until I contacted a few of the attendings I interviewed with to ask what I could do to improve my application for next year. Imagine how shocked I was to find out that I DID get in, but none of them ever received a response, so they gave my offer to someone else.
I know you did something, whether I have proof or not. Just like it was you who isolated me and ruined the few friendships I had after college. Just like it was you who gave me fake sugar pills from fuck knows where instead of my medication. Just like it was you who dragged me across the lawn in the middle of the night by my hair and locked me in the barn for an entire day. Just like it was you who told your family I was losing my mind. Just like it was you who gaslighted me every minute of every day. And just like it was you who told me if I ever tried to run away, no one would believe me and you would use our relationship against me in the worst way possible.
I will never be a Garrison, because becoming one means a fate worse than death.
You need to leave me alone. Leave me alone and do not ever contact me again. If I hear from you one more time, I’m going straight to a judge for a restraining order. I know I can’t do it in Canaan, where your family’s name is above the law. But I can do it in Hellbranch. I decided to contact Tyler after so long and make things right with her. It turns out I still have people too, and you and your family’s corruption can’t reach me here.
This letter is more than you deserve and probably serves more as an effort to seek closure for myself. And to add insult to injury, I have nothing to my name except what I could grab when I left. I had to leave most everything I own, which includes all my books. You used to tell me how cool it was that I liked hard copies of books instead of electronic ones. Was it because you knew it would be harder for me to take them with me when I had to choose whether to run or die in your house?
Maybe you can read my books on nights when you can’t sleep. You should get through them pretty quickly because I don’t know how you CAN sleep at night.
Maybe you’ll find yourself in them, Bowen, a predator who lies in wait, watching and learning how to draw your prey in. And by the time they realize it, you’ve already drained the life out of them, making them so weak that they can’t fight back. You’re a narcissist, a sociopath, a monster with no emotions, no heart, and no soul.
I hope you rot in hell.
Emily
CHAPTER SIXTY
Brett
One Year Ago
The silence in the house is deafening. Emily’s words are deafening.
“Maybe you can read my books on nights when you can’t sleep.”
I lift my eyes and scan the bookshelf across from me, filled with not only my books, but ones that were here before I arrived. Not Hildy’s books, but Emily’s, retained and carefully curated props in a house of cards.
Worked on you, didn’t it? Bowen’s words echo in my mind.
I carefully fold the letter and gently replace it in the envelope like it’s a bomb. I wonder if Hildy would still be so pissed off about the whole situation if she knew about the second page of this letter. Reading Emily’s words feels like she’s describing my own problems with uncanny accuracy…
Tucking the letter back inside the envelope, I pull out the two photos. One is a picture of Bowen and Emily in Hildy’s backyard. Emily is sitting on the tailgate of Bowen’s truck and he’s standing in front of her between her legs. She wraps her arms around his shoulders while he turns and kisses her cheek. I flip to the next one and, instantly, the air feels like it’s been sucked out of the room.
It's a selfie. Emily is sitting on Bowen’s lap, his chin resting on her shoulder while she beams at the camera and holds up her hand. Her fingers are splayed out, drawing attention to one particular accessory. On her finger is a cushion teal sapphire with pave set diamonds along the gold band.
The same ring. My ring.
I look down at my finger and my stomach drops. Feeling sicker the longer I stare at it, I grab the band and tug at the ring, ripping it from my finger. Rising from the floor, I make my way to the kitchen island and drop the ring on the counter, biting back more tears that I thought ran out hours ago. Turning away from yet another proverbial stab in the heart, I slide the photos—which probably came from a couple of the frames on this wall—back into the envelope and turn it over. And, when I do, I see a single name with no accompanying return address.
Emily Fox.
I pause halfway back to the box, my heart pounding.
“Don’t let the fox guard the hen house, even if the fox is really good looking.”
Bowen’s goddamn tattoo…
Kneeling down next to the box, I hesitate, and then in a split-second decision, turn and shove the envelope into my bag by the wall. Then I pick up the white trash bag, unroll it, and peek inside.
At first, it doesn’t look like anything, but when I reach in, I realize it’s a shirt—or what’s left of one. The heather grey, long-sleeved t-shirt is worn and incredibly dirty, covered in dust and stained with large black splotches, like smears of charcoal. When I unfold it to get a better look, I cringe and drop the shirt back onto the bag.
“What the—”
The stench is subtle, but it’s strong enough that I can’t ignore it. It smells like death.
Turning my hands over, I look at my palms with disgust, the black charcoal splotches having left smears over my skin before I start compulsively wiping my hands down my jeans. Swallowing hard, I gather the shirt and the bag and drop both back into the box, my heart beating harder with every passing moment.
I can’t stay here much longer...
Next, I grab the pieces of white paper and unfold them. It’s a printout of an article from the Internet. The headline jumps out at me immediately.
BODY OF MISSING CANAAN SENIOR FOUND
Canaan—The search is over for a Canaan High School senior who vanished one week ago. The Canaan Police Department confirmed that the body of 18-year-old Evelyn Maguire was located Friday just south of the Wyandot Nature Preserve. Authorities were notified Friday morning that Maguire was discovered inside a culvert by her stepbrother, Colson Lutz.
My jaw drops with a gasp and I sink further down onto the floor. I clasp my hand over my mouth, my chest tightening as I stare at his name.
“Oh god,” I murmur, shaking my head in disbelief, “oh, Colson…”
Chest heaving, I try to catch my breath as I scan the rest of the article chronicling Evie’s disappearance. I drop the papers back into the box, my eyes darting aimlessly around the room before I remember that I don’t have time to freak out yet. I’m about to toss the black trash bag back into the box with everything else, but I hesitate. It’s the last item.
Frantically, I unroll it, deciding to look inside and then get the hell out of here. Much like the white trash bag, whatever is inside is very light. I lift the end of the bag and try to shake the contents out onto my hand.
At first, I don’t know what I’m seeing, but then a clearer image begins to materialize.
Laying across my palm is a long, vibrant red braid fastened tightly at each end with beige hair ties.
“Jesus!” I drop it onto my lap and then begin twitching, sliding the hair off my jeans before springing off the floor, “What the fuck!”
I stagger around the room, gasping, cursing, writhing, and wringing my hands in horror.
There’s a dead girl’s hair in that box!
Sucking in deep breaths and trying not to pass out, I pace back and forth in front of it, trying to decide what to do. I can’t just leave the hair—Evie’s hair—laying on the floor. After much cringing and hand-wringing, I finally kneel back down.
“Shit!” I hiss, pinching the braid between my index finger and thumb and lifting it from the carpet, “Shit, shit, shit…” I drop it in the box, loose, and grab my stomach and chest, wringing my shirt in revulsion.
Seconds away from hyperventilating, I glance between the filthy, tattered shirt and the braid laying on top of it and fall to my knees. Tucking the flaps over one another, I work quickly to close the box and grab my bag, zipping it up and throwing it over my shoulder. Grasping the box, I take one last look around the room.
Suddenly, I hear the door in the laundry room open and I freeze, drawing in a sharp breath when I see who steps through the door.
We stare at each other, eyes wide, mouths hanging open.
She’s dressed in Navy blue scrubs, her hospital badge hanging from a clip on her collar. She looks like she just came from work. She glances at the crawlspace hatch laying on the carpet and follows the trail of dust and crud into the open closet where the kitchen chair is still shoved halfway inside under the hole in the ceiling. She lingers on the crawlspace for a moment too long, growing more panicked as her eyes dart back to me in astonishment.
Sneaky ass bitch…
“Why are you here?”
Hannah’s eyes betray her, darting over my shoulder to the hallway, “Give me the box,” she finally says, brushing me off with an annoyed tone.
“It’s yours?” I glare at her, my mouth twitching with bubbling rage, “So, you know what’s inside?”
I can’t decide whether I believe her, but it doesn’t matter. Whether or not Hannah put these things in the box herself, she knows what’s inside and she’s willing to help conceal it.
“Just give me the box,” there’s a razor edge to her voice.
“Did Bowen send you over here?” I demand, “Did you know he attacked me and then locked me in that room? Did he tell you that?” My voice grows louder with each word, “Did you come over here because you do whatever he says? You sick fucking bitch. You desperate cunt!”
“You—” Hannah seethes, her jaw tightening, “you don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Her chin trembles with rage, “Who the hell are you? You’re not one of us. You’re a nobody!” She takes another step toward me, “You’re just another one of his sluts he plays house with. He’ll get tired of you just like all the others, and then he’ll throw you away and find another one!”
“Just not you,” I murmur, my eyes boring into hers.
The veins in her neck pop and, as much as she tries to hide it, I see the sharp pain in her eyes. Maybe I’d feel bad for anyone else, but not her. I don’t know what, but Hannah’s done something horrible. If she hadn’t, she wouldn’t want this box so bad and she wouldn’t be standing in my way, still following Bowen’s orders.
“Hannah, what did you do?” I take a deep breath, “Where is Emily?”
She takes a step toward me, her shoulders rigid and fists clenched, “Give me the box!” she barks, screwing up her face in rage.
This time, Hannah doesn’t wait for me to comply. She lunges forward and grabs for the sides of the box. I slam into her with my shoulder, trying to shove past her and make a run for the door, but she grabs my bicep, jerking me around and knocking the box from my grip. My bag slides from my shoulder and lands with a thud next to it.
Blind with rage, she comes at me again, grabbing a fistful of my hair and pulling me to the ground. Screaming and cursing her, I grab her wrist and start jerking her from side to side until we both tumble onto the floor. Flailing my legs, I try to keep moving so she can’t climb on top of me. She manages to grab onto me sideways and wrench my head back, raining down blows on my shoulders as I try to cover my head. Taking a chance, I throw my elbow back and catch her in the jaw.
She lets out a scream, and as soon as I feel her fingers loosen, I pull my head away and roll over, swinging my leg over her torso. I grab her hair and crouch over her, bringing my fist down over and over.
“You!” Punch “Fucking!” Punch “Bitch!” Punch “What kind of woman are you?” I scream at her, expelling all the air from my lungs as I rain down blows on her head and neck.
Get out. Now.
Climbing over Hannah, I grab the strap of my bag and hoist it over my shoulder. Suddenly, she grabs my ankle and I stumble forward, falling halfway back onto the floor. Kicking frantically, I scramble across the floor and tear through the kitchen out the garage door. As soon as I touch the driver’s side handle, the Tahoe unlocks and I throw both bags inside, terrified that I’ll see Hannah only feet behind me.
