by Ker Dukey
A couple of cars pass me. Once their headlights fade, the darkness of the night creeps over me, making every hair follicle stand on end. My cell phone rings, and my heart almost stops. Charlotte. A slither of disappointment washes through me that it’s not Clark, even though I didn’t give him my number.
“Hello?” Moans greet me back. “Hello?” I try again. She butt dialed me while getting laid. Gross. I end the call. My feet pick up speed until I’m practically jogging. I hate this tense feeling and fear of walking around by myself. We shouldn’t have to go through this. The monsters committing horrible crimes are collecting more victims than the ones they’re targeting. I’m just about to slip inside when a food delivery guy calls out for me to wait. He hands me a pizza and saunters off.
“Hey, jerk, this isn’t for me,” I call out, but he’s already stuffed his earbuds back in, ignoring me.
Checking the name on the pizza, my stomach flip-flops. Clark. I suppose I better take it up to him.
Nerves flutter as I ascend the stairs to his apartment. Rapping my knuckles on the door, I hear his movements.
He opens it a sliver and peers out, his eyes suspicious. Recognition dawns on him, and his eyes widen. “Hey.” I give a half-smile and hold up his pizza. “The delivery guy doesn’t want tips apparently.”
Looking behind him, his forehead creases, but he opens the door, filling the gap with his frame. He holds out his hands. “Sorry about that. Thanks for doing his job.”
I place the pizza box in his upturned palms, feeling a little awkward. A couple moments pass before he says, “You hungry?” He lifts his brow. “And do you like pizza?” he adds, twisting his lips.
A smile touches my face, lightening the somber mood I’ve been living in. “As long as it doesn’t have pineapple on it,” I fire back.
“Are you trying to steal my heart?”
My heart rushes. Butterflies flurry in my stomach. “No, I’m trying to steal your pizza.” I quip, feeling lighter being in his presence.
My stomach growls when the aroma of melted cheese and sauce drifts from the box. He turns to go back inside, letting the door close behind me. I follow him. It’s the exact layout as ours, only his furniture doesn’t look like he bought it at a flea market. The place is also clean, spotless, a hint of bleach in the air. He also has curtains. Lucky bastard.
“Drink?” he asks, holding up a bottle of wine. My mouth salivates at the sight.
I nod enthusiastically, and he chuckles before pouring me an extra tall glass. Untangling my scarf, I place it on one of the stools at his breakfast bar.
“Long day?” he asks, giving me the once over. His gaze feels intimate, like he sees through my clothes to the flesh beneath. I squirm a little and recheck my cell phone. “You have somewhere to be?”
I shake my head. “It’s fine. I have some time.” I have nowhere to be.
He nods and places a plate in front of me. I help myself to a slice and try not to look giddy at the sight of his meat lovers pizza. A guy after my own heart. “Your place is looking nice.” I smile. Everything looks expensive. “So, what is it you do, Mr. Clark?” I bite into the slice and wait for his answer. When he remains silent, I flick my eyes up and find him watching me. Does he realize it’s not polite to stare at people while they’re eating?
“Everything okay?” I ask, running a hand down my hair. Do I look a mess? I’ve been at work all day. Crap, I should have changed, brushed my hair.
“Sorry.” He shakes his head. “As in do for a Profession?”
“Yes.” I nod, licking the oil from my fingers.
“Freelance photography.”
I quirk a brow. There isn’t one picture on the bare white walls. I wonder if he’s still in school. He doesn’t look much older than me. I open my mouth to ask when the door buzzer sounds, interrupting me.
He glares over at the front door, his nostrils flaring.
“Sorry. I’m not expecting anyone.” He frowns, going over to the intercom. I check my cell phone. It’s past eight. The door downstairs will be key and intercom access only.
“Hello?” he barks through the intercom. Ours doesn’t work. It’s yet another thing we need to complain about.
“It’s Detective Hernandez,” the familiar voice says back.
“I’m busy right now. Can this wait?” His tone is clipped and terse.
“It will just take a minute.”
He slams his palm against the wall, dipping his head to his toes, making me startle.
“I can leave. I should be going anyway,” I offer, slipping from the stool, a disappointing cloud floating over me.
He looks between the pizza and me, shaking his head. I notice his quick glance to the bedroom door. Unlike ours, his is a one-bedroom apartment. “No. Eat. I’ll go get rid of him.” He swings open the door and disappears behind it, slamming it shut.
My bladder screams at me for drinking the wine too quickly. I look around for the bathroom, hoping it’s in the same place as ours. As I reach for the handle, I hear Charlotte's voice muffled in the room next to me. My heart rate quickens. What the hell? I push open that door and come face to face with an almost empty void, all barring the far wall covered in photos and newspaper clippings, and a bed just above mine downstairs.
“Stay out of there or she’ll kill me.” I hear Charlotte's voice again so clear, it’s as if she’s in the room whispering. The sound is coming from the vent. I’m about to close the door and go down to kick Charlotte’s ass for being in my room when one of the images gains my attention.
My feet shuffle forward as I fight back tears. My nostrils flare, and my breathing becomes strained.
It’s me. When I was a child. Taken by the reporter who covered Jack’s disappearance. There are hundreds of articles about his father all cut out of the newspaper and pinned to the wall. My scars itch and burn when I see one of me at my mother’s funeral, black rose in hand. I didn’t know there were reporters there that day. I move to another image. Red circles around victim’s faces just like at the coffee shop. My hands tremble. I shift backwards, my legs working on their own accord. Wrapping a hand around my waist to stop from throwing up, I hit a wall and turn, stumbling away. Clark stands there, his brow furrowed, his mouth set in a hard line.
“You shouldn’t snoop,” he admonishes, and the world around me dims.
Oh god, who are you?
I try to keep my eyes trained on him while searching for a weapon in my peripheral. There’s nothing. I back up toward the window, hoping I can scream and be heard and seen through it. “Stop backing away from me. I’m not going to hurt you.” He grimaces, but I keep moving.
“What is this?” I ask, trying to keep him distracted from advancing on me. None of this makes any sense.
“It’s not what it looks like.” He sighs, holding his hand up like he’s trying to tame a wild horse.
“What does it look like?” I breathe.
“I can explain.” He moves closer, and I dart to the corner, holding my hands out in front of me. Fear and confusion shoot into me like bullets from a gun. Images flutter to the floor as my back crashes into the wall he’s created. Images of the slain women. He bends to scoop them up, and I use the chance to push him over and dart past him, my heart racing and head swimming. I make it to the front door before tripping over my feet in my haste to escape. I crash forward. A cracking pain explodes over my skull as I collide with the metal latch, slicing my head against the lock and stumbling backwards. My knees give way, sending me fumbling to the floor. My sight fades in and out, and the air around me whooshes. Crap.
He’s there, pulling me to my feet within seconds. My head swims. The color has drained from his face. He looks…worried for me?
“God, Lizzy, I would never hurt you. Please stop trying to run away. You’re bleeding.” He guides me with a gentle pull of my arm over to the couch and deposits me there before walking somewhere behind me. Warm rivulets of blood drip down my face, creating a mess. I calculate the distance a
nd chances of me getting back to the door. “You may need a stitch.” He’s back too soon. My hope for escape flees. He frowns down at me as he places a wet towel again the wound. I flinch from the contact.
“Why do you have a picture of me on your weird wall of death?” My voice shakes. My skull throbs. I’m not sure if I’ll pass out.
He sits down on the coffee table in front of me, taking the towel with him. “I think I should get you to the emergency room.”
I swipe the towel from him and place it back on my head. “Just answer the damn question before I scream the place down,” I warn.
“I’ve been following the killings,” he says, like it’s obvious
“Why?”
“Because they’re replicas of the murders committed by Willis Langford.” My lungs seize. I gasp, but no air filters in. My chest tightens. I can’t breathe. I slap at my chest, my eyes springing wide. Darkness begins clouding in. I’m suffocating. “Breathe, Lizzy. Fuck. Breathe.”
“Who are you?” I wheeze.
“You know who I am. You’ve always known.” No. No. It can’t be. I can’t breathe. I’m dying. My throat is closing up. My hands go there, clawing. He jumps up and slides behind me, wrapping his arms around my chest and bringing my body against his. I can’t even fight him. Everything is crashing down around me. I’m crumbling.
“Feel the movements of my chest,” he urges.
“One. Breathe. Two. Breathe. Three. Breathe.” Patting his hand over my heart, he murmurs, “Da-dum, da-dum, da-dum.” My body begins to relax, and the oxygen finally inflates my lungs. Tears burn in my eyes. I want to curl up into myself.
“Who are you…?” I break.
“Shhh, just breathe. Relax.” My eyes feel like lead weights are pushing down on them. I fight the urge to give in, but it’s too hard. I’m being pulled under. My eyes close, betraying me.
Nineteen
Damn it. My head is cracking in two. My eyes blink open and take a second to adjust to the artificial light. Memories of being in Clark’s apartment cause me to jolt upright. I immediately regret the action when pain flames across my head.
“Whoa! It’s okay. You’re safe.” Clark walks over to the couch where I’m covered in a blanket. “I read that you’re allowed to sleep now with a concussion, you weren’t out long,” he assures me. Concussion? My fingertips brush against my head, padding the cut. A hiss passes my lips when the movement causes a little oozing.
“You need to tell me everything,” I croak. My throat feels dry, and I’m still a little lightheaded. “You’re here because of Willis?” I ask.
“I’ve been following the activity.” His brown hair looks wild, like he’s been running his hands through it nonstop.
“The activity?” I scoot up a little.
“The killers,” he clarifies, the muscles in his jaw flexing.
“You mean Willis?”
His eyes drop to the floor. Coiling in my stomach tells me whatever he’s going to say isn’t going to be good. “I don’t believe it to be Willis.”
My head is going to explode. His eyes shoot up to mine, and I freeze at the piercing torment there. “Ask me again what my name is.”
My heart kicks into high gear. I can’t. I’m so terrified of his answer. “I don’t know if I can.” A tear leaks from my eye, emotions colliding inside me. Stroking my tear away, he leans forward, capturing my gaze. He takes my hand in his palm, and the fear from before lingers into hope. This is all going to be okay. The touch he offers will be around in the long-term. I want him to be the angel in the darkness my life has become. Friend or foe, hunter or hero? Phantom sirens sound in my head. His thumb strokes over my flesh, driving out the alarm.
“Am I the reason you live here?” I croak.
“Yes.” Pulling my hand from his, I sit up further on the couch to put more distance between us. Tension hangs in the air like we’re facing the gallows.
He sighs and gets to his feet, pacing the floor. “It’s complicated, and I didn’t want to just spook you and come out and say I know who you are, and you know who I am.”
I pull a cushion to my chest in a tight fist. “So, stalking me and having a weird wall of victims was a better plan?” I scoff.
His eyes dart down the small corridor to his room, then back to me. “It’s not a weird wall. It’s an evidence wall.” My mind races. I want to ask him all the questions, but I’m struggling to think. The red-circled picture of the murdered girl materializes in my head.
“Why did you tell me I look like the victim?” I get to my feet now, feeling too vulnerable sitting.
“Because I wanted to know if you thought so too…if you put the pieces together.”
I throw his blanket down on the couch and walk around it to create a barrier. “What pieces?”
He stops moving and stares at me. “What do you remember about him—about what happened back then?”
“Nothing!” I shout, feeling defensive.
“What about his son?”
Jack.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
I fumble backwards, my ass hitting a side table. “What about him?” Is he you? I’m almost hysterical now. Are you him? No way. I refuse to believe it. It can’t be, can it?
He takes a few steps toward me. I balk, but can’t go anywhere because of the table behind me. Luckily, the couch is in front of him. Halting his steps, he places his hands up. “Ask me who I am, Lizzy.”
“No.”
“Ask me, Liz Wiz.”
Boom. Boom. Boom.
“I can’t.”
“Tell me what you remember.”
My arms wrap around my waist. The need to be held is so strong, I almost want to weep. “I was a child. All I remember is him killing our mothers and taking Jack.” A lie. I remember everything in excruciating clarity. The sound of our laughter as we played. The smell of freshly cut grass. The hum of a light breeze through the branches of the trees.
Marco…
Polo…
Marco…
My mother’s otherworldly screech. Jack calling out to me. My own screams at the sight of Jack disappearing from my vision. Loneliness. Overwhelming guilt.
You can come out now.
I was seven years old. I couldn’t have helped him even if I’d tried. I was lucky his father didn’t kill me for witnessing the abduction. If he hadn’t been in such a hurry, maybe he would have. Now, he’s back.
“Do you ever think about him—Jack? What he lived through?” he asks, and my soul aches.
“Of course,” I gasp. Tension hangs over my eyes, weighing me down. I move to the stool and sit down before I crumble to the floor.
“Who am I, Lizzy?”
“I don’t know,” I lie.
“You do know.”
No. No. No.
“Don’t. Please don’t,” I plead.
“Fine. I’ll write it down for you.” How is this happening? My head pulses. My heart leaks through my ribcage.
“Here.” He shoves a piece of rolled-up paper into my hand. “When you’re ready, read it.”
I slip from the stool, clutching the paper, the ground shifting beneath me. I move toward the door, feeling the burn of his gaze. Whatever the hell this is between us is so potent, it’s like a thick ball of energy floating in the atmosphere between us. Resistance to the pull is almost impossible. He is the moon, and I the ocean. “I’ll be waiting. I’ve been waiting,” he calls out as I open the door and slip through it. Racing down the stairs, almost tripping on my own feet, I barge into my apartment, startling Charlotte. “Where the hell have you been?” she shrieks.
Ignoring her, I race to my room, slamming the door and throwing myself onto the mattress. My heart races. One, two—breathe—three, four. I squeeze my eyes closed. Open it. Open it. Unclenching my palm, I stare at the piece of paper. Unraveling, the bold letters jump off the page like bullets pounding into me, leaving me wounded. My head spins, my soul freezes, and the world stops.
Jack.
Twenty
Thoughts consume me. Depleted in a heartbreaking sob, I cry into my pillow. Overwhelming emotions crash down, devouring me whole. I’ve waited all my life for him to be found, and now he’s here. Can it be him—my lost boy?
Loud taps pound the door. Muffled voices hum in the depths of my mental break. The collision of relief and fear swirls in the dark, seeking out the light. Years of not knowing—of hurting—searching. A weight pushes down on the mattress, the scent of summer rain saturating me as a warm body curls behind me, large, powerful. Jack. All the loneliness, the broken pieces of my shattered soul, wield together in an upsurge of deep yearning. “How can this be?” I croak, drowning, sinking to the bottom of the ocean.
“I found you,” he breathes into my hair. And just like that, he’s diving into the depths, pulling me to the surface.
“Lizzy, what the hell is going on?” Charlotte calls from my doorway. “Do you want me to call the police?”
“No,” I rasp. “No. It’s okay, Char. Leave us.” She hesitant, but finally closes the door.
Heat spreads up my back, my soul reconnecting, fusing to its mate, all the nerve-endings awakening. “Why didn’t you tell me it was you?”
“You needed time.” He clutches me so tight, afraid this is just a dream. Turning to face him, our breathing accelerates, eyes devouring every inch of the other’s face, soaking in the years of changes, the freckles. “Aquila's,” I murmur, stroking the pad of my finger down his nose.
Taking my hands in his, he places them against his chest. “What does that mean?”
“It’s a constellation, the eagle that carried Zeus’s thunderbolt.” Frowning, I add, “It’s also supposedly the eagle who kidnapped a son of Troy to serve the gods.” My stomach dips. “I’m sorry he took you.” Acid churns my insides, a fresh wave of tears searing down my cheeks.
“Don’t. It was never your fault. We were kids,” he urges, clasping my face.
“How did you find me?” I sniffle.
With tender fingers, he moves hair crusted with blood from my forehead, grimacing at the cut there. “Should we get that looked at?”