The Poison Morality

by Stacey Kathleen

  “The money she owes me,” he said acknowledging Oliver and then his voice became quiet and vindictive and he turned his attention back to Sophie. “We can skip the sex; I’m not really in the mood now anyway.”

  Sophie shuddered and looked disgusted, “She….told you she would have sex with you?”

  He chuckled, “Don’t want him to know you’ve been a naughty girl, do you,” he asked, nodding towards Oliver, the corner of his mouth tilted up on the left side slyly. He spoke to Oliver, “She told me to meet her here to give me the money and a fuck and when I came to the door, she answered in her underwear,” his grin dropped and he became angry again, “and the cheeky bitch was all over me, kissing me and had her hand down my trousers. Next thing I know, she drugged me and now I’m tied to a bloody chair!”

  “You’re making this up. I would never touch you! She would never touch you.” Oliver took her hand, his thumb stoking her palm. This was his way of telling her to calm down or trying to do it for her.

  “Not even to lure me here?”

  “Why would I want you anywhere,” her voice was low and shaky.

  “You tell me. I don’t know any Sydney.”

  “She’s my sister!”

  “You don’t have a sister!”

  “Before you came into our lives yes I did.”

  “It was you,” he shook the chair, his eyes narrowed, “unless you both have a scar on the left side.” She realized she was gripping Oliver’s hand so she released it.

  Sophie’s mind started to cloud. Nothing was making any sense. She felt dizzy, nauseous, wanting to punch him but not wanting to touch him.

  “Grew a nice pair of tits on you,” he continued for Oliver’s benefit, “you’ve become a good looking woman but you taste just like I remembered, sweet,” he said, grinning at her. He licked his lips as he remembered.

  “Shut up!” Sophie watched him look her up and down. Her stomach was turning, her mind went hazy and as she closed her eyes it felt like she was standing in another part of the room.

  “Sophie, he’s just trying to get to you. Don’t let him get to you.” But Oliver’s voice was fading until she couldn’t hear him anymore. It felt like she was floating or the floor disappeared from under her feet and all she wanted was to feel safe again. Her eyes closed, her hands covering her ears, just the sound of his voice was enough, it didn’t matter what he was saying.

  Oliver watched as the confrontation was unfolding between Sophie and Declan. He knew Sophie didn’t tie Declan to a chair so how did he know about the scar? He didn’t know what to do but let Sophie ask what she needed to ask but Declan looked at her as if she was prey. Oliver started to step in when Sophie reached with her left hand and grabbed the gun off the table, pointing it confidently at Declan, Oliver retreating a few steps away from her.

  “Damn it Declan. I’m not supposed to be here,” she said, aiming it at Declan’s chest. Oliver sensed the change in her character but it was more than that. Her head tilted down, her arm outstretched clutching the gun in her left, and Sophie is right handed, stiff, her back straight.

  She put her foot on the chair between Declan’s knees and leaned in close to him. “You just couldn’t keep your fucking mouth shut could you?” She grabbed his face firmly squeezing his cheeks and looking him in the eye. It was evident Declan was surprised by the change in her also, unmistakably a different person altogether, seriously aiming a gun at him. “Oh, hold on…who took your gag off?”

  Oliver, mesmerized, yet confounded, walked around cautiously behind Declan to get a good look at the woman with the gun. There was a confidence in her that Sophie lacked and her face was a complete blank, expressing only when she wanted to. Not like Sophie at all, who couldn’t have a thought without a corresponding expression betraying her. Her head snapped up, looking at Oliver over Declan’s head and he asked quietly, “Who… are… you?”

  Pushing herself up right with the foot on Declan’s chair, nearly knocking it over, a sideways grin crept across her face as she looked at Oliver appreciatively up and down exactly the way Declan looked at Sophie.

  “Ah, Oliver, I didn’t see you there,” she strutted over to him, dropping the gun to her side. He studied her face and she remained still so he could do so. “I’m Sydney,” unlike Sophie, her voice and facial expressions or lack of them gave nothing away. “Can I call you Ollie?”

  There were a few moments when Oliver was trying to grasp what was happening, her words reaching his ears but not his mind. She looked at him curiously, her head tilted slightly, waiting for an answer and eventually what she said dawned on him. “I prefer you didn’t,” his mind was recovering.

  “Could Sophie?”

  “She wouldn’t. You’re…Sydney? How ….?” He was flummoxed at what he was witnessing, surely there were signs, warnings. “Where’s the real one; the little girl in the photo?”

  “Died a little girl, forever young. Car accident, shortly after the photo was taken.” It was a statement of fact, no emotion behind it. Oliver swallowed hard, Mariella yearning for the favourite child, Sydney, died in a car accident.

  “So it was you that left the photo at Sophie’s flat, why?” Oliver could appreciate that he needed to be cautious with this stranger holding a gun. She was the combustible alternate to Sophie’s passive, withdrawn personality.

  “I couldn’t exactly show up at her doorstep face to face could I,” turning away from him she walked over in front of Declan, sitting on a stool at the counter island, placing the gun on it. “His gun by the way, not mine,” reaching over she put the gag back in Declan’s mouth, he turned his head back and forth, yelling at her to let him go but his protests fell on deaf ears.

  “And you did this?” Oliver’s hand swept through the air, indicating the room with its burning candles, plants on the counter next to what looked like lab equipment, a mysterious hat box that seemed totally out of place and also vaguely familiar, and Declan tied to a chair. “Sophie’s ‘gift’?”

  “For Sophie, everything for Sophie,” she answered quietly, absent mindedly clicking the safety on and off on the gun. Oliver moved back to stand to the right of her, where he was before but hovering back slightly.

  “What will Sophie get out of this?”

  Sydney breathed deeply, closing her eyes, head tilted back, then opening her eyes turning to Oliver she answered, “Quiet.” Oliver looked perplexed. “She told you what they did, did she?”

  “Declan and Mariella?” Oliver frowned, disappointed in himself for befriending Mariella. Truth was if he had never known, he would have still liked her to the end.

  Nodding her head, she corrected, “Declan and the other men, his friends,” she stated. Oliver’s eyes grew wide giving the answer to her question. “Oh, that’s right,” she clicked her tongue, “I forgot,” she stood up again, circling Declan like a shark, “she doesn’t remember because that’s about the time Sophie split apart and it happened to me.” She walked briskly behind the chair and brought the gun to Declan’s temple. The gag prevented him from crying out but his breath quickened, breathing heavy through his mouth and nose, saliva trickled down his chin where the gag pulled tight into his mouth.

  “What do you mean,” Oliver’s eyes narrowed speculatively, ready to face the revelation of anguish that was about to ensue with the knowledge Sydney would reveal. “What other men? Why did it happen to you?”

  Sydney reached around with her free hand pulling the gag out, “Tell him Declan, whatever could I mean,” Sydney grabbed the hair at the back of his and tilted his head up towards Oliver. Declan hesitated to answer, when he heard the hammer click back, he started to talk.

  “I had a friend who wanted her and for the right price I let him.”

  “For the right price,” Oliver looked at him incredulously, anger filling his heart up to overflowing and where he was previously concerned with what Sydney might do, he now was concerned with what he might do. “So you and your friends molested her?”

  “Molested
, no,” Declan winced when Sydney pushed the barrel harder into his temple, “she was bought and paid for. She consented.”

  Sydney opened her mouth to speak but Oliver’s hand up silenced her, she tilted her head, one eyebrow shot up, but remained silent, “Why would she agree to that?” Oliver remembered what Sophie confided in him, that she felt guilty, because she allowed it but she didn’t remember why or how or the other men, just the gifts he gave, sold for her survival later. Where Sophie stopped, Sydney picked up.

  Sydney spoke up, “I didn’t.” But Oliver just held his hand up again, acknowledging what she said with a nod and looking at Declan for his answer.

  Declan’s eyebrows raised, “Money,” he asked sarcastically.

  “No…I know Sophie. Money isn’t a motivator for her so tell me what you did or said that made her believe she had no choice.”

  Sydney was starting to fidget, shifting her weight from one foot to the other, “I didn’t get any of that money. Go ahead Declan; tell him the real reason why?”

  “I don’t have to tell him anything or you.” He started straining again to get free.

  “Wrong!” Oliver saw what Declan only heard, the lips curled back against her teeth, the wild look in her eyes that went from dark to black, she definitely meant business. “Today is Sophie’s reckoning and your judgment day so you can either tell Ollie why or I can put a bullet a place that will hurt greatly but not kill you.”

  “I don’t believe you.” Declan was trying to pluck up courage from somewhere to call her bluff.

  “Do you really want to test me,” she asked putting her right hand on his shoulder and her left hand pushed the pistol against the back of his arm, “I’m certain I can’t miss with the barrel up against you like that.” Chuckling she said, “I bet you’re thinking, ‘I wish I hadn’t brought that gun.’ But just as quickly as she was amused, the smile dropped eerily. She leaned over, to speak into his ear. “Do you feel me shaking or is my hand un-wavering?”

  “Okay, okay, don’t,” he tried to lean away from the gun to no avail, “I told her,” he gulped when the gun pressed into him, “I told her if she didn’t cooperate I would throw her and that useless cunt of a mother out on the street with nothing.”

  Oliver’s face went pale, his hands clenching and unclenching. It would be so easy to have a go at him, Oliver could feel his pulse quicken but he knew he had to be the one who kept control of the situation even if it seemed that Sydney was, being the one holding the gun.

  Declan continued, justifying, his voice shaky, “I was going under. All Mariella ever did was drink, I was in debt up to my eyeballs, but,” he smiled slyly, squinting, looking at Oliver, “once I tasted the goods and others wanted in on it, well I knew Sophie could save me and if she wanted, Mariella. I told her….I told her she had to earn her keep.”

  “You can shut up now,” Sydney slapped the back of his head with her free hand.

  “It was nothing kinky, nothing dangerous.”

  “And you knew because you watched, didn’t you,” Oliver said through clenched teeth, having a hard time not killing this man with his bare hands.

  Sydney stood erect looking at Oliver’s appalled face, he observed her, still revealing nothing, but she spoke to Declan. “Thing is, so…did…I. I remember ever mole, every scar, every eye colour, receding hairline, bent nose, squared chin, all of them. Sophie handled what Declan did to her but when he put her up to the rest she crumbled,” Sophie clutched the sides of her head, gun still in her left hand, and closed her eyes, remembering, “Sophie split apart, her mind went vacant and the only way to keep from drowning in the misery was to emerge,” she took a deep breath, arms to her side, chin in the air, “stronger.”

  “So the others, did you do something to them too,” Oliver probed.

  “I took her right to them,” Declan said, answering the question not directed at him. “And she…”

  Sydney cackled cutting him off, “Don’t be ridiculous,” Oliver picked up on Sydney’s use of one of Sophie’s favourite phrases, “I didn’t need you. I,” she said coming around to face him, tapping her chest, “am the finder of lost things. It was all to get you into that chair. Are you so vain as to think I really needed you? Oh yes you are,” she said answering her own question with a sarcastic chuckle, “that’s why you had Josie spy on me.”

  “Josie,” Oliver asked, “is that why you became lovers?”

  “I knew the whole time Declan had her spy on me. She was terrible at it but I lead her where I wanted her to go. Told her to feed it to Declan to keep him off her back but I,” she thought about it, “I genuinely liked her but Sophie did me a favour when she broke up with her, I was losing focus, she was very distracting.”

  “At the time I thought you were only blackmailing them,” Declan said.

  “Oh I did, I bought you with that money,” she lifted his chin with the fingertips of her right hand, “I knew what it took to seduce you and you’re so easily bought.” Anger and repulsion sifted through the mask she wore until Oliver spoke.

  “Sydney,” she turned to acknowledge Oliver, who stayed quiet watching the conversation between Sydney and Declan before saying her name, “Did you do something else to those men besides blackmail them?”

  “They’re dead Ollie.” It was a flat proclamation but she didn’t quite answer his question but he had a feeling he knew where it was going to lead.

  “Did you kill them?”

  “I blackmailed them and then I used that money to pay for their demise.” She swelled with pride. “It’s genius really. They literally paid for their own deaths.” She said it revelling in her own brilliance.

  “Paid for,” Oliver repeated quietly, looking at the plants, the pestle and mortar, absorbing, contemplating and then...“It was you that killed them not Sophie,” the revelation made him smile, his hands relaxed at his side. The tension released and he chuckled, “Oh my God,” his hand went through his hair, “it was you, wasn’t it?”

  “No, Ollie,” his smile dropped when she contradicted him, “it was Sophie, she had to do it. No need for you to be all self-righteous, you do the same thing.”

  Shaking his head no, “It has nothing to do with how I feel about what she does but how she feels about it. She didn’t want to kill them. Why didn’t you pick up on that? Or are you too involved in your own agenda?”

  “No, you don’t get it, besides, she didn’t kill them, she poisoned them,” she corrected.

  “That idea came from you. That the poison is the killer because you knew her conscience couldn’t take the guilt. And the envelopes were from you as well, all along. If you wanted them dead why didn’t you do it?”

  “That wouldn’t make any sense, would it?” Apparently their logic on the matter differed greatly.

  “According to you, it was done to you not Sophie.” He was questioning her, was she lying because it was obvious that she could if she wanted, unlike Sophie.

  “I’m not sure I get your point, Ollie.”

  “You used Sophie to enact some kind of revenge for what they did to you, is that it?” His voice was rising, becoming urgent.

  “Revenge? If you think this is about revenge you don’t know Sophie at all,” her voice raised, annoyed.

  “Sophie I know,” his hand automatically went to his heart and then he pointed at her, “I don’t know you at all. If not for revenge, then for what? Justice?”

  “There is no justice, only the price you pay for deeds done.”

  “So you made them pay,” his temper was getting short with her.

  “Are you misunderstanding on purpose, Ollie?” She scoffed at him, “It was never about them it was always about Sophie.”

  “And does Sophie pay for your deeds as well as hers? If you could just let go of the past, Sophie wouldn’t have went through all this,” he walked towards her, her left hand dropped to her side, she took a step towards Oliver, both ignoring Declan all together.

  Her stance was defensive, legs apart, back s
tiff. “If Sophie could let go of the past, I wouldn’t still be here. If she managed on her own or stayed and became the whore that Declan,” she kicked his leg and he cried out, “wanted then I wouldn’t have… evolved.”

  “Evolved? So you have been very active in what? Helping her build a better life,” he said sarcastically, “she could have managed without your meddling.” His tone had become harsh and clipped.

  Sydney scoffed, “You’ve seen how fragile she really is, how long on the streets before she would have been done in completely? If I hadn’t of ‘meddled’ as you put it, she would be dead or a drug addict. What would have happened to her in a year, 5 years, if she lived that long? I gave her a purpose.”

  “By ‘poisoning’ the men that raped you,” she flinched, he was getting to her. He stepped forward again, closing the gap between them.

  “Us,” she said pointing to Declan, who, by Sydney’s reasoning, was the only one that raped Sophie and by all accounts the only one she remembered. If Oliver wasn’t careful he was going to lose track of what happened to whom even though the body was the same, the body took the actual abuse, but the mental split was the reality that lingered and needed to be repaired.

  “You could have done it and given her the money,” Oliver was angry, running his hand through his hair again.

  “No, she had to be independent,” Sydney was leaning forward now. Declan was yelling behind her, Oliver agitated in front of her; she kicked Declan again, “Shut up! We’re done talking about you.” Her left hand swung around hitting him across the face with gun, knocking him unconscious, she nodded satisfied as blood poured out of his nose, falling on his shirt and trousers.

  Oliver was shocked by her abrupt nature and the ease with which she handled Declan. Secretly he was satisfied that she could, when Sophie couldn’t stand the idea of touching him at all. Oliver composed himself before she turned back to him. Sydney was the one with the answers anyway. He didn’t care if she put a bullet in Declan now. “Independent of you,” he continued questioning her.

  Sydney let out a frustrated groan, talking with her hands as people do but the gun was still in her left hand, “What she had to do to be self-sufficient, free.”