The Devil In Disguise

CHAPTER 49: The Community Search Party

After the week in the pit, I had finally put on a few kilograms. It was the fourth week since I'd been taken now, and Lazarus had left me alone, just giving me food and then leaving so I'd regain my health before he killed me. But today, he'd come in with his knife, looking murderous, his face twisted into the scariest expression I'd ever seen. He had put the knife to my throat, pressing the blade against it so that beads of blood appeared in a line where the blade made contact, reopening the scar from when he did that a week ago, and shouted at me in a rage. His words so loud and wrathful that they were unintelligible to my ears. After he finally processed my terrified expression, he'd stopped talking and instead said in a deadly quiet tone,

"What did you tell the police about me?"

After hesitating, trying to think about what I would say, he'd pressed the blade harder to my throat, making me cry out in pain, and roared, "TELL ME!"

"J-Just that you're after me! You know what the police know, I already told you..." I stuttered rapidly, getting out my words before he could interrupt. His eyes narrowed suspiciously, and he suddenly took the knife away from my throat. I gasped, my hands wrapped around the shallow but painful cut, and looked back up at him through my eyelashes.

"Why?" I dared to ask, dreading the answer — if he even chose to answer me. After taking his polaroid camera out and snapping a picture of my new injury, Lazarus finally said,

"The police are searching these woods again."

My eyes widened and I resisted the billions of possibilities running through my head because the probabilities of any of them actually happening were very low.

"What?" I breathed.

Lazarus' mouth twisted up in a feral snarl again, his eyes glowing with loathing.

"They're searching every square inch again, and your fucking community is helping them. What do they think this is, a picnic? They could ruin all my fucking effort..."

I gulped, and some thoughts ran through my head.

What if it was my friends who made the police do this? Did they hear me shout when they searched, and wanted the police to check it out just to make sure? It was possible. But what if —

A shrill ringtone interrupted the silence in which Lazarus was staring at me for any reaction that gave him information. His eyebrows twitching in irritation, his hand whisked his phone out of his pocket, taking out a cigarette with it. Balancing his phone precariously on his shoulder and tilting his head to it so that he could hear what the caller was saying, he swiftly lit his cigarette and put the lighter away, taking his phone in that hand afterwards and puffing the cigarette, all the while listening to whoever was speaking on the other side.

I had to admire his grace; it was ethereal, almost.

I stayed glued to the spot as Lazarus nodded, responding with short words occasionally. Within one minute, the call was over.

I figured it must have been his contact on the inside; the inside of the police force, that is. Someone in the police itself was helping a murderer — they'd probably been bribed. There was no other way that Lazarus could obtain all of this information so quickly.

"Guess who nagged the police so much that they finally agreed to come here again?" Lazarus said delicately, a small smile on his face, inhaling smoke with an addictive desperation. But I knew the smile wasn't a smile, it was a threat. It was a plan. It was a sign that someone was going to die soon.

A/N

THEY PULLED THROUGH! Xander knew his instincts were right... but will this turn out for the better or for the worse?

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OKAY HOPE YOU ENJOYED SEE YOU SOON

—deainlustris