Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 96402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 96402 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 482(@200wpm)___ 386(@250wpm)___ 321(@300wpm)
“Black letter?” Cairo sat up straight. “He’s been sending you black letters?”
“Yeah,” I replied, stilling at the intense look on his face. “Why?”
Cairo drifted off, staring through the trees. “Black letters come to those wise enough to untangle the prose,” he whispered. “Black letters come to men who remember who served them when. Black letters come with a price. Remember what you owe. Bow to the sacrifice.”
A chill gripped my spine. “Cairo, what was that? Why did you say that?”
“Not me,” he muttered, eyes glazing. “It’s something my father used to say.”
“Your father?” Hatred rose in me as it always did at the mention of Jack Sharpe. “The sheriff?”
“When he was drunk, I’d hear him mumbling it to himself. I asked him once what it meant and he said it was an old Bedlam nursery rhyme.”
“A nursery rhyme? What kind of nursery rhyme tells children to worship a sacrifice?”
“The same kind that has children singing about the plague and babies in cradles falling out of trees,” he said. “Most rhymes are fucked up, Rain, but they all mean something. I figured that one had to do with the revolt and haven’t thought about it since,” he said, focusing on me. “But you’re saying that’s what Cavendish and his friend have been sending you. Black letters.”
I nodded slowly, thinking over the words. “Yes. And it’s like the rhyme. Or it was with Cavendish. He gave me a riddle, forcing me to untangle the prose. And what else did it say? Men that remember who served them when. Who served who? Why have I never heard this before?”
Cairo guided my hands back to the cut. “We didn’t exactly sing it every morning during preschool carpet time. It’s just something he used to say. The real question is, are these fucks copying the rhyme, and why? Why did Cavendish choose you, Rain? The truth,” he said to my headshake.
“I don’t know. I never knew,” I said. “I asked and he rambled like a nutcase, saying something about my ancestors abandoning the fight but this time I wouldn’t. They both acted like they knew me.”
“Did you know Cavendish?”
“I never even spoke to the fucking man. That day you picked us up outside his house was the first we met face-to-face.”
“Do they think you’re someone else? Or are they making you pay for someone else?”
I finished cleaning him and pressed the bandage to his skin. It was soaked through in seconds. Cairo needed a real doctor and stitches.
“They mentioned your ancestors. What if this was never really about you?” Cairo gripped my hand, stopping me reaching for another bandage. “You’d be surprised how many of us in this town are paying penance for our fathers’ sins.”
“Maybe I am,” I said softly. “But it’s not my father, or his mother, or his mother’s mother who is receiving these letters. It’s not them who got their friend killed. It’s me. Whatever started this, it’s about me now.”
“Who was she?” Cairo was still holding my hand. I slid up his palm, linking fingers as slick with his blood as mine.
“Bella was the night manager at the motel. She was sweet, Cairo. She didn’t deserve this. It’s all my fault,” I said so softly the wind took my confession.
“Why her? Did you get another riddle? You didn’t kill him in time.”
“It wasn’t him I didn’t kill. He ordered me to choose an innocent person at random and make their death trending news on Dante’s show. So I told him that I killed—”
“—Axel Verlice.” Cairo sat up straight. “And he killed her anyway?”
“He knew I tricked him.”
His brows snapped together. “That’s not possible. The only people who know who truly killed Verlice are the six of us.”
“That’s not true,” I said, wiping my face. “There’s also the person on the other end of the phone who told the Bedlam Boys to kill Axel Verlice.”
Cairo’s expression wiped blank. “You don’t know anything about that person, and you’re going to forget they exist. Forget them,” he barked when I opened my mouth. “They didn’t do this anyway. Trust me, they have nothing to gain by torturing you and murdering night managers. This is something else.”
“Then, how did the Letter Man know?”
“Verlice’s place was trashed and the man’s skull was beaten in with a pool cue. Possibly, they found out the details of his death and figured you didn’t jump from careful plans and containers in the sand to Arsenio,” he said simply. “Whoever Cavendish and his friend really are, they’re not stupid, or we would’ve found them out a long time ago.”
I nodded, sinking down onto the bed. “You’re right. The arrow in the heart was me, but they must have figured out the rest was someone else. I thought I was being clever, and Bella died for it. What do I do, C-Cairo?” The words stuck in my throat. “How do I tell her father what I’ve done?”