Unhinged (Deranged and Obsessed #1)

Chapter 6

6

ISLA

I woke to the soft, morning light filtering through the thin curtains over my bedroom window. I could hear the hum of the much bigger city in the distance, knowing it had never slept.

For a moment, if I just lay here not thinking about my life or what I was doing with it, everything was normal—comforting. If I could actually pretend.

I closed my eyes and rolled onto my back. The ache in my muscles from yesterday’s long shift was a familiar feeling. I started a new serving job last night. It was in an even shittier diner than the previous one. But it stayed busy, and although the tips weren’t great, I was scheduled full time, so I couldn’t complain.

When I finally forced myself to get out of bed, I felt the chill in the air of the weather changing. I sat there my feet dangling over the edge of the bed, and just listened to the creaking of my shitty, old apartment. I stared out the window, rubbed my eyes to wake up, then glanced at my dresser.

I froze.

Sitting atop my dresser was something big and folded in brown paper. But the wet stain seeping out of the bottom of…whatever that was, and the knowledge that it was clearly blood coming out of it had my muscles clenching and panic welling within me.

I should have called the authorities instead of getting up and walking toward it.

I gasped and covered my mouth with a hand, shock filling me. My body jerked on its own like I was shocked with electricity, my thighs hitting the dresser and caused the disgusting bouquet of bloody fingers to fall and land on the floor.

The bouquet with the blood stained ribbon stayed intact—for the most part—but a few of the fingers fell out of the wrapped brown paper and rolled to the side of the package.

The stark white of the ribbon was marred with streaks of dark red that had long since dried.

My breath hitched in my throat. My next instinct was to scream, to recoil, to be horrified at the sight of it lying there. A macabre gift. My pulse hammered in my ears drowning out everything else until it made way for a ringing that had pain pounding inside my head.

But the longer I stared at that bouquet, the more I felt something in me shift.

My fear and disgust altered and warped into this strange curiosity. It unfurled in the pit of my stomach and spread outward, covering every inch of me. My fingers trembled, not from terror but from...something else as I moved closer to the hand and crouched over it.

I had tunnel vision while I reached for the ribbon, gripping one end and rubbing it between my fingers. The ribbon, once silky, was now slightly stiff from the dried blood. I stared at that fingers again for long seconds. Before I knew what was happening, my arm was moving on its own, and I was touching the cold, lifeless flesh of one of the digits.

I found picking up the fingers that had fallen out, and placing them back with the others. I lifted the bouquet, the weight of it, heavier than I expected, didn’t repulse me. How fucking strange that reality was. This weird curiosity filled me as I sat on the edge of the bed and…admired my gift. Because that’s clearly what this was.

I could tell the fingers belonged to a male just from the sheer size of them. The knuckles were hairy, the fingernails long, yellow, and unkempt with dirt underneath them.

I traced the lines of the fingers, wondering briefly what the man had done to deserve this.

What have I done to deserve this as a gift?

I felt a peculiar, dark satisfaction blooming in my chest.

Somehow, I just knew.

Whoever the man was who assaulted me at the diner, this belonged to him.

He used these very fingers to touch me, hurt me—hardly physically but emotionally—and made me lose my job.

I exhaled slowly, the initial shock fading completely as something far more twisted settled in its place. It wasn’t horror I felt. No, it was something more dangerous, which had been lurking beneath the surface for a long time.

Something I’d buried deep under layers of memories I tried in vain to forget.

I sat there, still holding the severed hand, but I felt my gaze growing distant as I thought about things I never admitted to anyone. I stood and carefully placed the bouquet on my nightstand instead of my dresser, and admired the grotesquerie of the sight for long moments.

My heart was still racing, never once fading as this rush of adrenaline slammed into me. I couldn’t keep this in my place for very long…but right now, it looked perfect. There was darkness curling up from the shadows of my past, like smoke rising from dwindling coals. I stared at the hand for a moment longer, my thoughts spiraling through old wounds, forgotten scars, and the heavy weight of everything I endured back then.

I closed my eyes and breathed through the memories of my past. But no matter what, my past was always there, a whisper that was incessant in my ear. I didn’t flinch. I didn’t run from the memories.

Instead, I let them in, made them a home deep in my soul, and accepted my reality. The pull of something inevitable, something that had always been a part of me, rose to remind me of who I really was.