Page 93 of I Will Break You
“Myra?” I bang on the glass.
Her head snaps up, and she freezes for several heartbeats, her eyes widening, her breath quickening. Then her stunned expression morphs into anguish, and she rushes to the door.
With trembling fingers, she turns the lock and then pulls me into a hug. “I’m sorry,” she sobs. “I should have listened to you.”
“What happened?” I murmur into her hair.
“It’s all over the news and social media. The Well Hung Man murdered Dick Johnson and then hanged himself off the balcony with his own noose.”
I rear back with a gasp. “What do you mean?”
She pulls me further into the store. “Can you remember what happened after the book fair?”
“My memory is spotty,” I say, my voice breathy. “Why?”
“The Well Hung Man live-streamed from Dick Johnson’s hotel room, saying he had fucked up. He confessed to a lot of heinous shit?—”
“Like what?”
Myra walks around the counter and lowers herself into the seat. I follow her, my heart pounding. Is it wrong for me to be more worried about if the hangman mentioned our names than his apparent suicide?
She runs a shaky hand through her red hair. “The platform keeps pulling down his videos, but here’s what I remember. He used to demand nudes from minors and even met up with a few of them in real life. He and Dick Johnson went to book fairstogether, agreed on which women to target, and invited them to Dick’s hotel room for ‘drinks.’
My eyes widen at the amount of venom she injects into that last word. “Did he sound coerced?”
“More like drunk and out of his mind,” she replies with a shake of her head. “Look, I’m sorry I didn’t call, but I woke up in the wrong clothes with no memory of the night before. I thought the worst until I realized I didn’t feel weird down there.”
I nod, my brow furrowing. “You woke up at home?”
“Yeah, but I don’t remember driving back.” She reaches for my hand and gulps, unable to meet my gaze. “Did anything… Did you… Did you feel… different?”
“No.” I shake my head for emphasis. “Only a headache.”
She exhales a shuddering breath. “Good. It looks like we have a guardian angel. I mean, what if the hangman turned his blade on us?”
“It was Xero.”
Her head snaps up. “Amethyst?—”
“Don’t ask me if I’ve been taking my meds, because I’ve stopped. They don’t work and all they do is make me drowsy. Before you ask, I won’t go back to my doctor because she colluded with my parents to keep me out of my mind.”
Her brows pull together. “So, you’re saying we were saved by a guardian ghost?”
“You don’t have to believe me, but Xero doesn’t want that manuscript published.”
“It’s gone,” she mutters, her shoulders sagging.
“What do you mean?”
“When I woke up, it was missing from my purse.”
“What’s your explanation for this, then?”
Myra bows her head. “I don’t want to fight, okay? But I can’t believe that a man whose execution was publicized rose from the dead to stop you from publishing that book. Don’t get mad at me for saying this, but it’s so…Scooby Doo.”
“What do Kayla, Gavin, Dick Johnson, and the Well Hung Man have in common?”
She sighs, her entire body deflating. “Listen, I don’t doubt that someone is messing with your life, but it can’t be Xero.”