Page 158 of Shadowface 1979

A sharp rap on the door stirs Didi awake, and I suppress my irritation at whoever’s on the other side. It had better be important because I hate being interrupted while trying to focus.

“What is it?” I bark, and Didi’s eyes flutter open.

Lucy’s voice comes from the other side. “Phone’s for you, sir.”

“I’m busy.”

A pause. “It’s your father, and he’s being very insistent. He’s called four times.”

I let out a deep sigh, shut my textbook and place it on the edge of my desk, and put away my ink pen in its holder. It’s been a few days since the incident at the school, and we’ve been keeping a low profile since.

His death was so heinous, even my father couldn’t do anything to stop this. Before his last breaths, he told everyone it was the white-haired girl that killed him.

Diana Wells…officially declared dead on June 30, 1979, has arisen from the grave. The town is in a tailspin. Everyone is looking for her now. There have been “fake” sightings in the paper and in the media from neighboring towns. It’s gotten so out of control that my father can’t make it go away.

“I’ll be there in a minute,” I call out.

Diana pushes herself up from under the blanket, which has now fallen over her naked breasts, her brilliant hair falling over her face. She wipes her eyes and smiles when she notices me. “What’s going on?” she asks in a sleepy voice.

She has this way of looking at me like I’m the only one that exists. My stomach twinges as I look at her, a deep sense of foreboding in my gut. Sometimes it feels like she’s not real; that she’s fleeting and someone will take her away from me.

If I had my way, I’d keep her locked away in my room forever, safe from this town and whatever Talia is plotting for her. Talia believes she embodies the angel of death, a herald of a new order, and she claims it’s written in that precious book. But I think that Codex is just the ramblings of one madman, interpreted by another.

I read the passage I jotted down on a piece of paper. Talia and I’ve been studying the Codex for two days straight, trying to understand it.

Behold the harbinger.

Both hunter and hunted. Pristine, like winter’s breath.

I shall smile down upon her as if she is my child…my chosen. My gaze sealed her fate.

She rises, binding the chains of death.

Even perfect circles must crack.

She is my reincarnate. She is death.

Didi is nothing but a tool.

A weapon.

A harbinger of death.

Talia is in love with her—at least, in the way that Talia is capable of emotion. Didi seems to bring out a side of Talia I haven’t seen since the day she came back from the dead. Didi made Talia come alive again; she made all of us come alive. She is the thread keeping this group together. She is the thread of our sanity.

Didi frowns as I lean down and kiss her harder than I ever have before. She leans into it, trying to pull me close. “What’s wrong, Remy?” she asks. Always so loving, always so ready to please.

My stomach twinges. Everything is so wrong and so right. Our time is running out. Every little kiss feels like the last. When I get back to this bed after I speak to my old man, I’m going to fuck her until my name is the only one she remembers. I won’t admit I’m jealous of my sister, and I’ll be fucked if I ever admit to being jealous of Tommy.

“Nothing, little lamb. Go back to sleep and wait for me.”

She yawns, mumbles something incoherent, fluffs her pillow, and lays her head down and closes her eyes, peacefully.

She looks so serene, her white hair splayed out. Her delicate body is swallowed up by my large four-poster bed. So small, yet capable of burning this entire town to the ground and killing anyone who gets in her way. I’ll slaughter anyone who lays a finger on her, including my own family.

I jog downstairs and walk into the study to take the call in privacy, even though I have a phone line in my bedroom. It’s early…no one else is up yet.

I lean back in the leather chair and pick up the phone, bringing it to my ear, bracing myself for his fury. I’ve been avoiding my old man since it happened, and the white hair girl rumors escalated to violence.