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The next day at school, everyone was talking about the giant, bloody mess that had been left outside Felix Grant's house.

Felix had awoken that day to hear his mother screaming at the bloody message written across the front side of her house. The assumed killer had left pig guts hanging from her porch, like creepy Christmas lights. Its head was plastered onto the door like a wreath, and its ears hung like stockings. All in all, the scene was graphically and disturbingly resembling a bright Christmas day, and it didn't take long for all of Lakewood to know about it.

"Poor Felix," Emma muttered as walked through the hall, mobs of students walking with their eyes glued to their phones.

"Is he at school today?"

"I don't think so," she answered, looking down as we passed his locker.

"Hey, did you guys hear?" Eli's voice rang out from behind us as he reached us both.

"About Felix?"

"Yeah, it sucks," he answered me, fidgeting with the straps of his backpack. "Why do you think the Lakewood Slasher targeted him?"

"I don't know, to send a message?" I tried, doing my best to keep my voice steady. When I had arrived home the previous night, drenched in blood from the gory scene I had managed to pull off, there was a box on my bed. It wasn't the box my mom had brought out, but a Christmas-themed box filled with items from the original box we had.

It didn't have everything, but it had enough to make me realize that the killer had kept his promise.

I knew deep in my heart that what I'd done was wrong, but it didn't hit me just how messed up everything had been until after school, when I went to visit his house. Most of the pig had been taken down, but the blood stains were still faintly there, ghosting on the white paint of the two-story house.

Felix's mom opened the door and nearly screamed at me, paranoia clear in her eyes.

"I just want to see Felix," I rebutted when she tried to kick me out. "I'm just here for support. What-"

Gulping, I tried to rethink my words before saying, "What happened to your family is a tragedy. Whoever did this is a monster."

"Mom?"

Felix's golden brown hair poked out, his long legs walking down the stairs until he was fully visible. He paused once he saw me, looking from his mom over to me, then back to his mom. "What's going on?"

-

"I'm sorry," I told him once we had made it to his room. He was sitting on the desktop chair, slightly twisting back and forth as he stared out the window, his fingers covering his mouth and chin.

"About what?" he murmured out. I awkwardly shifted on the edge of his bed, trying to think up something - anything to make him feel better.

To make myself feel better.

"About what the killer did. That was - that was really fucked up."

Felix's eyes stood calm through his thick framed glasses. His blue-and-black flannel hung loosely on his body, wrinkled and a little washed out. His entire room was dark except for the blinds that he'd opened up just enough to look out into the world without the world seeing him.

"Yeah, it was." He stood quiet again, thinking deeply about something. The room felt tense, cold. I was afraid to say anything, but luckily for both of us he continued to talk.

"It really isn't what everyone thinks, you know."

"What do you mean?"

He sighed out, as if he were exhausted. Which, in reality, he probably was.

"About eight years ago," he started, still staring out the window, "my brother and I woke up on Christmas morning and rushed downstairs to see the presents. It was nice outside, there was not too much snow or anything. It was...peaceful.

"Our mom left that evening, like she did almost every week. Except this time, instead of telling us she was going for a run like she usually did, she said she was off to 'fix some things'. At least that's what she told us. She came back around one in the morning."

After a pause, Felix opened his mouth to speak again, the words flowing smoothly through his voice as if this were something he'd gotten used to coping with.

"She was cheating on my dad," he said, so calmly and matter-of-factly that I was taken aback for a second. "She never mentioned anything, but after that night, the weekly trips stopped. I always knew, you know? I always had a feeling. But she never told us, and my dad never found out."

"So," I murmured out after a couple seconds of silence, "how did you know? I mean, for sure?"

Felix halted for a second, frowning a bit before saying with genuine curiosity, "I got an anonymous note from someone during the first week of my Freshman year. I never knew who it was from."

"What did the note say?"

"It was the texts my mom used to send and receive to the person she was cheating on my dad with. The name of the guy was scratched out, but it's not like I wanted to know anyways."

I nodded simply, watching as he frowned some more at the window before turning the chair around to face me. "The message is what throws me off."

"Why?"

"Because, my mom told us that to only my brother and I. How would the slasher know what she told us eight years ago?"

That is when the atrocity of it all hit me. Because Felix was right; how on earth could the killer know that?

I walked home that night, wondering why the hell the slasher would have me write that. Wondering if I was trusting the right people. Wondering if I had just encountered the Lakewood Slasher in his own house. Because the words across the front side of Felix's house read:

Have you fixed things yet?

So how, exactly, would anyone other than them three know what their mom had said?

-

I'M SO EXCITED AGHHHHH

With this knowledge, who do you guys suspect to be the Lakewood Slasher?

HINT: They live in Lakewood.

I reaaalllyyyy want to give you guys a real hint, but it would ruin the whole mysterious factor of it all, so y'all get nothing sorry

But thank you for reading!!! I appreciate you all sooo much!

Much love,

- LiddoLove

P.S. Sorry for the shorter-than-usual chapter, but I promise some huge things are coming soon!

P.P.S. Also please excuse any errors, I'm terrible at double checking and just really wanted to upload

Drop Dead Gorgeous 〰 Jake FitzgeraldWhere stories live. Discover now