by Stella Noir
I had never done that before. I had never been that careless, but all I could think about was getting to Landen’s house and throwing that girl onto one of his tables. I didn’t even put her in a bag, I was in such a big hurry. And now I’m here.
But I wanted that dream back. I want to go back to sleep and hear Avery’s voice and feel her fingers in my hair for the rest of my life. But then my eyes flew open when I realized that Avery was locked up in her room and I wasn’t there.
I had left her … locked up in that house.
“Hey.”
I turned my head toward the voice and there she was. I was tired and confused and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, but it was her, and her beautiful smiling eyes were looking down at me.
“Avery? Is this real? I … I can’t tell anymore,” I said as I looked at her. I tried to reach over and touch her but there was that pain in my back again. I yelled out and closed my eyes and then I felt her soft gentle fingers again touching my face and brushing my hair back and making me feel better.
“Landen! He’s awake again!”
Landen. I’m at Landen’s house. But how could Avery be with me if I’m at his house? I thought as I tried to fight through the haze in my brain.
“Hey, buddy. How are you feeling?”
I looked to my right and there was Landen standing next to the bed and giving me a big goofy smile.
“I guess you realize by now you’ve got a visitor. I don’t know how this girl found you, but you better hang on to her. She’s got some kind of sixth sense or something.”
“So, I am at your house,” I said to Landen. “Why can’t I remember anything? What happened? I feel like complete shit … and my back …”
“Yeah, I’m sure it’s all a blur. Apparently, the girl you were bringing back here from the salon came to while you were still carrying her over your shoulder, and she stabbed you in the back.”
“What? Where the hell did she get a knife?”
“I don’t know, she must have had it on her,” Landen said with a shrug.
“Anyway, you were already in my section of the tunnel when it happened. I saw through the monitors that you were on your way, but when you didn’t get here after an hour I went looking for you. I found you passed out and slumped over against the tunnel wall and I found the girl about a hundred feet back towards the entrance. It looked like she was trying to run but didn’t get very far because, you know, it’s pitch black in there and she didn’t know where the hell she was.
When I found her I just snapped her neck right there so I didn’t have to worry about her running off or anything while I was carrying you back. I knew I was going to have to check you out when we got back here but I had no idea you had lost so much blood.
I just happened to have a few quarts of type O blood that I had siphoned off that guy … you know … the one I had here … a couple weeks ago,” he stammered, clearly realizing that he shouldn’t say much more in front of Avery. “Anyway, I set up my operating room, sewed you up, got you going on some antibiotics, and hoped for the best. I think I did a pretty good job considering I didn’t have any help,” he said as he folded his arms and nodded his head at himself.
“You’re a surgeon?” Avery asked as she looked up at him.
“Yeah, I was head surgeon at the hospital on the east side for years, but now I just freelance,” he said with a big smile.
“I don’t think Avery is going to appreciate your weird doctor jokes, Landen,” I said as I looked back at her. She was laying right next to me on the bed and I looked down at the hand she had resting on my arm.
“How did you get here?”
“Yeah, that’s what I’d like to know. Some good you are keeping my house a secret, dude,” Landen said as he nudged my arm.
“I didn’t tell her how to find this place. I don’t understand how she even …”
“Don’t worry about it. She looks trustworthy. I have a feeling if she came all this way to find you she’s not planning on turning us in,” he said with another big smile.
“Hey, Avery, is everything ok?” another woman asked from the doorway. I recognized her, she was the one that came to my house asking me questions about Avery.
“Hey, I didn’t realize we were going to have a party in here,” Landen said as he looked back at her. “You know Barbara, right,” Landen said as he turned back to me.
“Yeah, I think I’ve seen her around,” I said as I noticed the petrified look on her face. She didn’t seem like she was very happy to be here at all.
“Ok, so, I think we really need to let our man rest a bit. He’s just woken up and he’s got a lot of recovery time ahead of him. Why don’t the three of us go out into the kitchen and I’ll fix us all something to eat. Then I’ll bring some broth back in here for you in a little while. How does that sound?”
“Sounds good,” I said with the faint smile. “Thanks a million, man. I can’t believe you saved my life.”
“Hey, it’s not anything you wouldn’t have done for me, don’t even think about it.”
Landen got up off the bed walked toward the door and the closer he got to Barbara the bigger her eyes got. I would have laughed if I wasn’t so worried that she was going to call the police the second she left here.
“I’m gonna stay in here for a couple more minutes, ok?” I heard Avery say to Landen.
“Sure, but don’t make it too long, and don’t let him get too excited.”
“It’s ok, Barbara. I’ll be out in a few minutes,” Avery said to her friend, who looked like she had no intention of going out into the hall with Landen. She must have really thought he was going to do something to her.
“Sure,” she said with the panicked look still on her face as she looked back at Landen. I watched him gesture for her to walk ahead of him through the door and as he went through behind her I heard him talking to her.
“Barbara’s such a great retro name. Has anyone ever called you Barbie?”
“No,” I heard her say just before the door closed.
I turned my head and looked into Avery’s eyes.
“How did you get out of the house? How did you find me? I … I still can’t believe you’re here.”
“I can’t believe I’m here either. I don’t know what to say. The longer you were gone the more I wanted to see you, and I guess I just stopped caring about everything else. I barely slept every night you were gone. I just kept imagining what it would be like to feel the weight of your body on the bed and what it would feel like to have your arms wrapped around me, and then every night you didn’t come back I got more and more worried.”
I couldn’t believe what she was saying to me. I couldn’t believe she came all the way through the tunnels to find me.
“How long was I gone?”
“Three nights.”
“Oh God,” I said as I closed my eyes. I hadn’t even considered that something might happen to me and that she would be trapped there in that room.
“I don’t understand though. How did you know where I was?”
“I didn’t. I just took a chance. I remembered that diagram on the wall in the basement and you told me that you talked to your friend Landen everyday, so I just took a wild guess and figured if I was meant to find you then I would.”
My eyes started burning and I could feel tears fall down my cheeks, but I didn’t want Avery to see me cry. Then I felt her hands wrap around my face and her lips on my forehead and I lost it. I could feel her head resting next to mine and her fingers in my hair and I just laid there with her, letting myself feel what I had wanted to feel my whole life. The touch of someone that cared about me.
“What is it that you see in me? I don’t understand,” I said when I was finally able to talk.
“I see your sweetness and your kindness, and I see that you’ve been hurt a lot, and that maybe you do things that you don’t really want to in order to try and find a little bit of happiness. And I see someone who might even have a bigger heart
than most people of the I’ve known in my life.”
“I don’t deserve to be with someone like you, Avery. After everything that I’ve done, I don’t deserve you. Just go home. You’re free now, you shouldn’t be wasting your time here with me.”
“What is it that you think you do deserve? And what about what I deserve? Do you think you’re the one that gets to decide that?”
“I don’t know what I deserve or what I believe. I don’t even know who or what I can trust. This sort of thing may not be a big deal to you, but it has been for me. It’s been the biggest deal in my life and I feel like every single thing I’ve done with you has dug me into a deeper and deeper hole that I don’t have any idea how to get out of. I don’t have relationships, Avery, I just don’t.”
“But what about Landen? You’re in a relationship with him. You talk to him. You can’t be afraid of feeling something because it didn’t work out for you in the past. Everyone does something to protect themselves and sometimes you have to look past the things they do to see the real person behind the pain. You have to decide what’s important though, and sometimes you have to change your beliefs in order to see what’s really there. I should know. I’ve had to change a lot of what I thought made someone a good person recently.
You’re the one that has to decide for yourself if this relationship is more impossible than the one you have with Landen. And you’re the one that has to decide if it is or isn’t the one you had with your mother. But I’m not Landen or your mother and this relationship is between you and me … nobody else.”
I felt like what Avery was saying to me was too easy and I was too exhausted to argue, with her or with myself. It didn’t seem possible that I could be the one that decides what’s true and isn’t. But if it wasn’t me who decided, then who was it?
“I’m the one that was put in a cage and locked up in a room for the last few weeks. How is it that I’m the one that has to convince you to give this relationship a shot?” I asked with a smile. “It seems like it should be the other way around.”
I looked back at her for a long time and then felt my heart jump into my throat as I watched her face move closer and closer, until her lips were gently brushing up against mine.
20
AVERY
When I walked out into the hall and looked around I wasn’t quite sure where to go because the house was enormous and kind of maze-like, but I heard voices coming from the far end of a long hall and as I got closer I could hear Landen excitedly telling Barbara what sounded like the synopsis of an old movie.
“So, basically the storm has made it impossible for anyone to drive up to the house and they’re stuck there. And then the phone lines go dead, of course, and they know that the killer is somewhere in the area.”
I walked up to an open doorway with a bright light streaming out into the hall and when I peeked around the corner I saw Barbara sitting at a kitchen table with her back completely straight and her hands gripping the sides of her chair while Landen was telling her a story and chopping up something on the counter. It almost made me laugh to see the two of them together and as soon as Barbara realized that I was standing there she turned her head and looked at me with her big eyes.
“And so, there’s these two nurses in the house that think the killer is outside, but the twist is …” Landen looked up and saw that Barbara was looking over at me instead of listening to his story.
“Oh, hey Avery. I was just telling Barbara about one of my fave episodes of an old TV show. Are you still into it?” he asked her. “I mean, it’s cool if you’re not. I totally get it.”
Barbara shifted her hilariously terrified look from me back to Landen and said “No, go ahead. I’m listening.” Then she looked back at me.
“Why don’t you come in here and sit down, Avery. Landen was just telling me about an old TV show where there are some women trapped in a house with a deranged killer,” she said with as close to a normal voice as she could, but her eyes were glaring at me like she was trying to send me a very clear message. Something like, let’s get the hell out of here, I imagined, as I sat down at the kitchen table.
“Well, they’re not just women. They’re nurses. That’s the awesome twist! The killer only kills nurses, and in the end he’s actually dressed up as one of the nurses. So, he was in the house the whole time and no one knew. Isn’t that cool?”
“Yeah, that sounds really cool,” Barbara said as she looked at me again.
I couldn’t help but smile at her because, although I knew exactly why she looked so terrified, I really didn’t believe that there was any reason for either one of us to be scared of these guys. Maybe I was delusional. Maybe I had completely gone off the deep end and Barbara was right when she said I was a total victim of Stockholm Syndrome and had fallen in love with my captor. But, honestly, if that was the case that would be fine with me. I’d rather be happily living in a fantasy world with a syndrome that didn’t allow me to realize that I was in danger, than completely petrified of being killed or dismembered.
“Do you like spaghetti, Avery? I thought I’d whip some up for us. I’m sure you’re both starving.”
“Yeah, that sounds really good. Thank you, Landen”
“No problem,” he said as he smiled at me, then walked off through another doorway in the kitchen. “I’ll be right back, I gotta get something from the pantry.”
Barbara looked at me and gripped my arm, then said in a low voice, “We need to get the hell out of here. Were you serious about eating dinner here? I just want to go home. You found Colin. He’s fine. Now let’s go.”
“Barbara, I don’t want to leave yet.”
“But why? You’re free now. We can leave and you can actually come back to your own home.”
“Well, first of all, he’s not fine. He’s still recovering. And I am really hungry. Why don’t we just stay for dinner?”
“Ok, Avery, I know you think that you’re in love with this guy or something, but I’m telling you, it’s not possible. I am so close to calling the cops right now it’s not even funny. Let’s just go. Spend some time away from these lunatics and you’ll see that it was all just in your mind.”
“Barbara, you are not calling the cops. You have to promise me …”
Just then Landen walked back into the room and set a can of stewed tomatoes on the counter.
“I can take you two home anytime you like. Don’t feel like you have to stay for dinner,” he said as he opened up the can and poured them into a pot on the stove.
“Thank you, Landen I would like to stay … and I hope Barbara decides to stay as well,” I said as I looked over at her.
“Ok, I’ll stay for dinner, but I do really need to get back. That weirdo on the first floor is watching Joey and I don’t know about that guy. His apartment smells weird,” she said as she scrunched up her nose.
“Good, I’m glad you’re staying,” Landen said as he looked back over at us, but mostly at Barbara.
“Ok, well, is there a bathroom around here I can use.”
“Sure, if you go out and to the right it’s across the hall and two doors down. I can show you if you like.”
“No, I think I got it.” She said as she got up from the table. “I’ll be right back,” she said as she looked right at me, like she couldn’t imagine that I wasn’t as paranoid in this guy’s house as she was.
“Ok,” I said with a shrug. At first I thought maybe she wanted me to go with her, but she eventually left the room on her own.
After she had disappeared around the corner, Landen turned to me and leaned against the counter. I could tell he wanted to say something to me, but he just stood there and looked at me for a few seconds before he started talking.
“I couldn’t help but overhear your guys’ conversation from in there and I want you to know that you are more than welcome to stay here for as long as you want. I imagine that you probably want to get home, since you haven’t been back there in a few weeks, but if you want to stay wh
ile Colin is recuperating, you are more than welcome.
Colin has talked to me about you, about what has gone on over the last couple weeks and I know that he cares about you a lot. And I care about Colin, a lot. He’s very special to me, like a little brother. In fact, that is exactly the way I view him and I’m very protective of him. He’s a very special person, way more sensitive and kind than most people. And, yes I realize how that must sound, coming from a lunatic like me, and may be kind of hard for you to grasp, but it’s the truth.”
“I do believe that about him,” I said as I realized by the way he emphasized the word lunatics that he had heard everything Barbara and I had said.
“I’m glad. You seem like a pretty smart girl. You found my house somehow, a feat that I am still pretty impressed with, and you seem like a genuinely nice person. But I just want you to know that I will not take kindly to you, or anyone, messing with Colin. This isn’t a warning, it’s a fact. If you mess with him there will be very dire consequences. And I would advise your friend Barbara to chill out on the calling the cops talk. I really like her, but she should know that this isn’t a game. This is my life.”
I felt every hair on my body stand on end as I listened to what Landen was saying to me. From the small amount of time I had spent with him I found him to be funny and charming, but I was coming to the realization that he had a scary side too, but for some reason I wasn’t afraid of him. I understood what he was saying to me, and how he felt about Colin, and believed that he had no intention of hurting me or Barbara. I was continually surprised by how my beliefs kept changing recently, old beliefs and assumptions about who people were based on information that had no real basis in reality.
And what he said didn’t change the way I felt about Colin, in fact, it made me want to stay here with him even more.