Layla
My scream penetrates the air as I stumble away from the table. I clasp my hands over my mouth, blood thrumming in my ears as my back hits the counter, and I can no longer retreat away from the box.
The smell of it… God, I can barely stand it. I gag, whirling to face the wall. Footsteps thunder in the hallway, and I turn to find Dalton skidding to a stop, his hands and shirt smeared with paint. “Layla?”
His eyes leave my face and snap to the box. He straightens, closing his eyes, and slowly nods to himself as he takes a deep breath and stalks toward the table.
“Stop!” I shout, but it’s too late. He calmly closes the lid and tucks it under his arm before walking out the back door. “Dalton!”
“Stay inside, Layla!”
I reach the screen door and push it open just as he starts walking across the back yard toward the tree line. “Where are you…. What are you doing!?”
He whirls around with the box, his eyes narrowed on mine. “I said stay inside!”
I ignore his sharp tone and rush down the steps, chasing after him as he continues across the grass. “Dalton, stop! We have to call the police!”
“We’re not calling the police. We’re not doing shit, Layla. Go inside, right now.” He growls the last two words, his tone pinched and deathly serious.
I shake my head, pointing to the box. “There’s a fucking tongue in that box, Dalton!”
“I saw it,” he says through gritted teeth.
“And a rose, and my–my name written in blood.” I gag again. Normally, I have a stomach of steel thanks to my years of nursing, but this? “You haven’t been leaving me roses, have you? It’s not you. It wasn’t you.” I close my eyes and shake my head, my mind curling in on itself as I pull every memory of the last few weeks to the forefront. The roses, that creeping feeling of being watched, the man walking through the marsh the day I thought I was following Dalton…. “I’m being stalked, Dalton. I need to call the police!”
He reaches for me, but I flinch away. “Layla, look at me.”
I turn to the house, but he grabs my arm. “Whose tongue is it?”
His eyes undergo a great change. He looks almost guilty, and then the pieces start falling into place.
“Oh, my God,” I whisper, stepping out of his grasp. “Oh, my God, Dalton. You didn’t!” I look at the box still propped under his arm and fight the urge to scream.
“Didn’t what, Layla?”
“Whose tongue is that?” I ask again with more force.
“I don’t know,” he says sharply. “I’m going to get rid of it.”
“The police–”
“Will not help you,” he finishes for me, taking a single short step in my direction. “Don’t bother.”
“Why?”
“You know about the murders that took place here now. I heard you talking to Robert Wilson about it. But you don’t know the half of it, Angel. This place is built from flesh and bones, from blood. The police won’t touch this place. The police won’t do anything about this; they won’t help you. If anything, they’ll turn this against you and have you locked up for insanity like every other woman who was unlucky enough to have ended up here!”
There’s so much raw emotion in his voice. I stand completely still, shocked into silence. Dalton just stares at me, shaking his head.
“Do you realize how much danger you’ve been in since you came here?”
“What are you trying to say?”
He opens his mouth to reply but then shuts it again, his eyes leaving my face and narrowing on the back porch just as a car door slams. “It’s-it’s just Bailey–”
“Go back inside,” he growls, “right now. Please, Layla, just listen to me for fucking once in your life!”
“Okay,” I choke out just as Bailey’s voice lifts through the air, calling out my name. I turn to the porch as she walks out, but then I turn back to Dalton.
He’s gone, likely having disappeared into the tangled vine-coated tree line just a few steps away. I stare into the murky shadows of the swamp, wondering how the hell he moved so fast and out of sight, but then Bailey calls out my name again, asking, “What are you doing out here?”
“Getting some fresh air,” I say, praying my words are calm and steady as I hug myself and turn toward her, walking briskly across the yard. I hope she didn’t hear me scream earlier, but I think she just got back. “Did you find the doctor you were talking about?” I walk up the steps to meet her. She’s holding a plastic bag of what smells like Chinese takeout in one hand and a casserole dish covered in tinfoil in the other.
“No, she wasn’t home, but I called her practice in New Orleans, and they promised she’ll come by tomorrow morning.” She lifts the bag, tilting her head toward it. “I went out to get us some dinner.”
“You don’t have to stay with me tonight during my shift if you don’t want to.”
“I need to,” she says with a soft smile. “Maybe it’s just morbid curiosity, but Ms. Penny has never spoken to me like that, ever. I’ve heard her talking to herself over the monitor, but that’s about it until now. Mom made us a casserole, but I’m not sure how good it is, so I stopped for Chinese as well.
“Thank you.” I take the casserole dish from her and walk back into the house.
We sit down at the snug kitchen table to eat, periodically checking the cameras in Aunt Penny’s room. “Did you find out anything about Dr. Ashford?”
Bailey nods grimly, grimacing down at her fried rice. “Yeah, I did. My mom’s congregation is putting together a prayer circle for him today outside the hospital. He’s brain-dead, Layla. He was stabbed in the throat, and it severed his spinal cord.” She takes a breath. “Whoever did this to him was violent about it. His lungs collapsed and… they cut out his tongue.``
I nearly spit my mouthful of food on the table. “Wh-what?”
She nods, picking at her orange chicken with her fork. “He’s going to die, that’s clear. His wife is a mess. She won’t see anyone. The police have his whole property taped off. I’m sure they’ll catch whoever did it soon.”
My stomach sinks as a sick, twisting feeling settles in my gut.
“I haven’t done anything.” Dalton’s words flash through my mind from the night after the doctor assaulted me.
He’d been adamant I not call the police about the tongue in the box. Dr. Ashford’s tongue.
I look past Bailey at the tree line, the whole backyard now cast in the soft glow of the beginning stages of the sunset. It’s a clear, bright evening. Not a cloud in the sky. The soft rain shower from what feels like only moments ago moved off toward the coast in a matter of minutes.
Bailey sets her fork down and runs her hands over her face. “I’m going to run back into town for a few hours–go home and shower, and pack a bag for the night. I wanted to get back here as soon as I could with the food, so I didn’t stop on my way back.”
“I’ll be fine,” I assure her. “Take your time. If she wakes up, I’ll just be careful around her if I still make her nervous.”
“My guess,” Bailey says as she stands, taking her plate with her, “is that she’ll sleep all night, maybe into tomorrow. She has so much medication still running through her system. It might take several days for us to safely get her off all those strong medications.”
Bailey and I clean up from dinner, and then she takes her leave. I watch her pull out of the driveway, the remaining shreds of golden sunset gleaming on the roof of her car as it bumps down the driveway.
I turn to the stairs, suddenly exhausted, and begin to climb, my mind reeling over every possibility. Did Dalton do this? If so, why would he leave the tongue for me to find with other grisly little gifts and then act so strange about me finding it?
Nothing makes sense.
I push open the door to my room and step inside with every intention of falling face first onto the mattress when I find Dalton sitting on the edge of my bed, his head turned to the window. Golden light plays over the sharp lines of his cheeks and jaw as he slowly turns his gaze to meet mine.
I close the door behind me and lock it. The digital clock on my bedside table says 8:30 P.M. I’m not sure when Bailey will be back, but Dalton and I need to talk.
Now.
“Did you break into Dr. Ashford’s house and try to kill him?”
“No.”
I press my back to the door. I’m not letting him leave without answers. He stands, tucking his hands in his pockets and turns to face me fully.
“Did you put that tongue in the box and leave it for me to find?”
“No, I did not.”
“But you–”
“If I had wanted to kill Dr. Ashford for what he did to you,” he says, his tone low and dangerous, “and trust me, Layla, I wanted to, I wouldn’t have stabbed him. I wouldn’t have cut out his tongue.” He edges closer to me, his proximity making the fine, downy hairs on the back of my neck rise to attention. “I wouldn’t have done it that way. It was sloppy, in my opinion. He deserved a lot more than he got.”
“How would you have done it?” I can’t believe the words that fall from my lips. I also can’t believe I’m wet right now, but Dalton’s predatory gaze rakes over me, fixing on my neck, and my rising pulse.
His mouth ticks into a sly smile. “Do you really want to know?”
He cages me in against the door, his forearm resting above my head while his other hand travels up my waist. “Yes,” I whisper, closing my eyes as his touch sends sparks of desire over my skin.
“I would have brought him here, Angel, and taken him apart piece by piece. I would have flayed his skin from his body while he still breathed. And then….” He brushes the words over the rim of my ear. “Then, I would have given you the knife, and let you be the one to cut out his tongue.” Dalton’s tongue darts out, sliding down my neck. “Then, I would have strung up whatever was left of him in the middle of downtown where everyone would have to bear witness to him and they would know what that son of a bitch did to my girl.”
My legs tremble, but his hand on my waist keeps me steady as he sucks on the delicate skin between my neck and shoulder, drawing a moan from my lips.
I’m finding it hard to focus, especially when his hand slides from my waist to the juncture of my thighs. “Dalton–”
“Shh…” he whispers, applying delicious pressure between my legs.
“If it wasn’t you, then who was it?”
“Someone that wants what they can never have. You’re mine, Layla.”
He presses me hard against the door, his body flush with mine.
“I think I need to remind you who you belong to.”