Whispered Darkness by Jessica Sorensen Page 0,42

instant my fingers come into contact with the tattoo, I’m overwhelmed by images that I’m fairly certain are Beth’s. Images of her being locked up inside a room with cement walls. She’s crying and tired and scared. Sometimes, she’s tied up. Sometimes, she’s free but lying on the floor, too exhausted to move. And while all these images are terrifying, the worst is the final one I see.

Beth is in a fancy room decorated with expensive furniture. She’s dressed up in a glittering, gold dress, her hair and makeup done as she sits in a red chair, her eyes hollow, her expression numb. But she’s afraid—I can feel it. And that fear spikes as several people enter the room, in a row. Masquerade masks cover their faces; some wear suits while others sport ballgowns and cocktail dresses. All of them are carrying knives.

They start to close in on her, lifting their knives, and fear overflows from her eyes as she opens her mouth and screams—

I gasp, jerking back, tears pouring from my eyes.

Kingsley rushes over to me and wraps his arms around me, keeping me from falling.

“It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s okay,” he keeps saying as he cradles me in his arms.

I don’t get why he isn’t asking me what happened.

My voice wavers as I chatter, “I … I think I just saw Beth’s final moments.”

“I know,” he whispers as he sits us down in the dirt.

I grasp his shirt, trying to calm down. “How?”

“I think through you,” he chokes out, his entire body shaking.

It takes me a minute to process that he’s experiencing more than just my fear, that something else has him trembling with what can only be described as sheer panicking terror.

When I glance up at him, his face is tilted toward the sky and his eyes are shut, a portrait of misery.

I kneel up in front of him, and his hands drift to my sides. “What’s wrong?”

Shaking his head, he lifts his eyelids open. “The red chair Beth was sitting in …”

“What about it?”

His fingers tremble as he clutches on to me. “It’s … Or, well, was in my house, up until a few weeks ago.”

My heart thunders against my chest. “Where did it go?”

Another loud swallow. “It was in my dad’s office, but my mom hauled it off, along with a few other pieces of furniture. She said she was donating it.”

“Maybe she did,” I offer as an explanation that I’m not quite sure I believe myself. “Maybe whoever ended up with the chair used it for …” I trail off, shivering as Beth’s final memories overcome me.

“Maybe.” He doesn’t sound as if he believes me, though.

I’m not sure if I believe me.

“Maybe I can see more,” I mutter.

Then, drawing in a wobbly breath, I turn around and carefully touch the mark on Beth’s flesh again. But, unlike last time, I see nothing. Not even a spark of a memory.

“That’s weird,” I mutter as I pull back. “It’s not working—”

I startle as a raven lets out a caw, my gaze darting to the sky.

Above, an inky black-feathered winged bird circles us, just like in my dream.

I shudder, turning toward Kingsley, who has stopped shaking and is eyeing the bird. “We should get this done and get out of here. I have an unsettling feeling we’re being watched.”

He nods, his gaze lowering to mine. “I do, too.”

We collect our shovels and begin digging a hole to hide Beth’s body. It takes us a while, but we eventually make one deep enough. Then we lower her body into the hole.

As we drop the dirt upon her, covering up the evidence of someone breaking this girl, I make a vow to myself to find out who hurt her. And not just to save Kingsley and myself. No, I’m also doing it to get Beth justice and to make sure whoever hurt her ends up behind bars which, right now, looks an awful lot like Kingsley’s family.

I seal those thoughts into my own mind, or attempt to, forgetting that he can sense much of what I’m feeling.

“You’re probably right,” he unexpectedly says as he shovels the last of the dirt onto the fresh grave.

I lean against the shovel. “About what?”

“About someone in my family being involved.” He huffs out an exhale as he places the shovel into the wagon. “I don’t want to believe it, but if I’m looking at all the facts … that red chair … plus Foster being with Beth briefly that night …”

“And Beth’s ghost