Vicious Memories

Chapter 66

Arun found the fourth dead body in the village clearing with a note was pinned to its lifeless chest.

"Ollie. Ollie, wake up."

Alice's face hovered a few inches above mine, the first thing to greet me as I opened my eyes. Behind her, light crept across the sky, stretching pastel fingers westward. A dozen birds sang brightly in the distance.

"I'm up, I'm up."

Alice's hair hung in short ropes and vines, nearly brushing my face. Her dark eyes seemed worried.

"No. Up. Come on." Alice's hair hung in short ropes and vines, swinging back and forth before her worried eyes. "Arun found a body. It's Perry."

All the grim emotions from the previous night rushed back like a retaliatory slap. It had been less than forty-eight hours since the last murder; a double shift of guards had patrolled the village last night. It should have been safe. Nobody else was supposed to die.

"How?"

"Cut throat while finishing his patrol," Alice said robotically. "You'll have to see for yourself."

"Why was he alone?"

"His shift ended two hours ago. Tana took his place and he headed back to the caves. They'd just added more wood to the bonfire so nobody bothered to check the clearing till morning."

I tried to wipe the sleep off my face, but it wouldn't go. If I woke up fully I would have to consider the implications of what was happening. I would have to think about how catching Felix hadn't solved anything. I would have to think about how he wasn't working alone. I would have to think about how I had been right, but that my being right also meant that I had failed, and that someone had died because of it.

"We did a quick examination of the body and I came to get you right after."

Something in Alice's tone and stance made me bristle. Box barked quietly, questioning, and put one paw on Alice's leg.

"What else?" I asked.

Alice looked first at Box, then away. She fidgeted with her hair, first pulling it loose, then tucking it back behind her ears again. When she finally turned back to me, her lips had turned down at the corners.

"They left a note."

I read the message three times, frozen, trying to understand the words.

It was difficult. The message was aimed at me. The world felt like it was tilting dangerously, off its axis, spinning the wrong way so violently that I would soon be shaken off the edge.

Whoever wrote the note had used large, blocky letters. Black pen. No personalization. It had been crafted deliberately, preserving the anonymity of its author. I turned it over in my hands, the paper as thick as velvet, seemingly torn from a notebook. It had been crumpled several times, torn again into a small strip, then pressed smooth. Enough people had access to little scraps of paper like this that anyone could have written it.

Several sets of eyes burned holes in the back of my head. Perry's body lay at my feet, covered by a white cloth. His abnormally large body seemed to make the fabric stretch on for miles.

I stepped away from the body and twenty faces turned in my direction.

Arun scrutinized me with sharp eyes. Alice looked more worried than ever, deep lines spinning like spiderwebs from the corners of her mouth.

The note in my hand shook slightly as I held it up.

"I'll leave," I said numbly.

The two words skipped tonelessly across the clearing, listless birds without the strength to truly fly. For a few moments they rode through the air on the back of the wind, gliding in gentle circles. Eventually, though, they fell to the ground, as all things do.