Screaming Schemes - Tyler Locke

Eden Gets Attacked

Panic threads through Charlotte when the front desk woman says that Erin’s already had a visitor - a pretty young woman. But when they get into the room, there’s no one inside except for Erin in her wheelchair.

Charlotte still doesn’t let herself relax. She can barely hear Kinsey trying to talk to Erin whose eyes haven’t left the redhead. Instead of listening to Kinsey tell Erin about who they are, the screams are getting louder with each step she takes toward the older woman. “Kins,” Charlotte mutters. The blonde looks at her. Erin’s eyes are glassy as they look her over and over. “She’s not just not responding. Something’s wrong.”

“What do you mean?” Kinsey asks.

“I-” Charlotte tries to think of how to explain what she feels when Erin’s gaze shifts to Kinsey as she gets up suddenly.

“Dodge.”

Both girls stare at Erin.

Kinsey glances between the woman and Charlotte. “Is she here?” Erin slowly - and barely - nods to the photo in the blonde’s hands. “This?”

The word comes stuttering out of Erin’s mouth again when Kinsey’s finger points to one of the boys in the picture. “Dodge.”

“That’s Lucas,” Kinsey says.

“Dodge,” Erin stammers.

“Dad’s best friend.”

“Dodge.” Erin shakes her head. “Dodge.”

Charlotte realizes before Kinsey. “Dodge… is Lucas.”

Erin sits back, a small smile on her face. “Dodge.”

Kinsey’s eyes are wide when she focuses on Charlotte again. The redhead breathes out and says, “Well, we came here for information. That seems pretty informative.” The blonde doesn’t even crack a smile at her joke.

.

The new information is running through Charlotte’s head but she knows she needs to wait for Kinsey before she tells Tyler what they learned. Even when his arms come around her waist, she simply leans into him.

His lips brush against the back of her neck. “What’s wrong?”

“Just thinking,” she answers, her voice low as she closes her eyes, unable to stop the shutter that wants to work through her body. His presence is enough to keep the voices at bay but the fact that they’re even trying to catch her attention means someone’s going to die. At first she thinks about the keys around his neck but moves that thought out of her head: this is different.

He presses a kiss to the side of her neck and drops his head so his forehead is against her shoulder. “I should probably go pick up in there,” he mumbles.

The two of them walk into the study. As they move toward the room, she notices the voices getting louder - like a reminder of a death that’s already happened. She frowns at the dust on the ground, quickly realizing the dust is their dad’s ashes when she gets closer and the voices get louder. “There’s something in there,” she tells him.

He frowns but nods. “I see it.”

Kinsey comes into the room as he kneels down. “Ty. When Char and I visited Erin today, she pointed to a picture of Lucas… she called him Dodge.” The redhead has a feeling that this information isn’t really soaking into Tyler at the moment as he reaches for the metal key in his dad’s ashes. “Is that even possible? Could they be the same person?”

The voices become quiet again when he picks up the key.

Charlotte and Kinsey join him. This is what Dodge had been looking for in Erin’s head. This is what started everything. And they had found it by accident.