Chapter 39.

"Oh my god." My fingers shake so hard I drop both the wallet and the phone to the ground.

Aries is there in a second, wrapping his arms around me and squeezing me tightly as the whole world around me once again shatters into a billion tiny pieces like the snow falling all around.

"I'm so sorry, Missy." He breathes into my hair. "I'm so fucking sorry."

He rubs his hands up and down my back as I scream and cry into his chest.

Dallas?

How could it possibly be Dallas?

But how could it not be?

He's my fucking brother, my family, my own flesh and blood betraying me all over again. He made it all happen once again.

I knew Dallas took what our father had done hard. How could a person not? But this? This was so wrong on so many levels.

Maybe the Jacobs men are all tortured souls. The bad blood running from one generation down to the next in a succession of evil doings to ease the monsters deep inside of them.

Again, I'm left asking myself how I could be so blind? How did I not see it?

Why?

Why?

Why?

How could Dallas do this to me, knowing what I'd already been through? How could he kill innocent girls and destroy their family's hearts and lives so viciously?

I know my brother. He isn't cruel or dark or twisted like someone who could do this has to be. He was a good person, a good son, a good brother. He never talked bad about anyone, was always a friend, was so smart and kind.

How had he turned into this without my even having an inkling of what he'd one day be capable of doing?

It just all makes no sense but perfectly fits at the same time.

Aries couldn't have possibly been driving that truck the night it watched Amie and I. I know that with absolute certainty. And if Aries wasn't the one stalking her, then it was someone else.

Now here is the truck, and Dallas's wallet tucked inside. A monster's collection of keepsakes from his victims in the shed. Amie's car stashed away in the house that both Dallas and I knew so well.

He'd been here.

He'd come back to this town to send it right back into the era of fear and desperation. He came back to this awful house and did terrible things and then lied so easily right to my face.

Had the police not have seen him at my house, and the detectives not decided to stay, he'd still be out here. Collecting, torturing, hiding...killing.

"I don't...I don't...how?" I cry, my brain working tirelessly to make it make sense. To wrap around the idea that Dallas is the one we've been looking for all along.

Dallas, sitting on my back porch standing guard from a threat he knew wasn't coming.

"I don't know what to say." Aries admits. "I don't know how to make this better, Missy." His heart beat slams against my cheek and I find myself trying to balance myself by counting the steady thump thump thump.

"I can't go through this again." I continue to weep. I know how this plays out. I've done this sick dance before. How they'll drag him away in handcuffs and I'll have to watch and hear the stories the media will tell. The tv specials that will bombard my life, two serial killers in the same family.

The never ending badgering for interviews and comments and all of those questions. All over again.

"I can't believe this is happening." I say, leaning my head back to try to look into his eyes.

He grips my cheeks between his hands and kisses my forehead gently. "I know." He says, kissing my head again. "I'm so sorry, Miss. You don't deserve this."

"I'm sorry I didn't believe you." I tell him, my tears freezing on my cheeks.

"It's ok." He tells me. "Don't even think of that right now, ok? Don't worry about me."

But I am still worried about him.

And me.

And everyone else.

I turn and pick up the wallet with my shaking hands and put it back into the truck where I'd found it and turn back to Aries.

"We have to go." I tell him and he nods.

"To the police?" He asks and my stomach bottoms out and heart squeezes at the thought of what I have to do now.

"I have to turn in my brother."

I pick the phone back up and turn off the flashlight just before the screen lights up and I see my own name on the screen.

"Fuck." I whisper and Aries steps closer to me, using his body to block me from some of the wind and snow that is turning more to sleet. "They know I'm not there." I look up at him as realization crosses his face.

"Hello?" I say into the phone and before I can even get the whole word out Kelsea is talking over me.

"I'm so sorry, I had to tell them, Missy." She says. "Dallas kept asking me to go check on you and I was but he kept asking questions, telling me to tell you to come down and then the guys got suspicious and I had to tell them that you'd gone. They know you're there, everyone just left."

I glance at Aries, panic in my eyes matching his.

"He just left." I say back to her. "It's ok. Just tell them he said he's heading to the bus station."

"The bus station? What the hell? What did he say to you? Are you ok?" She badgers be with questions but I can hear by the echo of her voice that I'm on speaker phone.

Aries gives me a questioning look but I go on.

"I'll tell you about it when I get there, but just tell them that that's where he's going. They have to get there before he does. The detectives left?" I ask and she answers quickly.

"Yeah they left like two seconds ago, after I told them where you went." She says. "They called it in, the police should be there soon."

"Ok good." I say, then hang up. "We have to go." I tell Aries and he takes my hand as we start running up the driveway back to my car.

"Why did you say I left?" He asks, shouting over the storm.

"They left, Aries." I say, out of breath as we both get into my car. He backs the car out quickly, fishtailing a bit at the end of the drive. "They left Dallas and Kelsea at the house and Dallas knows I came here. He's gonna try to run."

"I know a back way." Aries says, making a sharp turn that slings me into the door.

"Ok, I've got to call the police and tell them to go back to my house." I say. "I didn't want Dallas to be suspicious so that's why I told her you were running."

I pick up the phone from the floor where it had fallen and get two numbers dialed before the screen goes black.

"No." I say in astonishment. "That didn't just happen." I gape at the dead phone. "Where's your phone?" I reach a hand over to Aries but he just glances at me before turning his eyes back to the road.

"It's back at the house." He says and a new wave of panic washes over me.

Dallas probably knows something isn't right. If he knows where I went, he has got to be wondering if I found everything. He's alone in that house with Kelsea and we have no way to protect her.

White hot fear pulses through my veins.

"We have to go there." Aries says, trying to sound calm but his voice is too high. "He's gonna get away, Miss."

"Just drive!" I shout, thoughts of my perfect friend sitting in that house with my brother slamming around inside of my skull.

Aries whips the car around corners so fast I'm sure that we will crash, but he seems to know how to handle the roads much better than I had and he makes the trip at least a whole five minutes shorter than when I'd made it previously.

We peel into the driveway, my heart sinking at the empty yard, just Kelsea's truck. No officers to help us.

Aries slams the car into park and we both rush towards the house.

I burst through the door first. "Kelsea!" I shout and I breathe a small sigh of relief when she comes startled around the corner.

"What are you doing here?" She asks then her eyes widen as Aries walks in behind me. "Missy?"

I rush over to her, needing to feel her to be sure she's ok. I grip her forearms and stare at her urgently. "Where is Dallas, Kelsea?"

She blinks down at me, still looking confused. "Uh," she says. "He said something about going to get more wood a couple minutes ago and went out back? Why?"

I rush passed her, Aries right behind me as I run to the back porch. I look all around the back yard, shouting his name but he isn't there.

"Fuck!" I shout. I rush back into the house. "Kelsea call the cops and tell them it was Dallas. Tell them to get here right now. He's going to get away!"

"What?" Her mouth drops open. "What do you-."

"There isn't any time, just call them and tell them we are here and that it was Dallas!" I yell and then I run up the stairs and into my bedroom.

I go straight to Dallas's bed where I've been sleeping and snatch the pillow back, grabbing for the letter I'd tucked below it.

Adrenaline pumps through me as I tear open the envelope. I toss it to the side and quickly unfold the letter inside.

I need to see his excuses.

I need to know what he could possibly have to say after he destroyed this family and turned my brother into a monster cut from the same cloth.

I expect a page full of woeful apologies and pleading for understanding but the letter is only one sentence.

"Stay away from your brother."

I read it over and over again.

I drop the letter to the bed and run back downstairs, hearing Kelsea shouting urgently on the phone with the police while Aries follows me into my parent's bedroom.

"What are you doing?" He asks, crossing the room with me. I go for the closet and tug out the box, throwing the album to the side. "What are you looking for?"

I scoop out the letters from the bottom of the box, ripping into the one by one.

Each one is the same.

"Stay away from your brother."

"Stay away from your brother."

"Stay away from your brother."

"Stay away from your brother."

Over and over my father warns me through the page to not trust him.

Aries picks up one of the letters from the ground and reads it slowly before looking down at me. "He knew?" Aries asks, brows furrowed. "He..." he stalls and stares at me. "Oh, god, Missy."

I push out of the room and into the living room. "Where are they?" I ask Kelsea.

"They're on their way." She says, biting at her nails. "What's going on, Missy?"

"It was Dallas." I say aloud again, never getting easier. "He was the one setting up Aries to take the fall. He is the one who killed them and had the truck. It's been him the whole time."

"Jesus Christ." Kelsea gasps. "What if he comes back before the cops get here!" She wraps her arms around herself, staring towards the back door.

"He won't." I shake my head. "He's gonna know."

Aries comes running into the room from the front door. "Missy!" He shouts my name. "Did you open the trunk?"

I stare back at him. "What?"

Aries runs back to the door, setting the deadbolt in place and then comes back. "I was going out to turn the car off and get the keys but the trunk is opened."

"The trunk?" I repeat him, then freeze in place. "The trunk." I say again. "Oh, god, no, he didn't..."

"Missy, I'm freaking out." Kelsea says. "I'm so scared right now."

"It's ok." I try to tell her but my own voice is unconvincing at best.

"Missy." Aries says beside me. "You don't think...?"

"He's finishing his job." I say, my stomach twisting sickly. "He had her here this whole time."

"Holy fucking shit, Missy, what?" Kelsea is crying now and I can't look at her.

"Call them again." I tell Aries. "Get them here!"

Aries turns and sits Kelsea down on the couch, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and taking the phone from her shaking hands.

"It's gonna be ok." He assures her.

I turn and go into the kitchen, ripping open drawers until I find the flashlight. I take it and test the batteries before I walk out the back door.

The wind from the storm slaps me in the face but I can't stop. I've got to find him and I know exactly where he is going.The determination pulsing through my whole body, after a few steps, I don't even feel the cold anymore, just anger.

I run through the backyard.

I move my body as fast as it will let me. I shove low hanging branches out of the way as I take the overgrown path ahead of me.

I aim the flashlight at the ground ahead, careful not to get tripped up by the big rocks that jut out of the snow.

I keep going for what feels like an impossible amount of time. I'm nearly convincing myself that time and the darkness and the storm have driven me off course, but I keep going.

I keep going until I hear him.

"Go home, Missy." He calls out of the darkness and I freeze.

"Dallas?" I shout out, waiving the flashlight slowly to the left and then the right.

I hear the sounds of his footsteps ahead of me and I bring the light up to stop on his figure as he emerges from the dark.

"You never should have come back."