There is a link on the forum. Another one, just like before: one click and Emilia will be redirected to a video. A video of somebody being murdered.
Her finger is frozen on the mouse, her gaze fixed to the screen. She can’t bear to look at her phone. After leaving the Franco house, she rushed home, resisting the urge to message Ciaran with another apology. She had gone too far. Not just once. Multiple times. But she knew that she needed to leave it. I need to give him some space, she thought. Some breathing room. So instead, she had tried to distract herself by taking Mimi for a walk, and when she returned she tried to read, but instead she has been scrolling for hours, watching, anticipating that something will happen at any moment. But new posts about the Confession Room slowed. Like being in the eye of the storm. Waiting. Now, however, there is a run of posts, constantly being replaced by new exclamations. A constant stream of shock and awe.
She clicks on the link. Her fingers are tingling, her palms slick with sweat. She curls them into fists, her nails digging into the centre of her palm as she waits for the page to load.
The title is there, just like before.
THE CONFESSION ROOM. GREGORY WEISS. ISABELLA SANTOS.
She presses play, her breath suspended.
The room appears again, the same view from above, but zoomed in on a person’s face, cowering in the corner. Emilia’s eyes widen.
It’s Gregory.
He breathes in deeply, a loud gasp, his eyes filled with rage. ‘Fuck this!’
‘Greg, please just say something!’ a woman’s voice cries. Isabella?
‘Why? So I can end up with a bullet in my head like that girl?’
‘Please! We don’t know what’s going to happen! Just tell the truth!’
‘What truth? What have you told them?’
‘I haven’t told anyone anything but it’s clear from the boxes what they want you to confess –’
‘Oh, I know what you tell people. You love telling people lies about me. Don’t you? You tell them that those bruises are from me. Well fuck you, Isabella. If history is anything to go by, it’ll be you with a bullet in your skull. And good riddance, you fucking bitch.’
The video turns black. Emilia’s heart is thrumming, his venomous words echoing in her ears. And something that Isabella said is gnawing away … The boxes. What boxes?
The video crackles and the footage returns, just like before, the hand-held camera shaking, and Emilia gasps, her hand moving to cover her mouth.
Gregory’s eyes are round and filled with fear, his face pale. The gun pressed to his forehead.
‘Why?’ he says, his voice breaking. ‘Why are you doing this?’
There is crying coming from somewhere behind the camera. Wails coming in bursts before she stops suddenly. As if she is holding her breath.
And then –
A gunshot.
Isabella’s frantic cries.
He is gone.