Sanity: The Saw Chronicles [C]

Chapter 28 | The Book

I grabbed the handle of Ricky's office, finding it to be locked. Godfuckingdamnit, Ricky. I can't blame him for locking it while he was gone. If it were me, I wouldn't want a bunch of psychopaths fishing around in my things. How the fuck am I supposed to get that book now? Out of frustration I cussed and kicked the door.

"Can I help you?" A southern voice greeted me. One that I knew belonged to our - How'd Manson put it? - Babysitter. Wait, Devin, be smart about this. You can use this to your advantage.

Some of my hair had fallen out of my buns. I brushed it aside as I looked up at him sweetly, "Yes, actually. I was trying to get a few books to read out of Ricky's office, but it's locked. Would you mind?" I gestured towards the door.

He didn't really trust me but at the end of the day, I was still Ricky's wife. Plus, I doubt he wanted this to get ugly. I can be a bitch when I don't get my way. Garth sighed a "sure" and pulled his keycard out of his waistband.

I batted my eyelashes a little, "Thank you so much."

"Make it quick." He warned me.

Oh, what's he going to do? Drag me out if I don't pick a book fast enough? Being that Ricky loved to read whenever he could, his office was covered in books. I scanned my eyes over the titles, seeing the author's name in here a few times. Ricky must collect his work. Finally I found the one Ryan had suggested; The Big Sleep. I grabbed that one, and since Ryan will probably finish the book he's on pretty quickly, I picked up a few for him.

I walked out, past Garth, and smiled at him like the nut job I am. I've been in a bit of a Harley Quinn type of mood lately. That would make Kuza my Joker and he's certainly crazy enough for that. He doesn't hit me though, unless I want him to. Hehe. Maybe later today I'll go visit him. We'll see how everything goes.

His room was where I decided to stay. It felt more comfortable than being in Ricky and I's room. The flower petals on the floor were starting to wilt slightly. It was like a scene frozen in time. Maybe, if I'm sweet on Ricky, I can convince him to let me see some security footage from that day. I just want to see the last time Kuza was happy because I know he won't be when I go to see him. I'm hoping there's got to be something really important in this book.

I striped out of my clothes, slipping into one of Mike's hoodies. He always wore them big, which made it especially big on me. Fuck, it smelled like him. I miss him so damn much. Part of me knew whatever Ryan needed from me was much more important. It didn't make it any easier to know Kuza was banging his head against a padded wall right about now. My poor baby. I lit a few candles around the room but not all of them. Whenever he does get out, I want to be able to finally have that night he was planning for us.

As I sat on his bed, I cautiously opened that book. Ryan better not turn this into some Nancy Drew level shit of be having to get a black light or something. He wouldn't straight out put a secret right on the page but he wouldn't make it impossible. I flipped through fairly quickly, not seeing much on the first page other than some old pen marks... Back the fuck up. At first they just looked like pen marks. There was on about every few pages and each was under a letter. It was a code of some sort. I knew he wouldn't make it that easy to figure out.

There's security cameras in our rooms. That was something that I knew and expected. Whomever watches them has gotten a Hell of a show a few times. I knew where the camera they told us about was but that's not to say there couldn't be another. There was no way I could write this down to figure out what the magic little code was. At least I couldn't write it with paper and pen. They think I'm crazy anyways. They're not going to give a shit if I take a blade to my skin.

Lucky me, Kuza was just as much of a masochist as he was a sadist. His room was littered with instruments of harm. I stepped off his bed, carefully stepping around the floor until I got over to his stereo. Let's seem what my Devil has in his collection of CDs. Hm... Cradle of Filth, Ghost BC, Slipknot, Rob Zombie, Die Antwoord, ooh Mindless Self Indulgence. It's been awhile since I've heard them. It'd be better if I had Kuza hear to fuck me to the beat but what can I do?

He had little razor blades cluttered across the top of his stereo. They started to bounce about when I hit play. I grabbed one and slipped it between my teeth. Then I jumped back on the bed and grabbed the book. I was trying to act more crazy than usual so they'd write my behavior off as me not playing with a full deck.

The first two letters I found underlined were V and M. They were Vinny's initials, or at least that's what I'm guessing. The next three letters were T, W, O. It spelled out two. I remembered what Ryan said at breakfast about a week ago. He was telling us about the whole sanity ranking thing and he said Vinny was only a two.

Holy shit, that crazy son of a bitch. I mean that in a loving way because Ryan is one smart bastard. He had written a code in this book that smelled out what number they'd given everyone. I plucked the blade from between my teeth and scratched into my leg. Putting as small as I could without it being too hard to read, I wrote Vinny's initials and two lines next to it. The next I found was the letters JV; Jeremy's initials. The next few letters spelled out a four. Like the last, I carved it into my leg.

This continued on for the next hour. Eventually I even had to get up to put a new CD in. Cutting your legs gets more difficult the closer you get to your body because it starts to get more sensitive. That's part of the reason I tried to keep it small. I could read it but hopefully no one else could. It would be upside down to anyone other than me anyways. I'll cover it up. This went in the order of least to greatest. Manson and I were both all the way at a nine. That's no surprise. What did shock me was who were the last two names ranked at a ten; Twiggy and Angelo.

That's got to be wrong. I mean, Twiggy is crazy but he's a fucking schizophrenic. He barely can keep himself together. Angelo is the complete opposite. He's very calm and he's killed the least out of all of us. Up until Nevada, he hadn't even killed anyone. Someone must've fucked that up. It's hard to think that though, because everything else was right about where it should be. Maybe they know something about Twiggy and Angelo that we don't. By the time I was done, it read like this:

Vinny - Two
Jeremy - Four
Ashley - Five
Nikki - Five
Ryan- Five
Ryan-Ashley - Six
Balz - Six
Ricky - Seven
Chris - Seven
Kuza - Eight
Manson - Nine
Devin - Nine
Twiggy - Ten
Angelo - Ten

It was interesting that they included Ricky but not Reese. He was actually a killer whereas she was just an agent. They didn't have Rayne in there either, telling me these were pretty recent. Aside from the most fucked up part, about Twiggy and Angelo being listed the most insane, it was weird I was ahead of Kuza. He's easily more vicious than me. I love him but I'm not afraid to admit if there was anyone that could kill me, it'd be him. Like I said, those who watch us must know something that we don't.

I got a little blood on Kuza's sheets. I'll wash them before he gets out but I doubt he'd give a shit anyways. Blood ends up on his sheets in other ways. I turned off the radio and let myself fall into his red silk sheets. It'd been a long day and now I've got plenty to keep me awake. It was so cold without his arms around me. When did this all have to get so fucking complicated? I closed my eyes, trying to imagine the pillow I wrapped my legs around was him. He'll be back eventually but right now, it feels like the end of the world.