The Innocent

by Candice Raquel Lee

  “That’s because I ruined everything.”

  “You didn’t ruin anything. Everything is still waiting for you at the house.”

  “What’s waiting?” she asked, perking up.

  “Surprises.”

  “You’re full of those aren’t you?” she smiled.

  “I like to see your face light up,” I told her, pulling her down beside me.

  “It always lights up when I see you.”

  I smiled, barely stopping myself from kissing her and lighting the fuse. I pressed her head to my chest, turned her to the TV.

  “We have forever,” I said. “We have now, and that’s all we need. Forever in this moment. It’s enough.”

  She got comfortable. “It is.”

  We watched some comedies then passed out. She woke me up in the middle of the night.

  “I’m hungry,” she said, shaking me.

  “You want some more soup?” I asked, trying to open my eyes.

  “I want lox.”

  “Huh?” I asked, wide awake.

  “Lox.”

  “Locks for a door?”

  “No. Salmon.” She turned on the light, sat up: “I want smoked salmon.”

  “Smoked salmon?” Was this it? Was this what Chandraswami was talking about, the craving? Lox? Where was I going to get Lox? It was two-thirty in the morning, but something somewhere was always open. But Lox?

  “Can I have some now?” she asked, wide-eyed.

  “Sure, honey, I’ll go to the store. I’ll be right back. You sure you can’t wait till morning?”

  She looked around like a prisoner or someone going into withdrawal; then she shook her head.

  “Okay, I’ll be back as soon as I can.” I kissed her, then grabbed some clothes and rushed out.

  Lox. Lox. Lox. My body chanted. Cristien had been gone all of five minutes, and I couldn’t stand waiting anymore. I got up unsteadily. I held onto things all the way to the kitchen. Then I started opening all the doors and drawers. The kitchen spices were in alphabetical order. Everything was categorized. It looked like an ad for how to organize a kitchen. Oh well. I opened everything, sniffing and tossing bottles and jars everywhere until I had a pile of goodies. I gathered my stash on the kitchen table. I ate the salt first, a whole handful. Then I washed it down with a bottle of fish sauce. I stuffed my face with two cans of sardines and a can of anchovies. Afterward, I sat down at the table feeling bloated and slightly nauseous. I put my head down, so the room would stop its slow spinning. I closed my eyes and waited to feel better, my mouth dry and tingly.

  When I could get up, I was going to call Cristien and tell him to come home, emergency abated. I was going to get up in a few seconds and call him, but I still couldn’t move. I wondered what he would think when he came home and found me surrounded by empty tins and bottles in his once immaculate kitchen. All the cabinet doors were flung open and the contents were everywhere. I hoped he wouldn’t divorce me. I laughed; then I dozed.

  The sound of the front door opening awakened me. Cristien was back. I sat up, wiped my mouth from the drool. I smoothed my hair hoping for pretty or at least neat so he wouldn’t be mad at me for sending him on a wild goose chase.

  I heard two sets of footsteps. Was Lance home too? So early? Boy, those two were babying me, and I loved it.

  “I’m in here, in the kitchen,” I croaked, licking my dry lips. I got up for some water. I was reaching for a clean glass when the kitchen door banged open. I looked up smiling only to see Abe standing in the doorway.

  “What are you doing here?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer me. He stepped forward. Something about the grim line of his mouth and the coldness of his dark eyes made me run. I dropped the glass in the sink, but I didn’t get anywhere. He was so fast. He caught me by the arm and yanked me around. There was so much hate in his expression.

  He locked his hands around my throat. His grip cut off my breath, my scream for help. I pulled and clawed at his hands, but they were like stone. I couldn’t move them, and I couldn’t get any air. My head started to pound, my vision double. I had to stop him somehow, but he was so strong. I let go of his arms, though my mind said I had to get his hands away from my neck. I dug my thumbnails into his eyes as my vision went dark. He let go of me, screaming.

  My knees buckled. My temple struck the corner of the granite island as I fell to the tile floor gasping for breath. Everything wobbled, my head pulsed, my ears roared, but I had to get up. I had to get away from him, but I had no balance. I got to my hands and knees.

  Before I crawled two feet, he came after me again, grabbing one of my legs. He yanked it out from under me, and my arms gave out. My chin hit the tile. My mouth filled with blood. He dragged me across the floor. I grabbed the edges of the cabinet base, but I couldn’t hold on. My hands broke open against the wood. I turned on my back, so I could see where he was pulling me and try to find something to hold on to, to stop him from taking me wherever he was going to take me. I hung onto a cabinet door handle. He yanked at my leg. My joints popped, I gritted my teeth against the pain, but I wouldn’t let go this time. Then he moved to get a better hold on me. He leaned forward over me. I kicked him in the face with my feet, knocking him back.

  He would be up again in a moment. He was too fast for me to outrun, too strong for me to fight. Any weapon, a kitchen knife or cleaver, he would turn against me. I had to slow him down. I looked around, saw bottles in the open under-sink cabinet. Chemicals. I lurched toward them, grabbing a bottle of bleach as I crawled away toward the dining room door.

  He caught me again. This time he straddled me, pulling me up by my hair. I screamed while he dragged me to my feet. Then I yanked the lid off the bottle and swung it back hitting him on the side of the face. He cried out when the liquid splashed him. Then he let me go. I looked back to see him on the ground writhing and swearing, covering his face.

  I ran past the table into the living room. I would jump off the balcony. My wings would take me down: to hell with secrecy. It wasn’t worth my life. The street was always busy below. He wouldn’t dare touch me with a crowd of people around.

  Then something hit me hard in the face, sent me smashing into the wall between the kitchen and living room. The room darkened and spun. I crumpled to the floor. My whole body hurt like all my bones had been broken. A blurred figure moved toward me, stopped in front of me. I rubbed my eyes, and I looked up. I saw her smiling down at me.

  “Lily.”

  “Only Cristien calls me that,” she said and punched me across the face. Everything went dark.

  I woke to pain, pain so terrible that it brought me back to consciousness. It had to stop. I had to find a way to make it stop.

  “I’ve been your faithful servant for centuries,” Abe said distantly, “watching that pompous Limey bastard for you. I told you when he found the girl and what she was becoming. You owe me. When this is done, I rule New York after you take care of Cristien, n’est-ce pas?”

  “After she dies, Cristien will be mine, body and soul, and so will this world. I always reward my faithful servants. When I devour her, her energy will make me a whole again. I will be able to create our kind just by touching my chosen. We will feed on humans. My children will take their rightful place as lords and masters of this earth.”

  “She’s waking up,” Abe said. “Hurry. He’ll be back soon.”

  “Coward, what can he do now? It’s done. I wish I could see his face,” Lily snarled.

  Cristien, my heart cried. Cristien was coming. I had to last a little longer, that’s all I had to. Then just like a dream, he would come and fight the monsters, make them go away. I felt air, cold air on me. When I opened my eyes, there were stars above me. I was lying on our bedroom balcony. I had danced here with Cristien, I thought vaguely. I was trying to remember, but my left hand hurt so much. I lifted it to my face and screamed.

  My ring finger was gone. Blood was pouring down my arm. I sobbed, struggling to get up. I slipped on my own
blood.

  “Cristien,” I cried desperately. I needed him now to come to make this stop, to make this go away. Then Abe was in front of me. His left eye was sealed shut and black. He lifted me by my clothes, slammed me hard against the brick wall of the building.

  “You really should have taken me up on my offer. Now you’re gon’ to die, bitch,” he said.

  No, Cristien was coming. I tried to push him away, but he let me go and Lily took his place. My hand swung out into the white light coming from her. It was like my skin had caught fire. I screamed in agony as her light engulfed and devoured me. It shot up to my face and down my body. The pain wiped away everything: all my hope, all my fear, all my life. I writhed in agony. I saw nothing, heard nothing, knew nothing but the pain. I lost my mind to it.

  “It is done,” Lily said.

  “Why didn’t she disappear?” Abe asked.

  “Just get rid of the body,” she said.

  Then he raised me over the edge of the balcony. I seemed to be falling for an eternity, floating, floating like a feather. I was so light. Then I hit something hard that turned soft. I sank into an airless void. Everything went black, and I died. My life flashed before my eyes.

  It was not much of a life, I thought as I watched. I had barely lived, and yet the darkness called. “Put down your burden, rest,” it said. Pictures of my childhood flashed past my mind’s eye. They slowed only when I met Cristien. I relived the night we got engaged, the day I became his wife. I talked and laughed with Lance again. Then came the blood, the falling, the burning that eclipsed everything. The final period at the end of my short life. The darkness called. It was so sweet like I was going home. I had so much pain. I was so tired. I could set it down now. I could go down the tunnel. I could rest.

  I met Lance when I was coming back. It was three-thirty in the morning. He was waiting for the elevator. He had groceries in his arms. I looked him up and down.

  “And what are those?” I asked.

  “I thought I would get the things she wanted when I was out,” he said, calmly enough.

  “You don’t know how to shop,” I told him.

  “She told me what to get,” he said, lifting his chin proudly.

  I laughed at him. “She’s got us both wrapped around her finger.”

  “Oh shut up. I was there buying condoms anyway,” he said, when the doors opened. “You don’t know how to treat a lady.”

  “Condoms?” I asked, while I got in and pressed the button.

  “So, what do you have there?” he asked, ignoring my question and nodding toward my bag.

  I was about to tell him the crazy story about the lox when I heard Alexa call my name. I looked up. I thought I saw a flame with white wings falling. It was so clear it frightened me.

  “Well?” he asked.

  “I’m hallucinating,” I joked, but something in the pit of my gut made me feel sick, and scared. I pressed the number eleven again and again.

  “Cristien?”

  The numbers moved up. My hands went cold. When the door finally opened, I ran through. Our apartment door was open.

  “What the fuck? You didn’t leave that open like that did you?” Lance asked.

  “Alexa!” I called. The house was dark. I threw the bag down, ran to the bedroom. I switched on the light. On the wall behind our bed the words “Do you forgive me now?” were scrawled in what looked like blood. I went closer. There was something beside Alexa’s bear. A single finger lay on my pillow. Rings that I had made with my own hands shone on it where the blood had not marred them.

  Lance ran in behind me, “She’s not out there. But the kitchen’s a mess, and there’s blood . . .”

  His next words died in his mouth when he looked past me to the wall.

  “Alexa!” he called, running to the bathroom. “Alexa, can you hear me?”

  He ran to the balcony, and an anguished sound escaped him. I fell to my knees by the bed. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even search for her because I was feeling her die. I was feeling all the pieces of her being torn from every piece of me. I tried to hold on, but I couldn’t fight it. I couldn’t stop it, the death of light.

  “Alexa,” I called, as the last of her left me, as I collapsed to the floor. Please. Stay. You can’t leave me like this. You can’t give me everything and take it away. You can’t. You can’t. But she did. She was gone, and all I had now were those words on the wall. I knew who had written them and why. Lily did not want my pardon, did not want my understanding. She had attempted to warn me. All she had wanted was my hate.

  Lance came back to me. He tried to help me up, though he could barely stand.

  “She’s downstairs,” he sobbed.

  I moved. I leapt to the balcony. I looked down and then I was falling toward her.

  “Cristien, no!” Lance shouted. He caught me.

  We touched down. I shoved him away from me. Her charred body was floating in the pool. I jumped in after her, dragged her out, and laid her on the cement. I laid her down so carefully, so gently as if anything could hurt her anymore. But she had been so hurt. She was so broken. I pulled her to me to hide her from my eyes, to hold her one last time. To ask forgiveness for letting this happen to her.

  My angel. What had Lily done to my angel? What had she done? She had burned down heaven, ignited the stars, torn God from his throne, and yet she lived. She had taken everything from me, and yet she lived. She had committed the most profound blasphemy. She had taken my joy and destroyed it utterly. She had obliterated me.

  How easy it had been to do. How simple. I looked over what remained of my life. If Lily had killed me I would not have cared. If she had taken my life and spared Alexa, I would have thanked her, but she didn’t want anything from me but my hate.

  I touched Alexa’s left hand, experiencing the place where her finger had been cut away because I had put my rings there. It was my fault, my fault. I had made her my queen, but I had not protected her. My mind recoiled. I cringed from my helplessness, blindness, and impotence. Lily had taken Alexa from me like I was a child, taken my reason for living. She had taken my heart and burned it alive. She had taken my mind and set it on fire.

  My innocent one. My white bride. I had failed her. She had trusted me, loved me and I had failed her. I had come too late. I had left my lamb for the lions. I was a fool. I deserved nothing, neither pity, nor love. I had never deserved her. My love had killed her. With that thought, all that had been Alexa’s Cristien was lost. He went mad. He died looking on his wife’s unrecognizable body.

  The new glowing page that he had turned over was rent from the book of his life. The only thing that remained now was rage, the hate growing inside the emptiness. With every breath it fed on a love that was now useless and unnecessary.

  I knew nothing but my desire for death, for Lily’s death. I shut myself off from everything else. I turned my back to the light and sought only darkness to comfort me. I let Alexa go. She fell from my arms. Darkness came in her place, came when called. It came like a friend, and it showed me what I had not seen. Their energy signatures left behind on her. Then I understood the way a machine understands.

  I had my two targets, and the pain in me stopped. It wrapped around me, changed me, cloaked me. I used it. I used my hate to re-mold myself into something that could better deal with the loss of my soul. I had one purpose now. I had a future but without a past. I would begin the hunt. I rose, looked up at the energy trails.

  Then a man stepped before me. He was tall, ginger-skinned, with curly blond hair. He said a word.

  “Cristien.”

  I did not know him. He was not my target, so I moved on.

  Lance

  Who? Who would do this? That was all I could think while I ran through the house. I could not imagine anyone stupid enough to fuck with me or Cristien. So a part of me kept saying nothing could be wrong. I kept waiting for him to shout he had found her, and she would then explain why the kitchen looked like a cyclone had hit it and why there wa
s bleach spilled everywhere. I would laugh, laugh at our Alexa.

  But I heard nothing. So, I turned back into the living room, still waiting for some sound from Cristien, when I found a bloody smear on the lower part of the living room wall. Long dark wavy hair was stuck in it. I took off for the bedroom, my heart hammering in my chest. I had not been this afraid in decades.

  The first thing I saw was Cristien standing in front of his bed. I moved forward, telling him what I had found in the other room. Then I saw it, the writing in dripping blood.

  “Alexa!” I cried. I ran to the bathroom, the balcony. I didn’t find her, but I found more blood all over the floor. I stepped around it and looked down. Far below was a dark thing floating in the building’s pool.

  And still I couldn’t believe it. It couldn’t be her. I stumbled back inside. Cristien was on the floor, bent over on himself. A sound was coming from him. Once I had seen a man die from a shotgun blast to the guts. He made a sound like that before he stopped making any sound at all. And then I knew it was her down there. She was dead.

  I told him where she was. I tried to pull him to his feet, make him stand, help him bear it, but he threw me off and leapt to the balcony. He was gone so fast. I didn’t think his feet touched the ground once. I snatched the rings from the bed. He would want them one day. I ran to the balcony. He was falling, falling without wings. I tore off my shirt and went after him, dipping mine to catch up. I grabbed him around the neck and waist, ready to resist if he fought me. But he only threw me off after we touched the ground. He jumped in the pool, pulled her from the water, what was left of her. I had never seen anything like what they had done to her. I ground my fists into my eyes. It was so unbearable.

  He held her a long time. And then he let her go. He let Alexa slip from his arms to the ground. I could not believe he would ever let her go. I thought the police would have had to kill him before they could take her from him, but he had simply opened his arms. His expression was devastated. I should have let him die, let him fall and be laid down beside her. I realized too late that it would have been kinder than letting him see her like that. His eyes were pits of hell. I didn’t know how he would survive. I didn’t know what to do for him. I didn’t know how to save him from this.