Switch Blade Romance

The Collected

Earlier that same day, Rachel Eddison and Lacey Woodly trudged back to their hotel room, stomachs full of IHOP pancakes that sat like lead now, the sweetness already turning sour in memory. They'd eaten with Sheriff John Henry and Juanita Anthony, the four of them clustered around a sticky booth like survivors trading war stories over bad coffee. Rachel had wanted to call Andrew down—poor kid could use some normalcy, some syrup-drenched distraction—but John had shaken his head, gentle but firm. "Let him be with his folks for a while. Boy's been through hell. Give him a morning without questions."
We've all been through hell, Rachel had thought, the words bitter on the back of her tongue. She hadn't said them out loud. No point.
When she'd first seen Andrew in that hospital bed after they pulled him out of Sneedsville, something inside her had cracked open and bled. He looked... used up. The stocky frame she'd always teased him about, the tall solidity that had made her feel safe just standing next to him—gone. Whittled down to bone and shadow. Forty, maybe fifty pounds vanished like they'd been carved off with a dull knife. The skin under his eyes sagged in dark half-moons, lips drooped at the corners like they'd forgotten how to smile, and the forehead wrinkles looked etched by acid. He was twenty-something going on sixty. She supposed she looked the same—tired, older, the way people get when the world keeps taking bites and never spits anything back.
Lacey too. They all carried it now, that weary, hollow-eyed look of people who'd stared too long into the same dark well.
But Grady was dead. Or as good as. No body yet, sure, but the coroner had been blunt: that much blood matching his type meant blackout at best, grave at worst. Sooner or later, the woods or the river would cough him up. Rachel told herself she could rest easier now. She almost believed it.
In the room, Lacey was already talking about running down to the business center to email a professor. "Forgot my laptop back in Annabelle. You wanna come?"
"Nah," Rachel said. "Shower. Nap. I need to sleep for about a year."
Lacey smiled, soft and understanding. "I'll be quiet when I come back. Promise."
"Thanks, Lace."
Lacey grabbed her phone and keycard, slipped out. The door—old, cheap, half-broken—dragged shut with agonizing slowness, the way hotel doors do when the manager keeps meaning to call maintenance and never quite gets around to it.
A shadow moved in the corridor.
Quick. Purposeful.
The same shadow that would, hours later, make Helen Grant scream once before taking her and her daughter.
A hand—pale, streaked with drying mud—shot out and caught the door an inch from latching. It eased open again, silent as breath, and Charles Grady stepped inside.
Rachel was already in the bathroom. Water hissed from the showerhead like distant rain. Steam curled under the door crack where the light spilled out yellow and warm. She was peeling off her clothes, back turned to the door, to the room, to the thing that had just walked in from the hallway like it belonged there. Oblivious. Naked. Vulnerable in the way only a person who thinks the monster is dead can be.
Grady stood in the dim room for a long moment, letting his eyes adjust. The TV was off. Curtains drawn against the afternoon sun. The place smelled of cheap shampoo and yesterday's takeout. He moved deeper—past the dresser, past the silent television—silent as a man who has practiced silence until it became part of him.
He stopped beside the bathroom door. Held his breath.
Inside, Rachel hummed something tuneless, soapy hands moving over skin. Water drummed steady against tile.
She stepped out eventually, dripping, reaching for a towel. Wrapped it around herself, wiped fog from the mirror. Frowned at her reflection—too pale, too thin, eyes too big.
"Lacey? You forget something?"
No answer.
She frowned deeper, bent for her clothes. Froze.
Two muddy footprints on the tile just inside the door. Fresh. Deep. The kind that say someone stood here and watched.
Rachel's heart kicked hard once. She straightened slowly. Okay. Play it cool. Close the door. Lock it. Scream if you have to.
She reached for the knob.
The door was yanked out of her hand so hard it banged against the wall.
Rachel screamed.
Charles Grady filled the doorway. He looked like something the river had tried to drown and given up on. Flannel shirt torn along one side, crusted black with mud and older blood. Jeans stiff with the same filth. Hair matted. Eyes bright with the kind of calm that lives in places light never reaches.
"Well, Ms. Eddison," he said, voice low and almost amused. "I was gonna wait till you were dressed, but you were taking your sweet time. Figured I'd say hello this way. Hope you don't mind the intrusion."
Rachel's mouth worked. "You're... you're dead. How—?"
"Not yet." He touched the ragged tear in his shirt, over the place where Andrew had tried to gut him. "Boyfriend gave it a hell of a try, though. Almost succeeded. Almost."
She looked for a weapon. Nothing. Her gun was in the rental car. Useless. She lunged anyway—nails out, feet kicking, pure animal fury.
She raked him good across the forearm. He howled, more surprised than hurt.
"You fucking pig bitch—that hurt!"
His hand closed around her throat. Slammed her head back against the tile. Once. Hard.
The world went white at the edges, then gray, then nothing. Rachel slid down the wall, legs folding under her like wet paper.
Twenty minutes later, Lacey came back.
The room was dark except for a thin gold slice of sunlight sneaking between the curtains. She eased the door shut—quiet, careful—didn't want to wake Rachel. She saw the shape on the far bed, curled on its side, facing the wall. Breathing slow. Sleeping.
Lacey smiled a little. Good. The girl needed it.
She crossed toward the bathroom.
Stopped.
Drops of blood on the carpet. Small, dark, leading from under the bathroom door like a trail of spilled ink.
Lacey frowned. "Rachel? Did you cut yourself shaving or...?"
No answer.
She took another step. "Rachel? You okay? I'm just gonna check—"
A blur erupted from the bed closest to the door.
"If you wake the baby, little sister," the voice said, soft and smiling, "you're gonna get a spanking."
Charles Grady rose up like a bad dream given legs. Mud still clung to him. The smile was the same one he'd worn in every photograph the papers loved to run: ordinary, almost friendly.
Lacey screamed.
The sound didn't make it far. The door was already closed.
And in the hallway outside, the broken latch finally clicked shut, slow and final, the way things lock when no one is ever coming back out.