by Mason, V. F.
Gazing into her full-of-hatred violet eyes, I rasp, “I’m so sorry.”
She flinches at that, and her hollow laughter echoes through the walls of the church. “Don’t be sorry. It doesn’t change anything. I want you punished all the same.” She takes out a gun from the purse and points it straight at my heart. “Pick up your phone and call the police. Tell them you have a confession to make.” She steps closer, breathing heavily as she removes her wet hair from her face. “Tell them you are the E on Ethan’s letter. Do the right thing, Father.” She emphasizes the last word, mocking it, for I could be called anything but a saint. “And then I can move on to punish those who most deserve it.”
Ralph, Frank, and Cole, judging by what Dorothy told me in her confession.
Her hand with the gun shakes when she screams at me, “Make the call, or I swear to God I will kill you. Without hesitation.” But even though hate is all she is projecting, I don’t think it will be so easy for her.
How can she dream about a future with Eudard if she kills me?
We've had our difficulties, but nothing and no one, including Arianna, can break our bond.
I should never have stepped between them, but I did, which brought nothing but a nightmare to this town and people.
How long can a person live with the guilt and regret from losing those you love without it killing him from the inside?
I can’t do this anymore.
Snatching the cross and chain from my neck, I twist it in my palms as I chant the final prayer. “Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. In this world—”
“No!” she shouts at me and then fires to my right, snapping me from my prayer, and my eyes widen. “You don’t get to pray here as if this sin is erasable. You will call and you will turn yourself in. This is unforgivable. Your God,” she says, her voice trembling with fury, “doesn’t forgive it either, even if he let it happen to me.” Because of this, she even lost her faith.
She used to be the first one to come with me to church, telling me that she might not be religious, but she believed in divine intervention.
Another shot erupts, this one closer to me and bounces off the floor, making me jump a little. “Get up and do what I say.” She steps closer, her heels clicking louder, and that brings a weird yet familiar ringing in my ears.
Because other heels and other commands awaken in my memory, where begging for mercy didn’t end well for my twin and me.
“Do the right thing for Eudard, Eachann,” she whispers, but she might as well have yelled at me with the silence falling over us where only our panted breaths fill the space.
She comes even closer, putting the tip of the gun to my forehand, and repeats, “Get up and turn yourself in.” She swallows, wiping the tears streaming down her cheeks. “Think what your death will do to him.”
Piercing pain assaults my scalp, like thousands of knives digging at it at once, poking from every side, wanting it to bleed.
Palming my head, I shake it from side to side when the familiarity of it settles in. It always happens in the moments when I’m the most nervous, out of sorts.
And after I wake up from it, I’m always on my bed with my body coated in sweat with no recollection of how I got there.
Or any memories that follow that pain.
Rocking back and forth, I hope for it to disappear, but it only intensifies, almost creating a vacuum around me where nothing but pain exists.
Slowly, black dots appear in front of my eyes and blackness calls my name, wanting me to the succumb to the power that yearns to get free.
Finally, the darkness comes and claims my sanity, taking Eachann somewhere while someone else takes possession of me.
Maybe the devil himself.
Cassandra
I step back when he groans in pain, like me touching him physically hurts him, and I study his expressions that changes so quickly it gives me whiplash. His entire body is shaking, and a light sweat appears on his forehead. He gulps for breath, but it doesn’t help him, so he shakes anyway.
People watching us might think I’m trying to exorcise the darkness of his sins from him while the dark spirit resists.
He hangs his head forward, freezing in the moment while breathing heavily, and I frown, confused with the whole thing.
Is this one of his games to avoid punishment? Because it won’t work with me. I’m already showing him generosity by offering to take him to the police without any further torture. Only because of my love for his brother.
“Eachann?” I call, but he stays immobile, his chest rising and falling the only indication that he is still alive. “Stop acting stupid and follow my command.” I don’t want to waste a minute more in this place on the anniversary of what happened to me.
It brings too many images that are always present in my mind.
Once this is done, I can proceed to my grand finale and forever end this. Then I can try to find a future with the only man I ever loved.
I raise my hand with the gun ready to fire again when a sinister laugh bounces off the walls, sending chills down my spine while casting an invisible shadow on the church as if dimming the light of the candles around us.
And then he speaks, his voice so ice cold and cruel, nipping at my skin like the edge of a knife. “He is no longer here, Arianna.” He lifts his head, and even though their faces were always identical, in his gaze I recognize the man that I’ve spent all my free time here with.
Eudard.
But how is that possible?
Too shocked to do anything but stand still while putting different pieces together in my head, I don’t see his next move coming.
Swiftly, he wraps his hand around the gun, snatches it away, and points it at me, rising up from his knees.
I stumble back, my ass hitting one of the corners of the bench when my knees wobble a little, but I stand straight, shaking my head in denial.
It’s not possible. It can’t be possible.
He has been one person all along?
“Oh, the answer is a bit more complicated than that.” Only then I realize I spoke my last question out loud, but the answer doesn’t soothe me.
Instead, I gaze into the eyes of the man I decided to give my future, and for the first time see nothing there but hatred.
Why?
“Where is Eachann?” I rasp, barely breathing when fear slowly travels through me, filling every bone. Because this man in front of me takes me back to ten years ago when the person I trusted most deceived me. “What did you do to him?”
Anger crosses his face when he throws the cross in his hands on the floor, the chain breaking, sending little pieces scattering across the floor. “I didn’t do anything to him. I always protected him.” He laughs bitterly, and for a second I see flashes of the Eudard I know in him. “Even Eudard’s name means the protector. Did you know that? Their mom sure as fuck knew how to name them both.” He steps on the cross, the metal crunching under his shoes while I take a step back, blindly moving farther into the church. “They were always inseparable. Until you destroyed it.”
“You are sick,” I say, not believing him about his twin. If he is the one playing two roles, does it mean he hid him somewhere?
But then the initial shock wears off, and I squeeze the back of the bench, adding up all the information that has been floating in my head.
Various pills he always carried around.
Twins never showing up at one place.
How he broke the frame that held the picture of them both and snapped whenever anyone mentioned his name.
Which would make a logical conclusion if Eudard was the mastermind behind it, but…
Why then did Eachann scream not too long ago and didn’t react during the kiss?
Had guilt written all over him every time he looked at me.
Is it possible to be such a great actor you can play both roles so well and fool everyone for a decade? Especially in the town that knew both of you since you were little?
I press
my fingers to my temples when my head starts to throb, bringing a memory from a long time ago, in my psychologist Allegra’s office.
I glance at my watch that shows ten more minutes before my session and roll my eyes at the ceiling.
Her receptionist gives me a warm smile and lifts her coffee cup, offering me some, but I wave it off. I notice a journal lying on the waiting room table and flip it open on a twins case study.
Ignoring the thought of the Campbell twins, I read about the study that showcased that certain twins can experience each other's pain. One of them lost their leg and shortly after the other one suffered unbearable pain in his leg too, which resulted in his leg being cut off just like his twin’s.
Some twins are so attuned to each other they feel each other’s emotions, wants, and needs. But more importantly, exist like one soul split into two.
There is a note that of course not everyone acts like that, because it depends on how much bonding both of them had to experience as children. There is also a note that if they grew up in an abusive environment, they’d stick together like glue, protecting each other no matter the cost.
But this bond doesn’t explain the insanity here. He doesn’t just act like Eachann; he lives as him.
Then other memories pop in my head, this time from my childhood.
How dismissive Ridge Campbell suddenly became toward his eldest son.
Their mother running away.
How sometimes I saw Eudard on the street, strolling with one of his security guys, and he wouldn’t recognize me. Or flat out chase me away, screaming I bring only trouble.
How he missed school for days.
His body full of scars that likely proved that he suffered abuse as a child.
And… we? Them?
When all those things add up in my head, there is only one conclusion that makes sense to me in this madness, but it’s so farfetched I don’t know what to do with it.
“Eudard, do you have dissociative identity disorder known also as a multiple personality disorder?” But asking this is pointless, right?
They don’t even know what they have in most cases. He must have been getting treated though, so maybe he communicated with this part of himself?
I once met a man at Allegra’s office who had twelve personalities of different ages and both genders living inside him, and he kept journals where each one of them would write something.
With Eudard, it sounds more like schizophrenia, as it seems like he is creating an illusion for himself, a twisted reality that doesn’t exist.
Wait. No.
Don’t they have hallucinations?
Think, Cassandra. Think.
Lachlan was always big on learning different psychological aspects and conditions, claiming that everything came from the mind. So I would hear things here and there; plus there was that psychology class back in college that had such an interesting professor that I actually paid attention.
The only possibility here is him having multiple personality disorder and then imprinting Eachann’s life on himself, because the pain of losing him was so strong… his mind couldn’t cope with it.
So his disorder and anguish stuck together, creating Eachann within him.
Oh my God.
What kind of trauma did Eudard experience that made him choose Eachann as one of his personalities? Almost as if he tried to predict what his twin’s life would have looked like and lived it accordingly, his subconscious saving him from an unbearable reality where his twin couldn’t be with him.
This would explain his hatred toward Eachann. His subconscious protects him from facing the truth and admitting that his anger comes from losing his brother, not from fighting with him.
Is it possible that he doesn’t even know that he lives both lives?
The grin though that pulls at his mouth breaks my thoughts as he cocks his head to the side and says, “Eudard is not here either.”
Oh, God.
If right now I’m not talking to Eudard or Eachann… who is the third personality that without a doubt hates me?
Chapter Eighteen
A priest and a madman, two sides of one coin.
And the most interesting part of it all?
No one knows who craves the darkness more.
Cassandra
“Now we finally come to the conclusion of your game,” the unknown man says, tearing away the priest’s collar and fishing a remote from his pocket. “I knew it would serve its purpose someday.”
“What do you want from me?” I ask, calculating how fast I can run to the altar and then dash to the secret door hidden there. That would allow me to use the passage to get away from him. The main entrance is blocked by him, and he won’t allow me to escape.
Not unless one of the twins comes into the possession of his body. But I have no clue how fast or often the switches happen, so I won’t put my fate in their hands.
“Me?” He presses the gun to himself and turns on the music that blasts so loudly. I cover my ears as it screeches. “Absolutely nothing. You served your purpose.”
“I served my purpose?” I repeat carefully, staying calm, but slowly taking a step back, cursing inwardly for not bringing a phone with me.
I could have sent the danger code to Arson, not that he would have gotten here in time anyway.
He chuckles, lighting up a cigarette and groaning when the first taste hits his tongue. “I wanted to kill those fuckers for a long time. But we couldn’t until you came back so you could play with them yourself.” He sneers those words in distaste, his eyes blazing with fury as he gazes at me, and I wonder how all those personalities can be so different.
A priest, a madman, and… who?
And more importantly, how does he connect to what happened to us ten years ago?
Acting hysterical around him won’t help me, because men like him don’t accept weakness.
No, what they want is acceptance, giving them the right to speak. “What’s your name?”
“I don’t have one.”
How is that possible? Does Eudard even know about his disorder or the existence of this persona?
“Oh, he does. Hard not to when the doctors were trying to figure out his problem when daddy dearest couldn’t cope. Fuck him.” Yeah, it’s safe to say I’m not the only one on his shit list. “We have journals together.”
Which still explains nothing to me! How can Eudard be so controlled in his life and have this entire identity when three men live within him?
Something doesn’t add up.
“What happened to Eachann?” I ask again, carefully taking yet another step back, wanting to slip out of my heels so he won’t hear the sound, although with a predator like him that’s probably impossible.
If this persona rose to protect Eudard as a child at some point, I imagine he doesn’t have much remorse for the pain inflicted on others.
The only instinct is survival and to protect at all costs.
“I didn’t protect him; that’s what happened. Because of you.” He twirls the trigger of the gun on his finger. “You enchanted both the twins but not me.”
“You hate me.”
“No, I don’t,” the reply comes so quickly I blink in surprise. “I hate what happened because of you. That’s two different things.” Then I yelp at the noise as he drops the gun on the floor, but thank God, it doesn’t fire. “I even started to like you again. Until the funeral.” What does he mean…?
Oh.
“Let me go,” I say, softening my voice and hoping that Eudard who is buried somewhere deep inside will take possession of the body and save me this time.
He can’t fail me twice in the course of my life, can he?
Based on what I know, switching back can happen at any moment. Sometimes it takes a few minutes, sometime days.
I really hope this time around it won’t be long.
“I can’t. He could have given you the world, but you wanted his twin,” he shouts. “So he would pay for the crime he did not
commit all those years ago. Here.”
Only then it registers in my mind, and the past comes crashing back at me, nipping on my skin and invading my head, and I can’t stand it anymore.
This night is nothing but insanity, but I’ll be damned if I let someone hurt me twice here.
Fisting my bag, I throw it in his face, and he stumbles back. I spin around and run with all my might to the other end of the church, focusing on nothing but my escape.
All I have to do is get away from him and then this person who wants to do God knows what to me will let me go.
A push from the back sends me flying onto the floor, my knees hitting the hard marble soundly. My cry of pain echoes around the room, mixing with the sound of the organ, sending shivers down my spine.
Each note of Bach’s masterpiece accompanies his harsh footsteps as he walks around me, clicking his fingers in time with the music. The combination twists me from the inside out, as it sends me into a spiral of madness and a haze blurs my vision.
For where people hear notes, all I hear are screams, one after another, of terror that nothing is able to stop.
And agony so strong I might not be able to survive it.
Church is a sanctuary for those who seek redemption, but it becomes a prison for those who want vengeance.
Digging my nails into my palms to the point of drawing blood, I shake my head and place my fists on the cold marble, breathing heavily as droplets of blood slide from my forehead to my cheek.
Phantom pain comes from so many places in my body, from the various wounds inflicted on me, I don’t bother to concentrate on any of it.
It’s not real.
Perfectly shiny black shoes come into view as he finally stands in front of me, and that’s when another sound fills the room.
The loud whoosh and slap of his belt as he takes it out of his pants and hits it against his knees, the leather bouncing quickly, indicating the amount of torture it can bring.
Willing all my self-control and strength that still fuel my exhausted body, I shift to the side, wanting to crawl away from him, but he fists my hair, stilling my movements, and I swallow back a groan of protest that demands escape. Prickles of pain travel through my entire body, so severe that for a second I forget how to breathe. “Little sinner,” he murmurs, pulling at my hair so harshly that my eyes water. He angles my head so I can meet his cold stare head on. “Leaving so soon?”