Chapter 9: The Voicemail

Hazel's POV

At two in the morning my phone lit up on the kitchen table.

It was a number I did not know, and the message was one audio file with no words.

I was awake already.

I had been awake every night for two weeks, and the kitchen at Pell Street had become the room I slept in without sleeping.

I pressed play.

A man's voice filled the quiet room, clipped and young and perfectly sure.

"No matter what it takes, make her stop bothering me. Otherwise, don't blame me for being ruthless."

The file ended.

I did not know whose voice it was, and my body knew at once.

My hands went cold and my sight narrowed to a tunnel.

I got to the sink before I was sick.

Then I stood gripping the edge with water running over my wrists, counting, and the counting did not work.

I knew the voice.

I had heard it speak a name in a white room, and then a current had gone through me, and then the voice had said it again.

I walked down the hall and opened the green door.

He was on the step.

He had his back against the iron rail and his hands hanging between his knees, and his face was grey from waiting.

"She sent it," he said, getting to his feet. "I knew she would, at two. I was going to tell you first. I got here too late."

I held out the phone with the file still open.

"Is that you?"

"Yes."

"You said that."

"Yes."

"About me."

"About you." He did not look away. "Four years ago, to her, on the day I buried my father."

I tried to say something and my throat closed.

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