Free Red Widow (Vivian Xu, Book 1) by Nathan Wilson Page B

across
her feet and revealing the door within.
    Vivian squeezed the handle until her
fingers lost sensation. What could possibly await her beyond this
wall?
    Her foot barreled through the door,
thrusting it open in defiance of her fear.
    An empty room greeted Vivian. Yellowed
walls surrounded her, stained with mold and bizarre, black streaks.
Dim light rained down from above like a tearful morning shower. The
floorboards hissed when she ventured a step into the
asylum.
    “ What was this place used
for?” she asked, but the walls did not reply.
    A shadow draped across her.
    Vivian slowly craned her head toward
the ceiling.
    The naked body floated above her,
suspended by hooks. Her skin had been transformed into an elastic
canvas with cruel barbs jutting from her limbs.
    The cords were rigged to pipes,
creating a web of torment. Hooks peeled her eyelids away from
engorged eyes with microfilament wire anchored toward her
spine.
    The killer had anticipated every
natural human reaction: screaming, shutting her eyes, lifting her
hands to her face… and countered it with torture.
    Vivian choked back her
terror.
    A red bruise glowed in the crook of
the victim’s arm, where a needle had pierced her.
    Adding horror to the offense, six
gnarled hooks were sunken into her lips and tongue, rigged with
wire stretched taut. The moment she cried out, her mouth would have
been flayed wide open.
    Her mouth was a crater of exposed
muscle, an abyss emptied of screams. When Vivian saw where the
other hooks were connected, her own screams poured
forth.
     
     
     
    FIVE
     
     
     
    You cannot hurt me anymore.
    Those glossy words stained the walls,
immortalized in syrupy blood. The sight inevitably gave the police
pause, taunting them from across the room. Only Nikolai approached
with a scowl etched into his jaw.
    He was familiar with the notorious
handiwork of this killer, like a lover resentfully re-uniting with
an ex.
    “ Did the victim write this
in her own blood?” Vivian droned without emotion. She felt numb as
the entire scene unfolded before her; police cutting down the body,
the medical examiner collecting the corpse in its body bag
chrysalis, forensic investigators gathering sample fluids from the
floor. She had already given her statement to the police, but the
words hardly felt like her own.
    “ Unlikely. This warning has
been found at the last three crime scenes,” Nikolai replied. “I
believe it’s a taunt aimed at the police.”
    “ Nikolai!” A lanky cop
draped in a jacket carved his path across the crime scene. “We
discovered a tunnel beneath the foundation with access to this
room. It seems someone built this long before the complex rented
out apartments.” Vivian looked down at the floorboards, imagining
an amorphous shape slinking around with fantasies of carnage.
Hungering for new victims to add to its harem…
    Vivian leaned groggily against the
wall as Nikolai scribbled notes. Something crunched under his toes
and he shifted to regard the scrap of paper on the
floor.
     
    Diagnosis:
    Krista LaCroix suffered
suicidal behavior in conjunction with depression. She insists her
boyfriend won’t hurt her again and that he has changed. However,
she exhibits more bruises each time I see her, and she is gaining
weight. Her addiction to lying has progressed to a point where she
weaves a web of lies even when she has nothing to gain from
them.
     
    “ Vivian, come with me. I
need to speak with you.” Nikolai put a fatherly hand on her
shoulder as he coaxed her through the door. “I think you should
leave while the forensics team combs for evidence.”
    In other words, so I don’t
fuck anything up, Vivian
thought.
    She watched an evidence collector
gather blood samples crusted on the wall, obliterating the message
the killer left. He flicked the cotton swab against the plaster and
tucked it into a small paper envelope. Nikolai escorted Vivian down
the vacant hall, drifting further away from the nightmarish
scene.
    “