Chapter 8: When One Door Closes...

Hyperventilating, I scrambled through the pages. Smiling faces of dead girls leered back at me. They all looked different though, and one of them had had black hair and pale skin, just like the picture of Persephone.

“Where…”

Loki’s hands came down on mine, stopping me in my tracks. I gasped, staring at his long, vice-like fingers. They were gentle as he held my hands still, warm envelopes that heavily blanketed my panic.

“She’s not in there,” he said, smooth and thick as velvet.

“What do you mean?” I asked. I glanced at the crumpled and scattered pages I’d been digging through. Then, I lifted my eyes to Loki’s.

They were hollow. Empty pits of black tar that sucked me in and held me fast. I swallowed thickly. It felt like my mouth and ears were stuffed with cotton balls. Everything was muffled and dense.

“If she’s dead, the police haven’t found her yet,” was all he said.