Put Me Back Together

by Lola Rooney

  As I wandered away from the fray, my mind drifted back to my call with Emily and I felt the weight of what was coming. Telling my family the truth would be even harder than telling Lucas, not because they were more important to me, but because they were there. They got the call that I was in the hospital and ran to my bedside. They shielded me from the reporters and stood by me through the trial. They were the ones I’d tested my lies on first.

  Staring at a charcoal drawing of a swing set in a back garden, I felt myself growing angry, and for once my anger wasn’t aimed at myself. I was angry at the lies themselves and all the chaos they’d caused. I was angry that I’d wasted so much time hating myself. I was angry that now I had to face the prospect of hurting my family again. If Lucas was right and what happened really wasn’t my fault, then the only person to blame was the same one I was hiding from. And I was angry about that, too. I was furious with Brandon Tomko for the mess he’d made of all our lives: mine, Tommy’s, the Wesleys’, his parents’, my parents’, Emily’s, the whole country’s.

  The door to the art studio at the very end of the hall stood open. Wandering inside, I found my final painting sitting on the easel where I’d left it. In the painting I held Tommy by the hand and the train tracks ran beneath our feet. Tommy was smiling. It was a painting of what might have been, or almost. But there was still that sky above us, filled with threatening clouds to the east, and the figure lurking behind, dressed in black, waiting for just the right moment to spring.

  “You did this,” I said, my eyes narrowing on that black form, almost melting away to nothing in the trees.

  “Keep telling yourself that, Katie Kat,” a voice said, and I spun around, flattening myself against the wall so hard I smacked the back of my head. It began to bleat with pain, or maybe that was my internal alarm telling me to run, run, run.

  There was nobody there. The studio was empty, and when I stepped out into the hall I saw the other students were still congregated far down at the other end, out of earshot. Nobody was close enough to tell me if they’d heard it, too. Pressing a hand to the back of my head, I backed away from the doorway to the studio, still unsure if I’d imagined it or if Brandon was going to leap out of a shadow. When I hit the opposite wall with my back I staggered. I was having trouble breathing. Air, I needed air.

  Pushing through the door to the stairwell, I scrambled down the two flights of stairs and fell out into the night. The wind was blowing harder now, a gale beginning to build, and the air forced its way into my lungs, leaving me gasping. I looked up at the stars as my breathing returned to normal and thought that no matter how many times I painted it I could never really capture the immensity of that sky, or the horror of it. That sky had watched as Brandon had killed Tommy. It had been the only witness. That sky knew the truth.

  Truth or lies—that was what it always came down to. My lies or Brandon’s truth—neither really covered what happened that day. Maybe no article or painting or piece of testimony ever could. Maybe trying to make right something that was so wrong to begin with was the real problem. No truth I told would ever bring Tommy back. No lie would fill the gaping hole in his mother’s heart. Maybe the trick to moving on with your life was saying goodbye.

  I closed my eyes and painted myself into the clearing. The train tracks ran ahead of me and behind. The sky was blue and clear. And I was not running or bleeding or crying. I was still. The woods were peaceful, just like I hoped he was. Just like I hoped I would someday be.

  “Goodbye, Tommy,” I whispered. As I opened my eyes again, a star winked brightly, exactly above my head. I knew it wasn’t Tommy, but it made me smile.

  “Alone at last,” a voice said, and I knew it was him. I would have known that voice anywhere. I’d been hearing it in my dreams for six long years.

  Brandon Tomko had found me.

  22

  My first thought was that he was shorter than he was in my nightmares. We’d been the same height once, and he was taller now, but not by much. I estimated about two inches. That random thought echoed in my brain—Two inches isn’t much—as he took a step toward me and I could see his face more clearly. Then all the air was sucked out of my lungs and I couldn’t breathe. It was as though the world went still—no movement, no sound. There was just Brandon and me and the moment I’d been dreading every day since Tommy Wesley died.

  “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, Katie Kat,” Brandon said. His voice was the same, but with a rough quality to it that I associated with worn-out old men. Men who tiredly stalked the woods at night looking for their next victim. Men you didn’t want to run into in the dark—oops, too late.

  “Really? Seems to me you found me last week,” I replied, surprised to find that my voice wasn’t shaking, though my hands were. “At least that’s the impression I got from the knife you stabbed through my pillow. I’m not the one who’s been hiding, Brandon.”

  He flinched when I said his name, almost as though I’d insulted him. “Well, aren’t you lucky,” he sneered. “You’re free to grab hot chocolate and kiss your boyfriend and take naps in the park and go to class. You don’t have to hide. What a great life your lies have bought you.”

  Take naps in the park? Did he mean the day Lucas and I had visited the basketball court in Christie? Had he followed us there, too?

  I tried to stem my panic by wrapping my arms around my stomach tightly, clamping down. It didn’t work.

  “I lied because I had to,” I said.

  He chuckled humourlessly. “You had to. How convenient. I guess the fact that your lies threw me to the wolves was just a happy coincidence, then. None of your doing, really. Since you had to.”

  His words sounded so familiar, filled with blame, with reproach. It’s all your fault, Katie, they hissed. You’re a liar, a coward, a hypocrite, Katie. All these years I’d thought it was my own voice haunting my thoughts. Now I realized it was Brandon’s voice I’d been hearing all along.

  “Now who’s lying?” I said. “I’m not the reason you were locked away, Brandon. I didn’t kill Tommy Wesley, you did.”

  His eyes burned into me, fixed on my face. His entire demeanour changed, becoming somehow menacing simply by the shifting of his weight, the movement of his shoulders. In that moment, as he stared at me, I began to regret coming out the back door of the building. Though there were campus paths leading off in every direction, all the streets were out of sight. The halls inside the building might have been filled with people, but outside it was quiet, the campus nearly deserted. Nobody could see us right now. I was all alone with him.

  “I killed that kid because you asked me to,” Brandon said, his voice dead calm.

  That did it. Those words. It was the first time I’d heard him admit to it out loud and it woke something up in me.

  This was Tommy’s killer. I was face-to-face with him. There was nobody around.

  He’s going to kill me, I thought, amazed that it had taken me this long for the thought to enter my frantic mind. Unless…

  “Oh, cut the crap, Brandon,” I snapped. “We both know that’s not true.” Those burning eyes flared again and I took a step to the left. I needed to get away from the wall of the building and onto the path. I needed to be as clever as Lucas said I was. I needed a plan.

  “You’re telling me to cut the crap?” Brandon said. He smiled, and this time it seemed genuine—until I saw the knife in his hand. One look at that knife and any plan I’d been putting together went right out the window. “Why don’t you say it again?”

  I ran.

  Right away I knew I’d taken the wrong path. If I’d turned left around the side of Ontario Hall I would have reached the street in a minute, but instead I went straight on the path that went behind the library. I was aiming for Union Street where I could see a car pulled over and several people getting in. I should have screamed right away, but all I could see was red and all I could think was, Run. I could hear the thudding of his boots as he came running after me, both of us pushing
against the wind that seemed to want to hold us back. Run, run, run! By the time I opened my mouth, the car doors were already slamming shut and I was still ten feet away.

  “Wait, I—” I called out before he clamped his hand over my mouth, the rest of my words drowned out by my high-pitched scream.

  He pulled me tight against him, yanking me backwards until we were hidden behind one of the building’s ornamental buttresses.

  He panted into my ear, his breath and body giving off a smell of dirt. It was as though he’d literally just slithered out of a hole in the ground.

  His other arm was locked around my middle and I struggled hard against it. Then he raised his hand and the knife glinted in the light from the streetlamp and I fell still, my eyes following the blade. It wasn’t the same knife. I knew it couldn’t be. But it looked just like it, right down to the colour of the wooden handle. For a moment I imagined I saw a smear of blood across the blade and wondered if it was Tommy’s.

  “Tell me, Katie,” Brandon rasped into my ear, “what was it like waking up to find Tommy’s body? I’ve always wanted to know. I couldn’t watch, of course. I had to disappear. But I wish I could have been there to see you discover my present.”

  I closed my eyes in disgust. The smell of dirt got stronger, filling my nose and mouth, pressing into my throat. Then I realized it wasn’t dirt I was smelling at all. It was the smell of the woods.

  I open my eyes to the fireflies. They swim across my vision, their blinking lights making me think of flashlights bobbing through the trees, of rescue. But there is no one coming.

  Pushing myself up on my knees, I feel warm wetness running down my face and wipe it away. It’s too dark for me to see my own blood. I can’t see anything at all except the fireflies. I can’t hear anything but my own hectic breathing, and that’s how I know I’m alone.

  I need to find Tommy.

  Swaying on my feet and stumbling repeatedly, I walk down the tracks in the direction I think will take me to the street. I’ll get some help and come back. I’ll bring the police and those huge spotlights. I’ll bring dogs and helicopters. I’ll find Tommy. I’ll find him in time.

  I throw up once, then again. I’m off balance and my right arm feels weirdly heavy, but I ignore all this. I know I have to keep moving. I have to get help.

  Then I slip in something slick and fall on my knees, gasping loudly. A rail cuts into my shin. I move my hand and it sinks into something I cannot describe. Something wet and a little gooey. Something that was warm a little while ago. Something I don’t understand until my fingers run over the long, soft fur and I realize it’s not fur at all. It’s his hair.

  As I run I scream his name.

  I whimpered and kicked at Brandon with my feet, wrenching against his grip even as he pressed the blade to my cheek. I needed to get away from him and his smell. I needed to get away from that night more than anything.

  “What was it like going to school and walking the halls, everyone feeling sorry for you, when you knew you were to blame? And on TV, watching me get labelled the Kindergarten Killer when you knew, you knew…”

  He pressed the tip of the knife into my cheek, twisting it ever so slightly, and I felt it break the skin. His hand smothered my screams.

  “What was it like to get away with it, Katie Kat? Tell me, because I’ll never know. Did it feel like this?” He moved the knife to the other cheek and again I felt the blade twisting, cutting. My blood was running down my neck. I could smell it.

  “Or like this?” The knife disappeared and instead I felt his clumsy fingers groping at my breast, a hard and cruel jab that felt nothing like Lucas’s gentle hands. The revulsion that wracked my body snapped me back into the present, and the same instinct that had taken over that day so long ago took over once more: animal fear.

  I sank my teeth into his hand.

  He howled and released my mouth, but unlike that fateful day six years ago, he didn’t let me go. I guessed that was a lesson he didn’t need to learn twice. His right arm held me around my ribs with a brutal strength that terrified me more than the knife. If he could hold a full-grown woman with just one arm, what could he do with two?

  “Hel—” I cried, but again my plea was cut off when he grabbed my entire face with the hand I’d just bitten, smearing his blood across my nose and mouth. He pressed his palm so hard into my face that for a moment I couldn’t breathe.

  Then he said a single word into my ear before shoving me roughly to the side, releasing his hold on me. My hair whipped around my head as I backed away from him on wobbly legs, uncomprehending. His burning eyes bored into me as he repeated the word, louder this time, commanding me: “Run!” And this time I did as I was told.

  He wasn’t letting me go. I knew this as I ran down the path with more speed than I’d ever imagined my body could muster. This was what he’d done to Tommy. He hadn’t killed him right away, that wasn’t his style. He’d made his first cut and then he’d made him run. He’d even given him a head start. He’d made Tommy run for his life and now he was doing the same to me, knowing he would catch me, knowing he was faster. But that wasn’t the point. The running was the point.

  Because Brandon loved the chase.

  Think, I urged myself, think of a plan. Lucas says you’re clever, so think. You’re smarter than he is. You can do this. Think!

  Already I could hear him coming after me, though he was grunting and his steps were uneven. Maybe I’d injured one of his legs when I’d kicked him.

  Get to people, I thought frantically. Get to safety. Call for help!

  I ran up the stone steps onto the landing behind the library and threw myself at the wooden doors, but they were locked. Going back down the stairs would have brought me back toward Brandon, so instead I climbed over the balustrade and leaped the four feet to the ground. In front of me was the side of Ontario Hall, the light falling through the windows of the corner classroom where Lucas was taking his exam on the second floor. Lucas. But I remembered now that those back doors locked when they closed, too. I’d have to go around the front.

  Adrenaline pumped through my veins as I shot toward the street. I couldn’t hear Brandon behind me, but I wasn’t stupid enough to think that I’d lost him this quickly. He was stalking me. He was watching. As I rounded the side of the building I looked up and down University Avenue, desperately searching for someone, anyone who could help me, but the street was empty and silent as the grave. Where was campus security when you needed them? Then I remembered—my phone!

  Luckily, I hadn’t dropped my bag because it was strapped across my body. As I continued toward the stairs leading into Ontario Hall, I reached into my bag and rustled through my junk, searching for my cell phone. I could call campus security myself. They’d be here in minutes. And Lucas was right upstairs. I wasn’t going to die. Not today. Not now.

  But where was it? Panting as I reached the bottom of the stairs, I plunged both hands into my messenger bag, emptying my wallet, an umbrella, paintbrushes, and my sketchbook onto the ground, but I couldn’t find my phone anywhere. Had Lucas taken it when we’d left the apartment? Had I left it behind?

  “You’ve sure gotten an awful lot of texts from an unknown number,” Brandon said.

  My head snapped up as he rounded the low wrought-iron fence and stepped toward me, my cell phone in his hand. He must have slipped it out of my bag when he was holding me. He paged through the messages, his face contorted with mock concern.

  “Some of these are absolutely appalling! You really should be careful who you give your number out to,” Brandon warned. “There are all kinds of crazies out there.”

  “You don’t say,” I shot back then turned and began to run up the stairs. I thought I could make it. The beckoning light of the front doors was only a few feet away, but he was on me before I’d even made it to the top. In a blink I was dragged backwards down the steps and thrown down onto the cement. I landed hard onto of my bag, momentarily glad I’d just emptied it. Then he yanked m
y head up by my hair and I screeched as pain seared through my hairline.

  “I have to say I expected more from you, Katie,” Brandon said, his lips against my ear. “Is this all the fight you have in you? Haven’t you been anticipating this moment for the past six years? Is this really the best you can do?”

  You can do this, Katie. You’re strong. You’re smart. Don’t let him do this to you twice. You can think your way out of this.

  “Isn’t that how you like them?” I said. “Weak and small? Just like Tommy. I’m just trying to give you what you want.”

  Baiting him had seemed like a good idea until he yanked on my hair with a growl and I regretted it with every fibre of my being. Grabbing me by my collar with his other hand, he pulled me up to my feet then kicked me in the back, causing me to fall forward onto my knees again. In desperation I began to crawl forward and I heard him chuckling at me. He thought I was easy prey, a weak and cowardly girl he could stalk and torture and kill, taking my life just as he’d taken Tommy’s, without much hassle, without even breaking a sweat. Listening to him laughing at my fear, I decided I had to get back at him for what he’d done to me. Even if he was going to kill me, he would pay first. I’d make him pay even if it was the last thing I did. I had to do this. For the little girl I had been, now lost forever. For all the people whose lives he’d ruined.

  For Tommy.

  Scrambling to my feet, I spun around to face him. The knife was in his hand again. He was getting ready to finish things off. To finish me.

  “You killed Tommy for me, huh?” I said, backing toward the line of trees that separated the buildings.

  “You know I did,” Brandon answered. I could see the creases lining his forehead as he scowled at me. This was no twelve-year-old boy. He was a full-grown man now. A full-grown monster. But even monsters had their weaknesses.

  “Pretty romantic,” I said. “What was it like sitting in that cell, knowing the girl you loved enough to kill for didn’t love you back? I mean, I denied even knowing you. I testified that I’d never seen you before in my life. That’s gotta sting.”