For the next hour, Daya and I finish off the bottle of Merlot and I’m pleasantly buzzed. I also decide that I’m going to have to be very careful with drinking from now on. It feels a little too nice, and I refuse to use it as a crutch.
I’d rather work through my trauma the healthy way. You know—by murdering Claire with my bare hands.
We’re in the middle of laughing over a stupid video someone posted on social media when the front door bangs open, and two voices are snapping at each other.
One is Zade’s. The other is a girl’s.
Sage and caramel eyes meet in a collision of confusion, and what the fuck.
With a slight wobble, I stand up and make my way toward the front door. And then turn right back around, rushing for my friend when I see who Zade brought home.
“Daya, there’s a crazy chick in the house. Run.”
“What?” she asks, alarm in her tone.
“Don’t call me crazy!” the girl screeches from the front, and I grimace. I’ve never had the pleasure of meeting her, and I was okay with living life without that pleasure.
Shoulders hiked up to my ears, I slowly pivot and watch Zade stalk toward me, appearing exhausted and annoyed. Behind him is the murderous girl who lurked behind the walls in Satan’s Affair.
Sibel.
“Baby, we have a guest.”
Glancing at the girl, I shift uncomfortably, unsure of how the fuck to respond.
Clearing my throat, I settle with, “I can see that.”
Sibel is staring at Daya and me with a broad smile on her face. The last time I saw her, she was dressed as a doll with makeup that made it appear like her porcelain face was fissured.
While her chocolate brown hair is still piled high in pigtails, her face is bare of doll makeup. She would be beautiful if the unhinged look in her eyes wasn’t so distracting. She looks exactly how she did on the TV after she was apprehended for murdering four politicians.
With Zade.
Except he was never caught for those murders.
“Ladies, this is Sibby,” Zade introduces tiredly, waving a hand at her before coming over to my side. I tense as he nears, splitting my attention between watching the space between Zade and me close while keeping an eye on the crazy girl.
The four men she murdered doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of the number of people she’s killed. For five years, she stayed in that haunted fair and went on a spree. Whoever she deemed as evil was killed in very gruesome ways.
I’ve had enough experience with murderous girls, and I really, really don’t want any more.
She waves her hand animatedly at us, excitement twinkling in her brown eyes. Then she turns them to my house, slowly taking in Parsons Manor.
“Wow,” she breathes. “It’s creepy in here. This is so perfect.” Her head whips back to me, and I’m not proud of the not-so-subtle flinch. “I hope you don’t mind my henchmen and me staying for a bit,” she says.
“There’s more?” I ask Zade, turning to him with pinched brows. He sighs.
“Some people say they’re not real, but they are,” Sibel explains, not looking the least bit ashamed of admitting she sees people that others can’t see.
Zade meets my stare, a grin on his face.
“Sibby is crazy,” he says.
She stomps her foot, shooting a glare at him. “I’m not crazy, Zade. Just because you can’t see what I see, doesn’t mean I’m the weird one.”
I cock my head, completely baffled at how she’s even here. Last I heard, she was locked up in a psych ward awaiting trial.
“She escaped,” Zade supplies, noting the confusion on my face.
“Oh,” I say, because I have no idea what the hell else to say.
“That’s… good?” Daya chips in, sounding wholly unsure if that is actually good.
Zade sighs for the millionth time. “Sibby is on the Most Wanted list. She took matters into her own hands—” Zade pauses to send a scathing look her way— “and broke out of the psych ward. Considering she took the fall for something we both did, I felt that it was only fair I gave her a place to stay. Temporarily.”
She nods once, as if Zade summed up her entire life story perfectly.
“I’m going to take her back to my place. I’m not expecting you to let her stay here—”
“But it’s so creepy here!” she exclaims, as if that’s a good reason to stay. And well… it kind of is.
“—so, I’ll be dropping her off soon. I just wanted you to properly meet her since I’m…” he trails off, glancing at her. “Stuck with her,” he decides, turning to look back at me. “I’m most definitely stuck with her.”