Page 8 of Ash and Poison

The moment I was done reading, I knew something was wrong.

I didn’t think twice. I packed a bag and went back to Hollow Heights.

When I walked into Hollowhaven Sanatorium, the whole place was looking for Riley. She was missing, but deep down, I knew she wasn’t just missing.

Her last letter to me was practically a suicide note.

I was the one who found Riley in the woods hanging, but smiling, as if she knew I was coming to collect her broken body. She was cold, her face bloodless, her wrists slashed, her body stained with blood.

As I stood there, my heart breaking, I blamed everyone, everything. I blamed myself.

I couldn’t save the girl who had always been there for me—the one who had my back for as long as I could remember.

Riley had been my best friend, my sister, my confidante. And when she died, a part of me died with her.

The autopsy report said she’d killed herself, but the bruises on her legs, the cuts and gashes on her hands, and her broken toes, were all the proof I needed.

She might have taken that final step herself, but someone else had pushed her to it.

Someone had killed her long before she died.

She was only twenty. Too young to die. Too young to stop existing.

Sighing, I folded the letter carefully and pushed it between the pages.

If I had come sooner, just a few days, a few months, I could have saved my best friend.

“I am sorry, Riley, I’m sorry I was such a bad friend, but I promise you. I’ll find Hannigan, and everyone who has ever hurt you. I’ll butcher them all for you. That’s all I can do for you now.”

Eight years. I had planned for this for eight years, and this was the first solid lead I had after Doctor T, and I wouldn’t let one nosy psychiatrist mess it all up for me.

3

THE POISONER

DIYA

He left the same way as he came, just as quick, just as noiseless, becoming a part of the crowding darkness.

I sighed.

He was a fool to underestimate me, a fool to think that he could somehow escape his sins, because… what was I? A weak woman who could be threatened into keeping her silence?

So fucking wrong.

And even though a part of me resented him for coming into my home, for threatening me, his touch excited me. My brain was still overflowing with the hit of dopamine and adrenaline.

I was angry, aroused, and I craved even more. More blood. More death. More of Asher in his mask.

“Only hell for you, Diya,” I grumbled, closing the cottage door and locking it before walking to my bedroom. Bending down, I opened the small safe hidden under my bed.

There were metal tins and vials arranged neatly in rows filled with colorful flowers, dried berries, and leaves.

My prized possessions. My little soldiers of death.

Oleander. Nightshade. Monkshood. Foxglove. Datura. In the prettiest, most beautiful shades of pinks, blues, purples, yellows and reds. No one understood how lethal pretty things could be.

“One pinch in your food,” I mumbled. “And you’ll be done for.”