by Dark, Aubrey
He had a knife. He would cut the man open.
“NO!” I shouted, gasping for breath. My chest clenched and I felt a muscle spasm rip through my neck, cramping my throat.
He would stab him through the heart.
No!
I gasped for air. My vision was blotted with gray spots and I grew dizzy. The ropes around my wrists were tight, so tight. There was no blood. I couldn’t escape. I would die here in a bed of my own piss.
“Help!” I called, my voice rasping between shallow breaths. There was no air in the room. I was choking, choking. There was no air at all, no matter how much I gasped. The room spun around me.
He would kill him. Kill him. Kill.
“Gav…” I cried weakly, and then everything went black.
Gav
I did something stupid.
Before, I’d said that I was not a stupid person - I always made my moves carefully, cautiously, rationally. If I slipped up, I might get caught, and I knew what the consequences were if anyone discovered me.
But I was curious. Like my kitten.
And so I did a stupid, careless thing. I went back to the library where I had seen the girl. I told myself I was going to pick up some more books for her to read, to keep her company. But that was only another lie that I told myself.
The truth of it was, I wanted to know more about her.
As I walked in, I darted a quick cross-glance over to the counter. Her friend was nowhere to be seen, and whether that was good news or bad news I couldn’t decide. I made my way over to the elevator and got inside.
This was where she had kissed me. The impertinent girl. Thinking about it now made me heat up - her soft body against my chest, her hungry lips seizing mine. I licked my lips and pressed the button to go up.
On the third floor, the elevator jerked to a stop. Wandering aimlessly down the aisles, I let my fingers run across the spines of the books. Crime novels, science fiction tomes. Romance novels down at the corner, their spines red and gold and well-worn.
Fiction. This was all a fiction, I thought. My kitten, back at home, tied safely to the bed - all of it was a story that I told myself. A story that led, in every possible path, towards a tragic ending.
Tragic, for how else could this story end? It was impossible that we would figure out a way to live together. Outside of the house, she had seemed so happy, so enchanted with the world. And for all my pretensions at objectivity, she had managed to slip underneath, into my calm world, and ripple the surface with her desires.
At the end of the row of books, I turned around, then stopped dead in my tracks.
It was her friend, the other girl. She was sitting down in the middle of the aisle, a handful of books at her side. Her hair was dyed green where before it had been purple, and there were dark circles under her eyes, but it was her.
This was why I had come here, but now that the girl was in front of me I didn’t know how to react. Recognition flashed over her face as she looked up at me, but if I hadn’t been looking for it, I wouldn’t have found it.
“Can I help you?”
Her voice sounded tired, and although her words were polite, she narrowed her eyes while looking at me. Not blinking.
“Just browsing. I’ve seen you here before, haven’t I?”
She rolled her eyes and thumbed toward her face. I didn’t know whether she was pointing at the piercings or the hair, or both.
“Can’t miss me,” she said.
“You worked with that girl, didn’t you? The one who ran away?”
“She didn’t run away.”
Now her face sharpened into rapt attention. I could almost smell her suspicion. Rather than make me cautious, though, her suspicion emboldened me. Here I was, right where I had met her. It almost made me understand those killers who leave notes or other clues. Before I thought that they were trying to get caught, but right now, standing next to the one girl who could link us together, the world was so bright that I couldn’t even remember the shadow.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I saw on TV—”
“That’s what they’re all saying,” she said. She ran a hand through her hair, brushing her green bangs back. Under all the eyeliner and metal, she was actually quite a beautiful girl. Not my type, but classically pretty. “Even her parents.”
“You don’t believe them?”
“I don’t—look, I’m sorry. I don’t know what to believe. Kat wasn’t that kind of girl.”
“You knew her well?”
“Well enough.” She squinted up at me. “How did you know her?”
“I don’t. I only met her here that one day. When she was working with you.” My voice was calm, smooth, remembering all the details. The romance novel on the cart.
“I can see how you would remember me,” she said, tossing her green bangs back. “But how did you remember her?”
“Well, she did kiss me.”
Now the girl’s eyes widened.
“She what?”
My mind stumbled. Kat had told me that it had been a bet. That this girl had bet her to kiss me. Was that a lie?
“She kissed you? Are you serious?” The girl stood up,
“I—I mean, yes, she kissed me. Out of nowhere. I didn’t know her before, and when she asked me on a date I said I wasn’t interested. I was dating someone else at the time, you see.”
I clamped my mouth shut, stopping myself before I rambled off into a world of explanatory lies. Only liars ever gave explanations without being asked.
“Wow.”
The girl leaned on the wall of books, and a title caught my eye: Caught In the Act. I blinked my eyes back to her face.
“So she really did kiss you. I didn’t think she had the balls to do it.”
I shrugged, affecting nonchalance.
“When I saw her on TV, I thought: what a coincidence. One day she’s flirting with me, the next day…” I waved my hand away into the air.
“She told me that she chickened out,” the girl said in a half-whisper.
“I’m sure she didn’t want to bother me after I’d turned her down. You really think she didn’t run away? You think something else happened to her?” I leaned forward, and the girl looked up at me, frightened.
“I don’t know.” The girl shook her head, her bangs and earrings swinging in the air. “I mean, she had her demons, we all do. God, I don’t know anymore. She told me that she would never do something like that again, but… I don’t know. Maybe she was lying about that, too.”
“What was she like?” I asked softly.
“Kat? She was great. Funny, smart. She would have been finished with school already, except for all the loan stuff. I told her—”
Her eyes welled up suddenly with tears. Trembling, her lips pressed together so tightly they went white.
“I told her she was boring,” she said. “I called her a slacker. That was the last thing I said to her.”
Her face contorted with grief. I had the thought of putting a comforting hand on her shoulder, but that would be worse than nothing. The cause of her grief was standing right in front of her, and there was no way for me to fix it.
“Excuse me,” she said. Her hand wiped away tears, held back her sniffling. “I—I have to go now.”
“I’m sorry about your friend,” I said. “I hope they find her.”
She nodded and fled, leaving the books on a pile in the middle of the aisle next to the cart. I could hear her sobbing as she walked down the aisle, her feet nearly running away from me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Gav
When I got back home, the house was quiet.
“Kat?”
I called her name as I walked up the bedroom stairs, holding the books I’d picked out for her. Hopefully these were better. A couple of suspense novels, and a book of short stories. A bit more literary than the romances I’d originally picked out.
“Sorry I took so long. I—”
I stopped in the doorway. My heart stoppe
d too.
Kat’s head lolled to one side, grotesquely. Her eyes were closed.
The books dropped to the floor as I strode forward. The smell of urine hit me as I leaned over the bed.
“Kat? Kat!”
I shook her shoulder, but she didn’t move. Quickly I pressed my ear to her chest. My heart was pounding so hard that I could barely hear over it, but it was there. Her heartbeat. She wasn’t dead.
Stupid. Stupid, to leave her chained up with no way to get to the bathroom. I needed locks on the outside of the bedroom door. I needed—
I needed her to wake up.
Shaking, I untied the knots that bound her wrists. Her hands were limp and white, cool in the air. I rubbed her wrists with my thumbs, urging the circulation back into them.
“Kat? You’re okay, Kat. You’re okay.” I whispered the words like a chant, like a prayer. Had she fainted? I went into the bathroom and turned on the cold faucet in the bath. I took a washcloth and ran it under the stream of water. And ammonia—I could use ammonia.
I fumbled through the cabinet, trying to find the inhalant. It would be a last resort. There it was. I tucked the bottle into my pocket.
I ran back out to the bed and pressed the washcloth to her forehead. Her lips fell apart but there was no other sign of motion, just her breath, warm against my arm. The water dripped down her cheeks like tears. It turned her hair dark brown with moisture.
“Kat! Kat!” I shouted desperately, choking on her name. Still she would not open her eyes.
This—this was my guilt, my true sin. All of my life, I’d known that I was different. I did not care for others. I had a horrible urge to kill, to destroy. And now, through my own stupidity, I’d destroyed the one thing I’d come to care for.
“Please wake up, kitten. Please.”
My hands flitted over her body, squeezing her limbs as though that would bring her back from wherever she was. And in the back of my head, the shadow taunted me.
This is what you wanted.
“No,” I said. “Kat, wake up.”
This is the easiest way. Cut her up. Burn her. Like the others—
“No!” I howled the word so loudly that she must wake up, she must. The thought of taking a knife to her body made me as ill as I had been when I’d tried to cut my own wrist, and it was with great effort that I suppressed the bile threatening to rise in my throat. But she slept on, unhearing.
The only noise in the room was the sound of water running from the bathroom.
“Come on,” I said. I flung away the red ropes from her wrists. Carefully, I gathered her up into my arms, not caring about the wetness soaking her lower half.
The bath was shallow, a few inches of water. The rush of the cold water filled my ears. I had no hope. In my arms, I thought I already carried a dead woman.
I knelt.
“Please,” I whispered, not knowing who I whispered to. Supporting her neck with my arm, I lowered her into the cold bath. I picked up the ammonia inhalant, pressed it under her nose.
Her body convulsed. Her back arched against the ceramic bathtub - I caught her head before it hit the hard tile. And then—oh, God, and then—my kitten opened her eyes.
She gasped once, a breath of air sucked hard into her lungs. Her hands flailed, clutching at my chest and splashing water over the side of the tub. Her eyes were wide with fear, and as she inhaled gulps of air I supported her back, gave her room to breathe. Relief washed over me, driving away the shadow with the fear of her death.
“Gav—” she said, her throat hoarse. Her breaths came in shudders through her body.
I clasped her hands, pulled her to me, held her tight.
“It’s alright,” I said. “Don’t be afraid. I’m here. It’s alright.”
Kat
The water in the bath was so cold that when I woke up I thought I was drowning in an icy lake. Gav held me against his chest and I sucked in deep breaths, trying to comfort myself. Trying not to panic. The world refocused in my vision.
Finally I got control of my breathing, and I sat up with Gav’s help in the bath. Goosebumps ran down my arms and legs, and I shivered, reaching forward to turn off the cold water. Gav saw what I was reaching for and turned on the hot water instead. I lay back and took deep breaths as the water in the tub warmed up.
“What happened?” I asked, looking up.
“I might ask the same of you,” he said.
I shook my head. My hands and feet felt numb, but with the new warm water they were beginning to tingle with feeling.
“I… I passed out. I was having a panic attack. I—”
Immediately the reason for my panic attack struck me again. Fear closed around my throat, clenching shut my windpipe.
“Did you kill him?” I asked.
“Who?”
Gav stared at me dumbly. I grabbed his arm, my fingers digging into his skin.
“The man. Did you kill him?”
“No. Kat, are you alright? I’m so sorry I left you for so long. I didn’t even think—I thought I’d be back before you woke up—”
“You didn’t kidnap him? That wasn’t why you left last night?”
Gav shook his head. I breathed out, my shoulders relaxing.
“I went to the library to get more books,” he said. “And when I came back, I saw you there…”
He looked so different. I couldn’t put my finger on what it was until he spoke again.
“I thought you were dead,” he said. And then I realized what it was.
It was emotion.
I reached out my hand and touched his cheek. How strange, that emotion can change a person’s face so much. His eyes looked softer around the edges, deeper somehow. Then I drew my hand back. He had gotten me drunk, tied me up. Left me tied up in bed while he went out. No matter how much relief I felt, it wasn’t enough to forgive him for everything he had done. For all the things he had done.
“Let me clean up,” I said, realizing that I’d pissed all over myself before passing out. The smell came through my nostrils and I was shocked to realize I hadn’t even noticed it before. “The bed—”
“I’ll get it. Don’t worry. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine. It was just a panic attack. I hyperventilated. I’ll be okay.”
“Don’t lock the bathroom door, alright? I want to make sure you’re not going to pass out again.”
A bubble of laughter rose up in my throat. A serial killer, a maniac, a man who had kidnapped me and tied me up in his basement—he was telling me not to lock the door behind me? It was so ridiculous I could scream. Instead I nodded and pulled my knees up to my chest.
I let the bathtub drain as I pulled the dress off of me. The fabric was wet and heavy, clinging to my skin, but there was no way I was asking Gavriel to come back in and help me out of it. He’d done enough already.
The hot water I splashed over myself felt so good that I lingered while soaping myself, cross-legged in the bottom of the tub. Gav called into the bathroom once, and I answered him, but other than that he left me alone.
I wrapped a towel and came out to see him sitting on the bed. The sheets had been changed out, and there was a new bedspread across the mattress, this one a light green. He looked up at me as though I was a ghost. I sat down on the bed, my heart thumping. I didn’t know whether I was more relieved or angry.
“I thought you were dead,” he repeated.
“I thought you were going to kill someone else.”
“I wasn’t.”
“And I wasn’t dead. Even if I was, what does it matter?”
“Kat—”
My name sounded so strange coming out of his mouth. Especially now that he looked at me with such tenderness.
“We had a deal. A trade.”
“Only for one day—”
“It scared me so much,” I said, interrupting him. I couldn’t stop now. We had to talk about this, or else every time he left I would be met with the same terror, the same panic attack.
“When you left, I couldn’t even breathe. Unless you can get me more pills—”
“I can’t.”
“Then you can’t go out like that. You can’t kill anyone else. We had a trade, remember? We should be able to trade again.”
“It was a fair trade. Being with you… it helps drive the urge away. It’s not quite the same, the thrill of it, but… but it’s close. It helps.”
“You said there were other girls.”
“Not anymore,” he said. “I can’t exactly bring women home anymore. Not with you here.”
“No, but couldn’t you, you know? Go back to their place instead?”
Even as I spoke the words, a thick band of jealousy wrapped around my heart. I tried to let it go. I hated Gav, at least that’s what I told myself. But even sitting here, I could feel his desire radiating out toward me. I could feel my own attraction, too, entwined with his.
He shook his head, as though dismissing a long-considered possibility.
“It’s not the same. With them, it’s only a sexual release. With you, there’s—I can’t explain. There’s a brightness to it.”
He touched my hand, his fingers slipping under my palm.
“Maybe it’s the idea that you’re mine. Forever. That I can do what I want with you. That I can kill you, if I want. Even if I wouldn’t. I wouldn’t.” He spoke the last words quickly, squeezing my hand in his. “Whatever it is, it makes it go away. The urge.”
I shivered. This, this was what I wanted? It couldn’t be. And yet I did not draw my hand away from his.
“I talked with your friend. She misses you.”
I was so shocked that I almost dropped the towel. I clenched the terrycloth to my chest.
“She said you were a great person. Really smart. She wished she had told you that before you left.”
“Does she think I ran away?”
“No.”
I nodded sadly. Jules was the one person I knew would take up for me. She knew why I had run away before. As I thought about her, my eyes burned with tears. I would never see her again, not as long as I was stuck here.
Gav sat, watching me, his hand warm under mine.
“Why are you telling me this?” I asked. He dropped his gaze to my fingers. His thumb, muscled and thick, rolled around my small fingers, squeezing them.