by B. B. Hamel
“Maybe,” he says. “If you weren’t enjoying it, I’d stop.”
“I’m not enjoying it,” I say.
“Liar.” There’s that filthy smirk again. I want to wipe it off his face. “I’ll be back soon, sugar.”
“Don’t call me that, either,” I call after him lamely as he goes back into the elevator and returns upstairs.
I stare at the closed doors for a minute then curse myself. I’m so pathetic I can barely stand it.
I walk over to my mattress and curl up on it, piling the blankets on top of me. For the first time since coming to this place, I feel safe and comfortable, even though it’s just an illusion.
Noah is a bastard, but a beautiful one. It’s hard to despise him like I should. He killed my father and freed me from that prison, but he threw me into this new one. He’s trying to make me more comfortable, and there is a part of me that understands his dilemma. But I can’t give in to that. I can’t let him break me.
I’ll fight him to the bitter end. Even if it feels so much better not to.
7
Noah
She’s sleeping when I bring her down her breakfast. I’m surprised that the ding of the elevator doesn’t wake her right away. She stirs slightly as I walk slowly into the room.
I crouch down next to her and am surprised at how vulnerable she is. In her sleep, she looks like the twenty-two-year-old girl that she is. When she’s awake, she looks older, more world-weary, although I know that isn’t the case.
I did my homework on her. It took a while, since there’s not much out there about her, but I figured out that she’s twenty-two, doesn’t have a high school education, and has always lived at home. Beyond that, there’s not much information.
She’s a puzzle that I want to solve. She’s a gift that I want to unwrap.
I place the tray next to her mattress and stand. As I turn to leave, I hear her sit up.
“Noah,” she says.
I turn back to her. “Sleeping beauty.”
“What time is it?”
I smile. “It’s morning. I brought you something to eat.”
“Oh.” She looks at the tray. “Thanks.”
That’s the first time she’s thanked me.
“You’re welcome. I don’t want this to be more uncomfortable than it has to be.”
She picks up the cup of water and drinks it greedily. When she finishes, I get her more from the bathroom. She drinks another cup but waves me away when I go to fill it up again.
“Stay with me,” she says as I turn to leave.
I pause and turn back, surprised. “You want me to stay while you eat?”
She nods, looking shy. “I sit alone in here all day. I guess I want some company.”
I nod and sit down on the floor across from her. “Okay. I’ll stay.”
“Good.” She picks up her toast and takes a bite. I watch as she chews and swallows. “You don’t have to stare at me.”
I grin at her. “Sorry, sugar. Can’t help it.”
“Are you always like this?” she asks, sounding annoyed.
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Charming. Annoying.”
I can’t help but laugh at that. “Probably,” I say.
“Well, tell me about yourself.”
“That seems like a bad idea.”
She sighs. “Look, I’m locked in your basement. I don’t plan on spilling the beans when you let me out of here. But we might as well talk to each other while I’m stuck, right?”
I nod, but I know what she’s doing. She’s probing for weaknesses. It’s impressive, actually, that she’s not too afraid to push me like this. I haven’t touched her and won’t, but she doesn’t actually know that.
“I was born in this area,” I say to her. “Grew up around here.”
“What were your parents like?”
“Nothing like yours.”
“Good for you.” She frowns at her tray.
“They died when I was very young.”
She looks up at me. “How?” she asks, cocking her head to one side.
“They were murdered.”
She’s silent but doesn’t look surprised. I take a deep breath and look away from her, feeling strange in the heavy silence between us. I haven’t told anyone that in a very long time. Frankly, I haven’t even mentioned my parents, let alone their murder.
“How did it happen?” she asks softly.
“I was six,” I say slowly. “They put me to bed. My mother read me a story. My father tucked me in.” I pause as the memories come flooding back and then I begin to speak faster, shocked at how good it feels to tell the story.
“I heard something strange downstairs. I couldn’t sleep because I was afraid of the dark. My mother told me that I had to try to sleep before I came and got them, and I always did try. That night, I was trying extra hard, but still couldn’t sleep.
“I don’t remember what I thought the noise was. Maybe the television or something. But I knew something was weird. So I climbed out of bed, deciding that I’d tried to sleep long enough, and went to find my mother. She usually came into the room, turned the lights on, checked for monsters, and then kissed me. That usually helped.” I pause, trying to find the words.
“What happened?” she asks softly.
“I found my father first. His throat was cut, like a second smiling face. There was a lot of blood. I didn’t really know what I was looking at. I don’t really remember what I did, but eventually I left him and tried to find my mother.
“She was left gutted on the kitchen table. She was still alive, but barely. She said something to me, but it was too quiet. I couldn’t understand her. She passed out from blood loss after that.” I go quiet, my story finished.
Amelia watches me for a minute and I can’t read her expression. I don’t expect pity from her, considering what I did to her father, but I do expect some sort of reaction.
“So that’s why you’re so fucked up.” She says finally.
I stare at her for a second. She stares back. I burst out laughing and she smiles along with me.
It feels good to laugh. I haven’t felt any lightness about my parents’ murder in a very long time, maybe ever. Amelia is one of the few people in the world that understands how I feel, at least to some extent.
Finally my laughter calms down and she finishes her piece of toast. “You’re probably right,” I say. “I can’t really deny it. I’m definitely fucked up.”
“We all are.” She grins at me. “Did they ever catch the guy?”
I nod. “Yeah, they did. It was some rich guy that got off on murdering couples, apparently. My father had a lawyer friend that sued the guy’s family for a ton of money and we ended up winning.”
“I guess that’s how you afford all this,” she says.
“That’s right.”
“Let me get this straight. You’re a rich guy with a dark past killing bad guys. Is that right?”
“Something like that.”
“So now you kill people? Like a serial killer?”
I nod, staring directly into her eyes. “That’s right. But only bad people. Only people that deserve it, like your father.”
She laughs, shaking her head. “You’re Batman. You know that, right? That’s Batman’s origin story.”
I lean back on my hands and laugh. “Okay, yeah, that’s true. But I’m not Batman. I’m much, much worse.”
“You’re right.” She bites her lip and looks away, the smile disappearing from her face.
We lapse into silence then and whatever strange spell had been cast by the story I told suddenly breaks. The reality of our situation returns, and the tension between us returns. Slowly I stand up.
“I’ll be back later,” I say to her.
“Wait. Please.” She bites her lip. “Can you give me something to read?”
I nod. “I’ll bring you some books.”
“Thanks.”
“Anything else?”
�
��I guess not.”
“I’ll be back.”
I turn and quickly walk to the elevator. I can feel her eyes on me as I step through the doors and ride it back up to my main house.
I can already feel myself breaking one of my rules. I’m not supposed to get attached to people. Attachments lead to poor judgment. Attachments let people into my world, and I can’t have that.
Amelia seems different. She doesn’t seem to be angry with me for killing her dad.. Instead, she’s defiant about being locked up and wants to be free, but she doesn’t hate me. She’s interested in me, instead.
Her father’s killer. She’s interested in getting to know the man that plunged a knife into her father’s heart.
That’s fascinating. The more I get to know Amelia, the more I want to crack her open and drink her. I want to read her like a book. I want her body, of course, but there’s something else about her. Any person that’s interested in a serial killer like me is worth getting to know.
It would be easier if I just killed her, but that possibility is becoming more and more remote. She’s an innocent, although she has the power to destroy me, I can’t just take her life. I wish it were that simple.
I wish I could just finish it. Instead, I want her more with every visit to the basement.
8
Amelia
I should hate him for what he’s doing to me, but I don’t.
Maybe he can see that, I don’t know. As much as I want that rage inside of me to still be there, every time I go looking for it I realize that it’s depleted. I’ve spent so much time in my life being angry at my father, at my situation, at the world. I want to be angry at Noah as well, but I just can’t.
I hate him for what he’s doing to me. There’s no denying that. But I’m not angry.
I probably should be. He killed my father, after all, but my father deserved it. And according to him, he only kills bad people. He’s a rich guy with a dark past that kills bad guys. He’s like Batman.
Except Batman doesn’t kill people. And Noah does.
He’s a serial killer. I have to keep reminding myself of that.
I wrap myself in my blankets and try to think about anything but my father, but my mind inevitably ends up on him. For some reason, one particular memory comes back, the memory that has always haunted me.
He’s drunk as hell again, like he always is. He comes stumbling back inside late at night. I’m sixteen years old and I can tell from the sound he’s making downstairs that he’s going to hurt me.
I don’t bother locking the door. He slowly comes up the stairs and pushes open the door. He stands there, staring at me, anger and lust in his eyes.
“You little bitch,” he says to me.
“What?” I ask. “What do you want?”
“You fucking threw it out, didn’t you?”
“I didn’t touch your stuff.”
“You dumb bitch. I had two hundred dollars in there!” he screams.
“What are you talking about?”
“The pizza boxes! The ones you threw out! My fucking money!” He storms across the room.
I don’t know what he’s talking about. I didn’t throw away any pizza boxes. I know better than to touch his garbage without asking first. There may or may not be money hidden somewhere in this house, but that doesn’t matter. All that matters is he needs an excuse to hit me, and he made one up.
He punches me in the jaw as soon as he gets near, knocking me from my computer chair. He kicks me in the ribs and grabs me by the hair, pulling me to my feet.
I know better than to scream too loud. I grunt but I don’t whimper. I try not to show too much anger or too much pain. I turn off my mind and let him hit me, over and over, beating my already bruised body. If I fight back, it’ll only get worse.
Eventually, he throws me onto the bed and stumbles out of my room, breathing heavily and sweating.
I lie there for a while, not moving. I test my body, trying to see how bad the damage is. I don’t have any broken ribs, or at least I’m pretty sure I don’t. I’m bruised and battered, but I’ll survive.
I hear him downstairs in the shower as I find a rag to dab at the blood running from my lip and my nose. By the time I get the bleeding to stop, he’s out of the shower and in his bedroom, probably already passed out.
I creep down the stairs, anger sudden and white-hot. I hate him, hate him so fucking much. I hate what he does to me. I hate what he’s made me.
I find him in his bedroom, lying on an empty mattress surrounded by his dirty clothes. I walk up to him, not sure what I’m going to do.
As I get close, he suddenly heaves. He’s lying face down, his face turned slightly to one side, and he vomits. Instead of moving, he just stays there, vomit leaking from his mouth. He tries to take a breath, and another, and suddenly I realize that he’s choking.
I stand there, eyes wide, as my bastard father begins to choke to death on his own vomit. He’s clearly too drunk to wake up. If I don’t help him, he’ll die.
I stand there watching, frozen in horror, torn between two worlds.
If I don’t move, I can be free. I can save myself. It won’t be my fault if he dies. Frankly, he deserves it. Nobody will know that I watched him and let him die like this.
He chokes, gags, trying to get breath. His face turns red and slowly transitions to purple. His body begins to thrash in slow motion, like he’s under water.
I just have to stand there. Let him die. Let him die for everything he did to me.
But I’m a coward. After another couple seconds, I run to him, turn him onto his side, and scoop the vomit from his mouth and throat. He takes deep, gasping breaths, the color in his face slowly returning to normal. He doesn’t even wake up.
I sit there, hands covered in his spit and vomit, and curse myself.
I’m a coward. I’m a pathetic coward. I saved his life and he’ll never know it. He wouldn’t believe me if I told him, and if he did, he wouldn’t care. He’ll just get drunk and hit me again soon enough.
I sob there next to my drunk abusive father, already regretting saving his life.
I remember that night all the time. It was the night that I could have saved myself. I always wonder what would have happened to me, what kind of life I could have had, if only I had let him die in his sleep that night.
But I’m weak. I’m weak and pathetic. I couldn’t bear the thought of being responsible for the death of my father even though he deserved it. Out of everyone in this world, I’m the only one that should have killed him.
Instead, Noah did. He did what I couldn’t do. He came into our house at night and shoved a knife deep into my father’s black and withered heart, letting him bleed out into the tub. He did what I wish I had the courage to do all those years ago.
I look up as the elevator door dings. I push myself into a sitting position as he walks into the room, holding a cardboard box in his arms.
“Special delivery,” he says, putting it down on the floor next to me.
I look into it and smile. It’s full of paperbacks, some of them old, but some are pretty new-looking.
“That was fast,” I say.
“I have a lot of books upstairs.” He shrugs. “I’m not sure what you’re into, though, so I brought a bunch of stuff.”
“I’m not sure what I’m into, either,” I admit. “I haven’t really read much.”
“That’s good,” he says. “Because I have a lot of good stuff in here.”
“Like what?”
“Well, have you read Harry Potter?”
“No,” I say, laughing. “Are you serious? You’re a serial killer.”
“True. But it’s really a great series. It’s famous for a reason.”
“I watched the movies.”
“Not the same.
“Is this—”
“Here—”
We reach into the box at the same time and our hands touch. I stare at him, surprised as our fingers graze each other. We linger th
ere for a second and I feel a thrill run down my spine. I’m shocked at the excitement, the desire that courses through my veins, and I quickly pull my hand back. I’m not sure what that feeling means, and frankly I’m afraid of it.
I should be more afraid. This man is a killer, a murderer. He’s a bad, bad man. But I still feel that pulsing desire deep down inside of me as I study his handsome face, and for a second, I think he feels it too.
“This is it,” he continues softly. He hands me a book.
“Thanks.”
“There’s other stuff in there, too.” He stands up, looking away. “Harry Potter starts out for kids, but it gets better.”
“Thanks,” I say stupidly, still thrown off by the feeling of his fingers against mine.
“There’s adult stuff in there, too.” With that, he turns and stalks off toward the doors.
I want to call out and stop him. I want to tell him that I’m happy he killed my dad. I want to explain to him that he just did what I couldn’t do, what I wish I had the strength to do. So many people like me fall through the cracks because I’m poor and the cops don’t give a fuck about me. Poor uneducated people get fucked and abused all the time in our world. People like Noah understand that. He’s doing a good thing by killing the people that the cops can’t take care of.
But I don’t say it. Because I know I’m sick and pathetic. I look at the manacle on my ankle and have to remind myself that I’m his captive. He wants to break me, maybe even kill me. I have to keep my distance.
The doors open and close on him, and I’m left alone again.
I briefly want him to come back, but I banish that thought. I have to escape. I can’t keep letting myself be this sick and pathetic and weak.
I turn toward the books and begin to sift through them, trying to forget that sensation, that thrill.
9
Noah
I can still feel her touch lingering on my skin. It’s strange that I can’t shake the simple feeling of her fingers grazing mine, even after watching her change, but it’s there, locked in my mind.