Jeremy’s POV
Inside the structure, the smell overwhelms me, and my limbs slacken. I drop to the floor, and it takes a few more seconds before I find the strength to move forward; this time, nobody holds me back. Reed’s sunken eyes tell me what I didn’t want to know. My olfactory eyes adjust to the room, darker than outside. The sight of it is worse. There is no blood soaked into the floor, the way I would have expected, nor on the broken wooden chairs scattered around. Those remain almost clean, abandoned like useless props. But the mattress... the bare mattress lying crooked on the frame... that’s where it all is.
Dark, slick... wet- my eyes lock on it, and the room tilts. The ropes on the dirt floor beside the bed are narrow, rough things, cut loose and tossed aside, and my mind betra
