by Jade Eby
“At a woman’s beck and call. Never thought I’d see the day you took orders from someone… less than you.”
Asher spun around and faced his mother. “Funny, I seem to remember taking orders from you, right?”
She reared her hand back and slapped Asher across the cheek.
Of course, it didn’t hurt him. She was only a ghost after all.
“You ungrateful bastard. I only told you what to do to protect us!”
“No. You told me what to do to get rich. To get what you wanted. You taught me to kill innocent men!” Asher lunged for his mother.
She disappeared and left Asher to remember, once again, that she wasn’t real.
“I hate you,” he whispered.
And a voice sang back from the abyss, “No, Asher, you love me. That’s why I’m always with you.”
He closed his eyes and willed her voice from his head. When he was sure her memory had passed, he opened his eyes and rushed off to his bike.
* * *
The woods surrounding the foster home were silent and the clouds above the treetops were turning a sickly grey. A storm was brewing and it crept into Asher’s bones, and made him cold all over.
Something wasn’t right.
He hurried through the front doors and down the hallway, surprised to see the yellow crime tape ripped away, as well as the door standing wide open. He approached cautiously.
Screams filtered through the space.
“No! He’s going to get me. He’s going to be angry. So, so angry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
“It’s too late for that,” Diana said, quietly.
Too late? For what?
“Diana?”
When she looked at him, the desperation in her eyes was so clear. She raced toward him and wrapped her arms around his waist.
“We were wrong, Asher.” She sobbed into his chest and when he pulled her away, he tried to wipe the tears from her cheeks, but she shook her head. “We messed up. We have to do something about that. We have to be judged.”
Keep her calm. Look into her eyes and make sure she takes her time with her words. She can’t ruin all that I’ve protected.
“Judged?” He intertwined his hand with hers. “Why do we have to be judged?”
“Maxwell. He didn’t touch those kids.”
Asher chuckled, remembering the sobbing man begging for mercy. “Funny. He said the same thing.”
Diana scowled at him. “I’m serious. He never touched them.”
“Why do you think that all of a sudden?”
Diana pointed to Theresa. The little woman sat in the corner of the room, rocking back and forth and tugging at a bow on her head.
Women are crazy. They’ve both lost it.
“This is the assistant.” Things weren’t making sense to Asher. What was going on and why would she call him here? Was she trying to set him up? Had Flame and his mother been right all along?
“Maxwell didn’t touch those kids. In fact, after he let the nurse go, he started an investigation on Theresa. He became suspicious, but was trying to see if it was true. I think he probably would have even done the right thing if given the chance.”
Theresa whined in the corner, “Maxwell had an investigator on me? How could he do that?”
“We messed up. Do you hear me?” Diana shook Asher’s shoulders, but he barely moved an inch. “We killed the wrong guy. We destroyed another human life based off of bullshit. Because in the end, it was her all along. She’s the one who’s been hurting them. We’re going to be judged. We need to be judged. We killed someone innocent.”
She’s back in shock. Her mind is twisting and she may never get out of this. She’s been around too much death from Neil to Maxwell’s photos of corpses. She hasn’t slept like me. She... she’s not going to make it in my life.
“Asher, why are you looking at me like that?” Diana let go of him.
“How am I looking at you?”
“Like... like you’re thinking about killing me?”
“You’re being paranoid.”
“Am I?”
Again, Theresa whined from the corner, “How could he put an investigator on me? What was he going to do?”
“Shut up!” Diana screamed, tears spilled from her eyes. “The wrong person died you sick bitch. Shut up!”
Asher rushed to her. “Shh.”
He pulled her into his arms and patted the back of her head. “Quiet, my love. It’s okay. I’m going to take care of all of this, but this will only work out if you remain calm.”
He pulled away and gazed into her eyes. “Breathe in and out slowly.”
She looked at him and followed his direction, yet still the tears continued to fall.
“You’re not to blame.”
“I am.”
“I killed him.”
“I told you to.”
“It wouldn’t have mattered, if you told me not to. I would have done it anyway. This is who I am.”
“He was innocent.”
He cringed, unsure of the truth yet. That was the shit that gnawed at him. That was the thing that bit into his already blackened soul. He’d tortured that man, filleted him because to Asher, Maxwell had been inhuman, nothing but a heartless, soulless pack of flesh that needed to be out of this world.
He’d taken his time because it was his right as a protector of this earth. He’d been proud, and if he discovered that all this time he’d been wrong…
Yes, Diana. We will need to be judged, but only if you can really convince me that this man is innocent.
“How do you know for sure, Diana? Did she confess this to you?”
Diana squeezed his forearm. “Yes, Asher. She told me nasty things. I almost shot her. We were wrong. You killed the wrong person. You’re a monster.”
You’re a monster.
The words wrapped around his bones and squeezed until he felt like he could hardly breathe. The Diana he first met—the one he’d fallen in love with—was not fickle. But the woman standing in front of him… she was weak. She was accusatory. She was… wrong.
Rage darkened his heart. “You told me to kill him.”
Diana hung her head and tears dropped to the floor. “I’m sorry. I’m… so, so, sorry. I have blood on my hands, too. This is my fault.”
He calmed himself down. “No. Stop saying that. We thought he hurt those children. You and I were just trying to protect them. Sometimes people make mistakes.”
Diana sobbed into her hands. “But we were wrong. This was too big of a mistake.”
The truth met him dead in the jaw, but still he tried to grasp for something that could take the guilt away. Asher pushed past Diana and grabbed hold of Theresa’s shoulders. “Tell me! Tell me she’s wrong.”
Theresa wriggled beneath his grasp and contorted her face. “You’re hurting me. Don’t hurt me like this. Hurt me the other way. It’s more fun.”
Asher scowled at her. “What?”
Theresa pointed to his crotch. “That’s the way I like to be hurt.”
“Just tell me the truth, dammit. Did Maxwell hurt those kids?”
The woman seemed to fold into herself, her arms wrapping together. “Maxwell was good! Even when I was a bad girl, he was good.”
Asher looked to Diana and then crouched to Theresa’s level. “You hurt the children?”
She looked into his eyes and all he saw was blankness. A child trapped in a grown woman’s body. She nodded her head. “I didn’t mean to. It was an accident. They needed to be loved. Pain is love. Pain is love. Pain is—”
“Maxwell gave those kids syphilis,” Asher countered.
“No.” Theresa smiled. “I gave it to him. He forgave me, but then that nurse found out about the little ones getting infected too. Maxwell didn’t say anything to me about it, but I knew he was planning something. It was going to be okay. He’d talked to the police, I think. But it was all going to be okay. But I never thought he would get a detective behind my back. What would he have don
e to me?”
She gave him the STD, and she gave it to the kids too. She raped them. Maxwell was really innocent? He was going to put her away or probably handle it quietly himself? He wasn’t that bad after all. He was actually one of the good guys. What has happened to me?
The room spun before Asher’s eyes. The walls melted like candle wax. Scents shifted to nothing. All he heard was blood drip although he knew there was no fresh blood spilled.
At least not yet.
Drip
Drip.
Drip.
The floors cracked and split. The windows shattered. The books flew off the shelves.
Diana and Theresa marbled together in an ebony and ivory Queen Chess piece,
twisting
and
turning into melted wax and blood.
What does a good man look like? Have I ever known?
Reality left him, and he stepped into some odd fantasy, something that would make the heaviest acid trip seem mild and childlike.
What is happening to me? Am I going crazy?
“No baby, you’re not crazy,” a voice said from the corner.
He spun and saw his mother, not as the woman he usually did, but the young, pretty version who cradled him in her arms. The version that sang beautiful lullabies before his bedtime. The woman who tucked him in under the covers instead of shoving him beneath the bed to hide.
The woman before all of those black eyes and tear-flooded days and alcohol induced anger and cracked ribs from being beat down by his dad, night after night.
“Mother?”
“Yes, darling. I’m here. It will all be okay.” She reached out for him.
“What’s happening?”
She enveloped Asher in a hug and stroked the back of his neck. “Oh, love. This is your reckoning. The moment where you accept the truth of who you are.”
“Who am I, Mother? I don’t know anymore.”
Her lips brushed against his cheek and she whispered, “You’re a monster. My monster.”
* * *
Asher clenched his eyes together tightly and felt the threads that kept him tethered to reality–to the codes and morals and boundaries he set for himself. Snap. With each passing minute, Asher’s chest rose with the blood that was on his hands. And when he opened his eyes, he zeroed in on Theresa.
“Asher?” Diana’s voice sounded behind him.
He blocked her out and targeted Theresa with a sharpened gaze. “Do you know who I am?”
“You’re Cupid.” Her bottom lip shook.
“No, I’m a monster.” Asher knocked her to the ground.
And then he did what monsters do best, he used his fists as if they were his bows, beat the tiny woman into a pulp. Each strike was a hole to the chest, a sharp point that pierced flesh. Her screams rang in his ears like church bells signaling the time for service, and he was ready to come upon the lord and face his judgment,
but he’d do it, just like Jesus did,
he’d do it through blood.
“Asher, no!” Diana screamed. “Stop! Please, don’t do this!”
It was Theresa’s time to answer to God but there would be no service. Not for her. There would only be pain. And blood.
He struck her again and again and again, like a hammer to metal, the melody of her death rang out into the space.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
Boom.
He pummeled her head until it was mush and bone and blood and it stained his skin red and the lingering metallic scent coated his nostrils and his mouth, and even the cracked jagged edges of her skull scratched into his skin.
He never stopped.
“You’re a monster.” Am I? Why yes.
When he was finished with her head, he worked on the rest of her, clawing, biting, punching, ripping, and tearing the flesh of the small Asian woman.
“Asher! Stop! Stop!”
But he did not listen. He couldn’t. For Diana would have to answer for her sins, too. And he was afraid of what his fists might do if she came any closer.
He took it out on Theresa, what he couldn’t do to Diana,
not yet,
but one day.
“Go, Diana. Now. Go to Flame. He’ll drive you home.”
“I can’t leave you here. You’re scaring me, Asher. Please, let me help—”
“Go! Before we both do something we’ll regret.” He stopped and glanced over his shoulder.
She met his gaze and it was there he saw her true fear. More visceral than any of the moments he’d shared with her. This was also her reckoning.
It’s time we both realize the truth.
She wasn’t in love with a man, she was in love with a monster. And there was no way she’d survive him.
* * *
Asher spent hours sitting next to Theresa’s battered corpse. After a while, the blood and bones seemed to fade into the crimson stained carpet.
He’d vowed never to take a life that didn’t deserve it and there he was, sitting in his own lies. He had been so sure. So damn sure that Maxwell Grayson was a psychotic pedophile who ruined children’s lives. And that poor man had begged and begged and begged.
And still, Asher hadn’t believed him. His convictions wrapped up in the melody of Diana’s demand.
Kill him, Asher. Please.
He’d done it for her as much as for himself. The way she gleamed at him when he said it was over. That Maxwell had been taken care of. The way her kisses and touches felt like a thank you to his soul. The way they made love with an idolized notion that Asher had killed one to save many.
And it was all a lie.
He cradled his head in his hands and shook.
His mother’s voice rang in his head. “This is all her fault.”
Not now.
Of all the times for his mother to show up, this was the worst of them all.
“Go away.”
“I won’t. You’re hurting. I will heal you. That’s what mothers are for.” She slid next to him and put an arm around his shoulder.
“I didn’t just kill that man, Mother. I tortured him. I left him no mercy and for what? For my stupidity? How can I possibly come back from this?”
“You don’t. What’s done is done. You must move on.”
“Don’t you see? I can’t. I don’t trust myself…”
She squeezed his arm tightly, her long nails digging into his flesh. “This is all her fault. She made you question everything! Asked you to do things you would never do for anyone else. She compromised you, Asher. And you let her!”
He looked into her eyes, “I love her. I would do anything for her.”
“You really love her?” his mother asked.
Asher nodded.
“And you would do anything to save her?”
“Of course.”
“Then, my dear son, you must die.”
“But—”
“It’s the only way, Asher. You knew this wouldn’t last. It couldn’t. You’re a monster and she’s a curious cat looking for answers. And she will find nothing but misery and heartbreak in you. I was a foolish woman, believing it was her that needed to die. But you will continue to suffer without her, Asher. It has to be you.”
“I can’t leave her. Not with this mess…”
His mother cackled. “You mean the mess she put you in? Of course you can.”
She placed her hand on Asher’s chest – where his heart would have been if he really thought he had one.
“It’s time to come home to Momma, Asher. It’s time to retire the bow and arrow and come back to me.”
“Then who will protect everyone else?”
“Exactly.”
“What are you saying?”
“This isn’t a love story, darling. It never was. One of you has to die. Which one will it be? Are you Romeo or are you the bloody and lonely Macbeth?”
Nineteen
Asher
Hours later, Flame picked Asher up off the gro
und and loaded him into the limo.
He didn’t know how long he’d sat in the filth of blood or next to Theresa’s lifeless body, but he was certain death had seeped through his clothing and into his skin like a tattoo announcing his sins.
You must die.
You must die.
You must die.
He thought of Diana’s cinnamon skin and the scent of roses bloomed in the backseat of the limo. He remembered the fullness of her breasts in his palms. The quiver in her thighs. The warmth and wetness of her cunt. His dick grew in his pants as all the parts of his beautiful Diana danced within her head.
But her brain. And her wit. And the tongue lashings she gave him during their verbal sparring. Her determination for the truth. That is what made his cock throb in agony. That is what made his decision so damn hard.
I’ll never feel her hand upon my chest or weave my hands through her black curls. I’ll never get a nip of a sweet nipple or taste her pussy again. I’ll die and be a fading memory to her. A ghost that haunts her for eternity. I can’t do that to her.
He agonized over his mother’s words. “It’s the only way, Asher.”
It couldn’t be. There had to be another way. He would talk to Diana, let her wrap her arms around him and soothe the aches in his bones. She would take him into her, physically, emotionally and let him scratch out the fears within her flesh.
Diana would save him.
Somehow they would both survive it all.
Twenty
Diana
Diana fell asleep on the couch in the foyer after crying for hours. Grace had tried to comfort her, bring her food, pastries, and a blanket. Diana just wanted Asher. And forgiveness.
But she didn’t know who to ask it from.
She hadn’t believed in God since she found Gabby in her backyard. That was the moment she stopped believing. God wouldn’t let that happen. He wouldn’t let an innocent man go down for a crime he didn’t commit, leaving his little girl behind to ponder the injustices of the world. God wouldn’t create a man like Asher Bishop—a man who does bad things for the right reasons.