I sat in the uncomfortable silence, my gaze on Dallas who was seated on the sofa flipping through the channels on the TV.

“You haven’t stop staring at me since I arrived Hadley.” He spoke without even looking in my direction. “It’s rude you know.”

I flushed, feeling guilty but being unable to stop myself. There was something about him that scratched at me, I never completely felt comfortable in his company.

He was a good friend to Jack but I could not point out one good quality he had ever shown me that would put me at ease around him. He was brutal and to the point. So different to Jack. It made you wonder how their friendship worked when they were polar opposites.

“That’s the least of my worries,” I muttered, still not taking my eyes off him.

“Yeah, I heard about the note.”

The note.

His eyes moved to me. I wasn’t sure what I saw in his expression but it wasn’t concern. He never seemed to respond the way you expected. It kept people on their toes and uncomfortable around him.

I held his gaze, not sure how to respond.

“It was quite risky of him to break into Alice’s room to leave the note for you. That’s what I call ballsy.”

I shifted but refused to look away. He was studying me and my reaction.

“I hadn’t actually thought of it in that way,” I responded.

“So what did you think?” he prodded.

He was direct and to the point, in a brutal way that was uncommon with people who dealt with me. There were times I wondered what had made him the way he was. Was it his genetics or upbringing? I would probably never know.

“I think it means he knew more about Alice than we thought.”

Maybe it had been more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Less a crime of opportunity and more of a crime of planning.

“What do you mean?” He sat up, I had his full attention despite the TV playing in the background.

I shrugged. “I’m no detective but I always thought he picked us because we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But I think I was wrong. I think it was planned.”

He frowned. “I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. Does it really matter though?”

“I keep thinking he is closer than we think.” I muttered, more to myself than him.

“How close?” he asked.

“I don’t know.” The fact that he had found out so quickly gave me a feeling that he much closer but that meant it could be someone we knew.

It made my mind tick over. Going through all the people that had first hand knowledge of what had happened. Jack knew. Beth knew because Jack had informed her. Could it have been the leak at the police station? Did that mean the killer knew someone in the police department?

My mind was racing.

“You remember anything about him?” Dallas asked, pulling me from my thought.

I shook my head.

After that he seemed to lose interest and focused back on the TV. I studied him. He was a strange guy. Stranger with each interaction. It made me wonder how Jack and him had ever been able to develop the friendship they had. They were close and Dallas always seemed to be there when Jack needed someone.

Needing space I got up and headed down the passage. I stopped halfway down and stared at the door to the room that had opened the pandora’s box. My lost memories. It replayed in my mind as I fixed my concentration of how it had unfolded. Opening the door and seeing all the horrific details pinned against the wall. Blood, death, pain. All of it.

I remember freaking about. And then I remembered Dallas coming into the room to see what was going on.

Dallas.

I had an uncomfortable thought. Had Jack shared the details of what I had remembered with Dallas? It was crazy, mad, out of reality thought that I couldn’t shake.

Dallas who had access to Alice’s room. I couldn’t help but remember coming out of the room that day I escaped from my room to see Dallas at the top of the stairs.

But why? I shook my head. I was crazy. Was I so afraid I was starting to see everyone as a potential suspect? Why would Dallas want to harm Alice? And surely if I had known the person I would have remembered something. But no matter what I tried to do I could not shake the feeling that something didn’t feel right. Was it because he such a strange person that I was entertaining an impossible but plausible thought.

I put my hand to my head. My mind spinning. I turned to looked down the hallways where I could hear the TV playing. Dallas. It wasn’t possible. But something made me take a step back and head into my room, closing the door behind me.

Once my door was shut I took a deep breath trying to take a hold of my thought process and not spiral.

Was I going crazy? Had I finally been pushed past the point of reality into a version that had me question everyone? Including people I knew.

Dallas had never done anything to make me think he could ever be capable of something like that but wasn’t that what made serial killers so successful? Their ability to lead normal lives while they lived out their murderous fantasies until evidence made their identity irrefutable.

I sank down on my bed, scared at where my mind was taking me with these wild thoughts? I tried to remember all I could about serial killers. They usually started off small before they started killing people. Wasn’t it small animals, like cats and dogs? Dallas was definitely different but serial killer kind of different. I wasn’t sure but it was something I could not shake.

It was absolutely ludicrous but I did not step a foot outside my room until Jack returned and knocked on my door.

I opened hurriedly, relieved to see him.

“You okay? Dallas said you were usually quiet.”

I stared at him, trying to contemplate whether to share the outrageous thoughts I had been entertaining. Would he think I was crazy?

I hesitated.

“What’s going on?” His eyes narrowed as he studied me.

“I’m just…” I couldn’t do it. It was so far fetched that I doubted he would entertain it. It was his friend.

It made me doubt my thoughts, putting them down to the acute fear I was experiencing.

“It’s nothing.” I brushed it off.

He didn’t seem convinced. “Are you sure?”

I nodded. “I’m just feeling a little over anxious.”

“It’s understandable.” He touched my arm gently.

I hated that I felt I could not tell him what I had been thinking. He was someone I shared everything with. He saw me, the real me. The one who was damaged and he understood it.

It would be a step too far to potentially direct him to suspect a close friend of killing his sister and traumatizing me. Besides I had no proof. None whatsoever, other than an unsettling feeling which was not indisputable proof or evidence that would hold up in the legal system.

He would think I had completely lost the plot, and maybe I had. Had my experience made me incapable of trusting people, other than Jack and my parents? And at this point I barely got on with parents. Jack was the only person I could trust and I trusted him with my life.

“I’m sorry I had to leave you.”

“What did you have to go and do?” I asked, needing another direction for my mind for fear of what else I would think up.

His mouth tightened. He was reluctant to say.

“What Jack?” I persisted.

“I had to get more supplies.”

“Supplies?” I asked, not quite understanding what he was talking about.

His eyes moved from mine.

“Guns…and ammo.”

I was taken aback.

“I went to the shooting range.”

Then I realized why he had been reluctant to mention it.

I had never been comfortable with guns and stuff like that. Then it dawned on me why he had felt it was so important now.

“To protect me,” I murmured.

He nodded.