Rip

by Rachel Van Dyken

  Maybe that was the danger, my mind whirled as my mouth filled with cotton, the danger in profiling. You always assume the homeless man on the street has a knife, never once looking at the seventy year old woman with heels and a gun.

  “Shhh, now.” Jac pressed a finger against my lips. “Make sure you take long even breaths, don’t want you to hyperventilate or anything.”

  I moaned.

  “That’s it, sweetie.” She patted my check, hard, really hard, I could tell because of the force but the sting wasn’t there, why was my cheek numb? Like I’d gone to the dentist and lost all feeling in my mouth, my tongue was heavy too. Her silver blue eyes narrowed. “That’s it, dear.”

  The trunk slammed shut blanketing me in darkness, freaking the hell out of me, I willed my feet to lift to kick the taillight, like I’d seen in the movies but no matter how many times I tried, no part of my body moved.

  I could still breathe, but would that go too? If my muscles were paralyzed did that mean my organs were going to be too?

  Tears stung, the only reason I knew I was crying was because I couldn’t see anymore, only blurry black.

  Minutes went by that felt like hours, and then the car stopped. I tried to scream but only small moans and whimpers escaped. Sunlight burned my eyes as the trunk was opened again. Jac put her hands on her hips and stared at me. “Now, to get you out, that’s always the trick! Be right back!”

  She walked away, I couldn’t see where, only blue sky telling me we weren’t completely outside of the City yet if the seagulls and noise were any indication.

  Jac pushed a gurney that was level with the trunk right up to the car and then pulled my body toward it. I fought her, or at least I tried to but she was stronger than she looked, easily heaving me onto the gurney and strapping me down.

  Terror shot through me in that moment.

  She was batshit crazy.

  And she was going to kill me. I had no doubt, that this wasn’t some sort of funny prank or idea she’d had because I’d somehow touched her grandson and it pissed her off.

  Humming, Jac pushed the gurney toward the back of a large red house, why were we passing the house? I heard the sound of a waterfall and clenched my eyes shut hoping and praying that didn’t mean she lived on water and was about to push me into it—drowning terrified me, not breathing or moving was right up there. I continued to struggle against the restraints but again my body didn’t move.

  “Succinylcholine.” Jac leaned down and patted my cheek then laughed out loud. “Only about one hundred milligrams or so do the trick well, though you never want to administer too much lest you kill the patient before the cleansing begins.”

  Cleansing?

  “You should be able to talk though.” She tilted her head. “I think I may have given you a bit too much, which just means we’ll have to wait until you can participate.”

  Participate?

  “It’s always better to confess your sins aloud before you die.” She opened a large door and pushed the gurney into the dimly lit room.

  Lights flickered on around me, bright lights, like the ones you’d see in an operating room.

  Everything was white.

  I felt sick to my stomach, but held the coffee down. If I puked, I’d just suffocate, right?

  I squeezed my eyes shut again, and thought of Nik, of the way he kissed me, touched me. Was this really how my life was going to end? At the hands of some crazy lady? I’d do anything—anything to be back in that apartment, even if it meant I was on the other end of the trigger, awaiting my fate. Better to die in love, than in fear.

  Jac continued to hum while I heard the clatter of metal against metal. Finally, after a few minutes, she started talking again. “I warned him. I truly did. I warned all of the men in my family. Don’t get too close, but they did, all of them, too close.”

  What the hell?

  “We must keep the memory of our ancestors alive and cleanse the world of evil… of promiscuity. It is the only way for us to make it, to redeem the earth. It is up to us. Pity.” She sighed. “Because I truly liked you. I liked all of them.”

  All of them?

  “Oh I didn’t kill them all, I simply… scared them into running off, it was easy. Though the bad ones, the ones with disease, I always end them, it is our legacy, after all.” She peered over me, her pupils mere pinpoints. “Do you know who I am, dear?”

  Satan. She was Satan.

  “It was August, 1888, the date of the first kill. Funny, how so many historians and scholars assume that only a man could do such work.” She scowled. “Mary Ann Nichols, that bitch had it coming.” Light flickered off a silver knife that Jac waved in the air. “But he was weak, so weak, he cheated on my great-great-great-grandmother. Cheated on her several times actually, though it took years to find all the women, and oh she had to be careful, so very careful. That first kill was her first taste of revenge, of blood, and when she returned home Andrew asked what she’d done, why was she covered in so much blood.”

  Jac pulled up a rolling stool and laid the knife on the table. “And you know what she told him? She told him that she was going to cleanse the city of its darkness, one by one, and she would start with every woman he’d ever been with. Of course, his immediate response was to beg forgiveness, but do you know what that bastard did that next night? He went to warn another woman, leading good old Grandmother to her next victim. She didn’t attack that night, merely watched and waited, she was patient like that, so very patient. It’s been an issue in our family, infidelity. It matters not, now…”

  What was she talking about?

  “Oh…” She patted my head. “You look confused…didn’t you ever pay attention in school, dear? Listen very carefully…my grandmother wasn’t just any killer, she was a serial killer.” Jac chuckled, a sinister sound that shot terror into my heart. “All the women in our family have carried on the tradition… Do you know who I am?”

  No. And I didn’t want to. I just wanted to escape, go back in time to where I was lying in Nikolai’s bed.

  I closed my eyes.

  “Open your eyes,” she commanded.

  I tried to shake my head.

  Sudden pressure against my neck had me opening my eyes. “Oh good, you’re starting to feel again, but the sad part is, you still won’t be able to move, you’ll simply feel everything but be unable to run away. Wonderful, isn’t it?”

  “No.” I finally got the word out.

  She smiled warmly. “Honey at least your death will be honorable, a penance of the sins of our family. If I do not kill, then our family is not successful, the one woman who tried to go against the tradition ended up getting killed in a freak train accident along with everyone in her family but her two children, me and my sister, rest her soul. We are history in the making. Think hard… prostitutes being killed… London.”

  I let out a gasp.

  “I’m Jack the Ripper…” she whispered in my right ear. “And I will listen to your confession—before I cut you apart.”

  The end is the crown of any work.—Russian Proverb

  WE MADE IT DOWN TO THE lobby just in time to see Jac’s car speed away. I couldn’t exactly run down the street, I’d end up doing more damage to my body, and I suspected I’d need my strength for the upcoming battle.

  Phoenix grabbed his cell and started barking orders into it while I reached for my own phone and stared down at it. If Jac really had snapped, there were only two places she would take Maya, two places where she could do her work.

  The clinic.

  Or her house.

  The one I had bought and paid for.

  Along with her operating room, where all the murders of the sick girls had taken place and now, I imagined, many more. I’d turned a blind eye because of the guilt, because of the love I still had for the woman who had helped raise me.

  But she had just stolen my reason for living.

  So I was going to rip her lungs out through her throat while she watched.

>   “Phoenix.” I snapped my fingers. “I’m texting you the directions to the clinic. If Maya’s there, make sure you call an ambulance after you bring down Jac, I don’t know what drugs she gave her. Typically, she gives the type that paralyzes your body, but if given too much Maya could die.”

  “Where are you going?” Phoenix’s eyes were crazed.

  “Her house. There’s only two safe locations where she has the right instruments to…” Torture. Kill. Maim. Destroy. “Do what she does.”

  “Be safe.” Phoenix slapped me on the shoulder then went running out the door while I went in the opposite direction, half stumbling toward the parking garage so I could grab my car.

  Rage filled my line of vision, bloody rage, a rage I could barely control as I finally stumbled into my car, started it, and sped toward Jac’s house.

  I would end her.

  And I would do it slowly.

  The clock on my dash blinked back at me, and I prayed, I prayed that Maya would be strong, that she would fight back, but most of all I prayed I’d have time to save her life, even if it meant sending her away so the reminder of whose blood pulsed through my body didn’t haunt her every breath.

  One does not look for good, from good.—Russian Proverb

  STAY ALIVE, STAY ALIVE, STAY ALIVE. I was singing the mantra in my head, actually singing it, hoping that if I just kept singing then it would be true and Jac wouldn’t use the knife she was currently holding over my head.

  I closed my eyes and prayed just as the knife sliced across my hand. I screamed as loud as I could—which, thanks to the drugs, still wasn’t very loud.

  “Just checking to see if the medication has worn off.” Jac gave me a freakish smile. “You know, I didn’t choose this life. It chose me.” She wiped my blood across her hand then lifted it to her mouth. “If it wasn’t for me, Nik wouldn’t have the career he does, nor the success. It is up to him to continue the family name, or birth a female who is stronger, who can do it for him.”

  “You’re sick!” I yelled. “You’re going to get caught.”

  Jac burst out laughing. “We haven’t been caught for over a century. Grandmother was married to a surgeon, she aided in all of his research. She was more brilliant than he any day of the week. We’ve always been a family of medicine, and those who practice medicine may as well be gods as we hold lives in the palms of our hands.” My blood dripped off her fingertips, she rubbed them together, examining it. “I grew tired of killing prostitutes… tired of killing the sick. Where’s the fun in killing those who are already knocking on death’s door?” Her gaze met mine. “But killing the pure? That’s a challenge. It takes finesse, finding the right people, snuffing their lives out at the very last moment.” She leaned over her breath fanned over my face. “You will scream. It will hurt, and then?” She shrugged. “You will be no more. I’m sorry it has to be this way, but I can’t afford to let him develop a conscience. I can’t afford to lose my grandson just because he thinks himself in love with you.”

  “He’ll kill you,” I said, my voice filled with tremors.

  “Hah!” Jac waved the knife over my body. “He adores me. I raised him to be what he is today… I’ve saved him, and you’ve done nothing but confuse him.” Her eyes narrowed. “And for that, you will die.”

  Light flickered off the knife as she raised it above her head. “One cut, slightly to the left of the navel, and then, I’ll open you up, and remove every last female organ you have… I do this first, in honor of my family, in honor of my grandmother, and then. I kill you.”

  The knife dove toward my skin and then hovered as she leaned over and sliced across my stomach. Unbearable pain washed over me. I wanted to thrash, instead I screamed until my voice was hoarse as the burning, tearing sensation got worse.

  “Drop the knife.” Nik’s authoritative voice sounded from the door. “Now.”

  Jac turned, bloody knife in hand. “Oh, good! You’re just in time. I needed an assistant, if you’ll just grab an apron so you don’t get blood on your clothes I’ll—”

  Nik lunged for Jac shoving her against the gurney and pulling the knife from her hands then turning it on her.

  Her expression was one of shock, disbelief. “You don’t mean to harm me, do you?”

  “Not at all.” He said in an empty voice, confirming my worst fear, that he wanted me dead, that maybe he was just as bad as he’d said. He leaned in then ran the knife very slowly along her neck and said in a low voice. “I mean to kill you.”

  Her eyes widened and then one slit to her neck, it was quick too quick for Jac to do anything but gurgle out a bloody. “Nik…” Before falling to the floor as she choked to death.

  I couldn’t see, but I could hear, and those sounds would probably haunt my dreams for an eternity.

  Nik stepped over her and turned his eyes to me.

  “No!” I yelled. “Don’t hurt me please don’t hurt me!”

  His face fell. “Maya, I love you, I would never hurt you.”

  Panicked, my eyes filled with tears. “You said this morning….” I couldn’t get the words out. “You would kill me, you said!”

  Nik cursed, cupping my face with both hands. “I said I was going to kill her—Jac—not you. I wouldn’t harm a hair on your head. I love you.”

  Tears made it nearly impossible to make out his face. “But, you said her past and—”

  “I imagine she told you enough about her past for you to know how crazy she was… how crazy my bloodline is.” He swallowed. “But that’s my burden, not yours. My father…” He licked his lips and slowly started undoing the straps around my body. “He was… sickened by what our family did, he joined the mafia in hopes that it would protect us when Jac went insane, when she went after us. We also needed protection from the feds, from the police if they ever discovered the truth. A trade was made, but my father, he knew too much, he was killed leaving me to pick up the pieces to make a deal with the devil in order to protect the woman who’d helped raise me. I never believed it, believed she would go crazy.”

  My body was free from its restraints but I still couldn’t move anything. Nik lifted me into his arms and carried me out of the building, I was able to see more, see the large barn next to the house and Nik’s waiting Audi.

  The minute I was safely laid across the back seat, he reached for my stomach, his hands came back bloody. “It’s not deep, superficial, probably hurt like hell.”

  My teeth started to chatter. “Y-yes.”

  “Shhhh.” He kissed my forehead. “You’re going into shock, just listen to my voice. I want to take you away from here, somewhere safe, it’s best I treat you… understand?”

  I couldn’t nod but I managed a weak whimper.

  He kissed my mouth. “Just stay awake, talk with me.”

  Falling in love is like falling into a swimming pool.—Russian Proverb

  I MADE HER TALK ABOUT FRIVOLOUS things like her favorite restaurants in Seattle, all the places she wished to visit—anything to keep her talking and coherent. I’d already sent a text to Phoenix that we were on our way back to the apartment. I kept emergency supplies, enough to be able to stitch her up without having to worry about her having scars or being in pain.

  It took me a good fifteen minutes to finally get her into the apartment and over to the couch.

  “No!” She gasped. “It’s white. Not the couch.”

  Guilt slammed me in the chest, stealing my breath away. “Maya, it’s fine… I need to lay you down now.”

  “You hate red on white.”

  “I also hate butterflies.”

  “What?” She gasped.

  “It was a joke.” I smiled. “Now lie down.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t argue with your doctor.”

  “Horrible bedside manner.” She shivered.

  “Now, Maya.” I set her down carefully while Phoenix shared a look with me and left the room. “You know that’s not true.”

  Her teeth wouldn’t stop
chattering.

  “Maya.” I grabbed a syringe of morphine. “I’m just going to give you a little bit to numb the pain while I stitch, it will also relax you.”

  Without waiting for her answer, I injected her.

  She went silent, her eyes boring holes into me as I slowly stitched up her stomach. Six stitches. Nothing huge, nothing life altering, but enough to pray that Jac rotted in hell for putting Maya through what she had.

  “I can take it away,” I whispered, hating that the words were coming out of my mouth. “But I have to take it all away.”

  “What are you talking about?” Maya blinked, tried to sit up then winced and lay back down as I knelt next to her on the couch.

  “The memories.” I was an ass. “Just say the word, and I’ll make you think you’ve been in another car accident, I don’t know if it will work but I can try, I can take away the bad.”

  “Oh, Nik.” Maya placed a hand over mine. “You can’t do that.”

  “I can try.”

  She smiled. “Life is hell.”

  “Yes.”

  “It sucks.”

  “These aren’t exactly points in your favor.”

  “My point…” Her lower lip trembled. “…is you can’t take away the bad, without taking away the good. The good is you. If I need to keep the bad memories in order to keep you. Then I choose the bad.”

  “But—”

  She pressed a finger to my lips. “Kiss me.”

  “My grandmother almost killed you. I’m not just part of the Russian mafia but I’m guilty of turning a blind eye while my own flesh and blood went on a killing rampage, and what’s worse? I encouraged it, because I wanted no part of it. And you want me to kiss you? Still?”

  “Not just still,” Maya whispered. “Always.”

  “But—”

  “Damn you’re argumentative. See? Horrible bedside manner.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Maya, be serious. Our life… it will never be easy.”