(2014) Deep Inside

by Jack Parker

  "Overcome what?"

  "The burning, the after affects," he replied.

  Lia shrugged. "If you ignore it, forget about it, then eventually it'll go away."

  "But then the wounds would just fester." He cast his gaze towards the sky again, and added, softly. "The pain would come back all at once and feel worse than it would have been if you had just faced it in the beginning."

  She shrugged. He was hinting at something. "Maybe."

  "Scars never heal, Lia. You have to accept them and only then will you be able to live." He slipped his arms from around her waist and pulled himself up.

  Lia stood up.

  Cal cocked his head to the side. "Shall we be heading back now?"

  A sudden idea occurred to her. She grinned. "Can we walk it back?"

  He regarded her for a moment, as if wondering whether she was being serious or not. When he realized that she was, he arched an eyebrow. "Looking like this?" He indicated the mud.

  "I feel confident."

  "What about my car?"

  Lia shrugged. "You can come back with Leigh to get it later on."

  Cal shook his head and dug his hands into his pockets. "It's a stupid idea."

  Lia grabbed his arm and pouted. "Please."

  He furrowed his brows. "Don't do that, you look like a pig."

  She let go and glared.

  Cal laughed. "Fine, you win. But only this once."

  She was glad that he had given in so easily. Lia punched the air in triumph and raced towards the path leading up the hill. They drove towards the outskirts of where they lived, then Cal parked the car and they got out.

  A sliver of moonlight trickled across the pavement. Lia raced forward, allowing the cool air to hit against her skin. She felt so calm, so at peace, so relaxed. She took in a deep breath and twirled around on the pavement.

  Cal was watching her, his head cocked slightly to the side.

  She grinned. "I feel good."

  "I can tell," he returned dryly.

  Lia placed her hands on her hips and stuck out her tongue. "Don't burst my bubble."

  She began to make her way along the path, a bounce in her step. The black sky stretched out above her, its hundreds of stars twinkling beneath the wavering light. Cal followed and caught up with her.

  He looked so funny covered in mud. A broad grin fell over her face. Lia turned the corner, her footsteps clicking against the pavement.

  And then she stopped.

  She screamed.

  Before her was a wall splayed with graffiti. In front of it was a large post and tied to the post was a dead body, a body spray painted white.

  Lacey's body.

  Down with the brownies!

  Hurt them.

  Hate them.

  Kill them…

  CHAPTER 16

  Jack gazed out at the sky, a blanket of darkness.

  The car stopped. The phone call had arrived half an hour ago. He paid the driver and hurried out. The police were already there and duck tape circled the scene of the crime. It all felt like something out of a cheap detective novel.

  Only it was real.

  He lingered on the pavement, surveying the scene before him. Sirens blared around him as a stretcher, which supported a body blanketed in white, was moved into the ambulance.

  They had called for a Sector Head, because matters like this could not be left merely to the police. He wished that he hadn't been the only one available. Jack moved further towards the post; he didn't want to see the body; he knew all the details already.

  The wall was splayed with fresh graffiti and the post was dripping with wet spray paint. A massive eye was painted around the words. Jack creased his forehead. What was the significance of that? One of the police officers met him.

  He outstretched his hand, "Samuel Turner."

  Jack took it and shook. "Jack Harlton."

  The officer peered at the post, then back at Jack. "A Cadlian and an Elonsican found the body. The Cadlian is suffering from shock and we've got her into one of the cars. The Elonsican refuses to speak to anyone other than a Head of the organization, which is why we called you here." He indicated the path.

  An Elonsican stood there, waiting. Jack nodded and made his way towards him. He outstretched his hand. "Jack Harlton."

  The Elonsican eyed it with distaste and did not take it, but instead replied. "Cal."

  He didn't offer anything else. Jack shuffled his feet. "I was told you found the body."

  "We did," he replied placidly.

  "And do you know the girl?"

  "We did."

  The use of the word "did" reminded Jack altogether of the reality of the situation. "Can you give me her name?"

  Cal dug his hands into his pockets. "Lacey."

  "Second name?" ventured Jack.

  "I don't know."

  Jack ran his eyes over the road. "The Cadlian girl. Does she know her second name?"

  "You're not going to start questioning her." There was a threatening undertone to his voice.

  Jack bit his bottom lip. "Standard procedure –"

  "You're not going to start questioning her," he reiterated. "She's not in the state to answer questions."

  Jack took the hint. He asked a few more questions; the Elonsican wasn't that great a help. His placidity and the passive-sarcastic tone unnerved him and he didn't wish to talk to him for any longer than was necessary. He had an air about him that made you feel as though you could never win and any wrong word or wrong turn of phrase would be instantly latched onto and exploited.

  People like that were dangerous.

  Jack took a few of his basic details in case he would need to get in contact with him again, which he probably would. He made his way back to the Head Officer, Samuel Turner.

  "And where do we stand on this?" he asked.

  Samuel gazed at the post. The reporters had gotten there by now and the sound of cameras clicking was audible above the heavy wailing of the sirens.

  "This morning –" he began. "The Fallock thing was all over the news and the media somehow managed to get some of the main information."

  Jack felt his chest tighten. "The photos showed that the assassin was a Cadlian," he said slowly.

  Samuel nodded. "They announced it in the headlines. The result –" He indicated the post.

  Jack bit his lip. "Fallock wasn't extremely popular," he began. "But since he was an Elonsican and he was killed by a Cadlian, they wanted revenge." The graffiti suddenly made sense.

  "An eye for an eye."

  "But that's so twisted," bit Jack. "They've warped it and given it a totally different meaning."

  Samuel shrugged and cocked his head towards the reporters. "It's going to be a mess. The media'll be on it like dogs and all we can do is try to clear up some of the damage."

  There were going to be after shocks. Lots of after shocks, especially when the murder and the motive was announced. Jack was sure that it wasn't long until it was. And all he could do was watch and wait.

  Jack clenched his fists and gazed up at the sky. Stars twinkled in the distance. He dreaded the next day.

  * * *

  She felt nothing.

  Lia let her fingers trickle over the glass, dampen with the condensation. Yet she still felt nothing. No cold, no pain, no tears, just one great, big gashing blank.

  Why didn't she feel anything?

  She traced patterns over the window, watching the light from a lamppost as it trickled across the path. She wanted it to rain, to thunder. She wanted lightning to rip through the sky and tear across the landscape. She wanted thunder to rumble in the distance, like the heavy beating of drums over a taut skin. She wanted something, anything, because everything felt the same, looked the same.

  But it wasn't.

  The sky was calm, the weather slightly chilly. And the world continued to go round and round and round because everything went on, everyone went on as she stood there, frozen like ice, and gazed out at a landscape once so
familiar but now so foreign, so far away –unreachable.

  Lia was in her room, the light off and her window wide open and all she could feel was darkness, a thick, heavy darkness and nothing else.

  Nothing.

  And everything still felt the same, but the logical part of her told her that it wasn't, yet inside nothing had settled in and her senses regarded it all as normal and nothing had really happened because there was no reaction and no emotion and no real feeling.

  And when something bad happened there had to be feeling, didn't there?

  She wanted to cry but nothing would come out and then she felt selfish. Did nothing come out because she didn't care –had never cared? Did nothing come out because it didn't affect her inside? Because she knew that it should have been affecting her and there should have been some sort of reaction.

  But if she cried, if she screamed, it would make it all the more real. If she cried, then the detachedness would lesson and the placidity would shatter, but at the same time it would remain because the crying would be forced, strained.

  And she couldn't cry.

  She wanted so much to cry.

  Cal was in Lacey's room. He thought she was asleep. Lia cast her gaze towards her bed.

  Sleep. Maybe if she slept, she would wake up and it would all turn out to be a dream? If she slept it would all go away and she would wake up and Lacey would shout out to her that breakfast was ready and shake her awake and tell her how lazy she was and how late for work she was.

  Sleep. That's all she had to do now, sleep.

  Because when she woke up everything would be okay.

  It would all be okay.

  Morning came.

  Fresh air washed over her form, a few red leaves escalating beneath the soft breeze. Lia watched them rise, then tumble in circles over the tarmac. She looked back, then kept walking. Cal was still asleep. He would be wondering where she was but she needed some time alone.

  The wind cut at her hair. She kept walking, absently, across the path. Each breath felt forced, cold, and her face felt numb from the wind. But she didn't care. She needed anything, anything to make it all feel real, anything to wake her up and tell her, remind her, that she was still walking, still breathing –still living.

  Lia pulled her coat tighter around her form and made her way through the heavy outcrop of trees. There was a park nearby. She wanted to go there, go there and rest. Grass crunched beneath her feet and figures walked past her, talking, laughing, because life for them went on and on and on and the world just wouldn't stop going round and round, but she wanted it to stop, for just a moment; she wanted it to stop so that she could feel, so that it could just sink in and the blankness could just stop and she could just get over it because that's what you were meant to do when someone died, wasn't it? You were meant to get over it and move on and forget and get on with your life because that was the only way that you could keep living.

  So why couldn't she feel anything?

  She wanted to get over it, but it didn't feel like there was anything there to begin with, yet she knew that there was something there, but she just couldn't feel it. And she couldn't cry because there were no tears.

  She wanted to cry, but there were no tears.

  Why weren't there any tears?

  Lia reached the park, a steady stretch of landscape and dozens of kids all running and screaming and laughing out to their heart's content. Because for them everything was okay, everything was okay and they could still feel and everything wasn't so blank and distanced and far away and unreachable. She allowed herself a smile. Everything –life, laughter, games, youth – was at their fingertips and all they had to do was reach out and brush it with their little fingers and laugh happily, innocently, because they were still so innocent and young.

  And she felt so old, so lifeless.

  She felt as if her life had just fallen, crashed, crumbled to the ground and washed away into the sea beneath a rough tumult of waves, then disintegrated and dropped to the bottom of a raging sea before being picked up once again and fractured, ripped apart and destroyed until there was nothing, nothing left at all –nothing but an empty vessel which just stood there, wavering, beneath a light rush of wind which lashed against its cheeks and chilled its bones before wrapping over its form and ripping out its last breath, then giving it all back in one, big gasp of cold, icy air.

  Lia reached the bench and sat down. The wind ruffled her hair and she watched the leaves dance, lightly, beneath the soft breeze.

  A figure slumped down beside her. "Hey."

  She didn't look. She recognised his voice and kept her gaze trained on the leaves. They looked so pretty, going round and round in circles, just like the world, round and round and round in never-ending circles which didn't stop, not even for a moment.

  A hand held her arm. "Lia –" Carmon cut himself off.

  She didn't answer.

  His grip tightened. "Lia –"

  Lia shot her head round, so that she was facing him. "What?" she bit. She wrenched her arm from his grasp.

  He flinched, visibly, at the harshness of her tone.

  Carmon ducked his head, as if ashamed, like some sort of little child. "I want to talk to you," he whispered. There was a plea in his voice, a soft, wavering plea.

  Yet she wasn't moved. All she felt was anger, pure, boiling anger.

  "What about?" She wasn't looking at him. She hated him; she hated them all.

  Carmon cast his gaze towards the sky. "Jude –"

  That was it. "I don't give a shit about Jude; I don't give a shit about Leigh –I don't give a shit about you," she bit. "I hate you. I hate all of you. This is all your fault. You should have been with her, you were meant to be with her –" The tears had started falling now, freely, trickling down her cool cheeks and warming them, "–If only you hadn't left her. She was waiting for you and if she was waiting for you, then how the hell did she get outside? How the hell did you let her go outside? And now because of you, because of all of you, she's dead –" It still wasn't sinking in. "She's dead," Lia repeated. "And she's never coming back."

  Carmon looked cold, stung. His knuckles were a stark white from holding onto the side of the bench for so long. He stood up and didn't answer, but merely left. She didn't look up again until she was sure he was gone.

  Laughter filtered through the air. Lia leaned back against the bench and took in a deep breath, then wiped her eyes. She couldn't cry, not here, not now. People would see and that was the last thing she wanted. No one could see.

  She stood up. It was time to go back.

  * * *

  They were at The Harper. Melan refused to go to Ganners again, for obvious reasons. They entered through the glass doors and Melan peered around. She seemed to be looking for someone.

  Jack followed her gaze, then stopped. Val. Melan smiled and made her way towards her; she sat down and they greeted each other. Jack joined them. Val glared at him, acidly. He gulped.

  "Hello, Jack," she hissed.

  He swung his legs beneath the table. "Hey."

  Val gave him a withering look which made him want to shrink into his seat. Melan didn't seem to notice. "This place is way nicer than Ganners, isn't it?" she chirped.

  Val rummaged through her purse and took out some gum. She popped it into her mouth and began to chew. "This is the first time we've came here."

  She offered Melan some gum; Melan declined. They continued talking, Val is acting as if he wasn't even there. He knew it was because of the Damien thing and he was pretty sure that, somehow, she knew that it was him who had accused her ––albeit, wrongly accused her –– of cheating with Damien behind Melan's back. It was times like these that he regretted getting himself into these situations.

  "I'll go get us some drinks." Melan's voice cut him from his reverie.

  He blinked, about to insist that he would go instead, but she had already left. Val smiled at him, acerbically.

  Jack gulped.

  She looked
to Melan's retreating form, then back at him. Val blew a bubble. He watched it pop. She chewed, slowly. "So, Jack, how have you been?"

  Jack swung his legs beneath the table. "I've been good, you?"

  "Peachy."

  Silence descended for a moment. Her voice cut through it. "I've never been the sort of person who skirts around a subject." She glared. "So I'll cut right to the chase, Harlton. What the fuck are you planning, you filthy piece of ass fuck?"