Kissing Trouble

by Morgana Phoenix

  “The police will find you,” she said with far more bravery than she felt. “You gave them your handprint.”

  Luis burst out laughing, a high, shrill sound that made her cringe. “Do you think I’m stupid, Julie? I’ve been doing this for a very long time and I have killed so many people. I only got caught with my parents because I didn’t know better. I was a child. But I’m wiser now. I’m careful.” He paused. She saw his head cock to the side as if listening to something in the distance. “I’m smoke,” he decided, sounding in awe of his own awesomeness. “I cannot be caught.”

  “But you can’t fake your fingerprints,” she argued. “I saw you—”

  “You saw what I wanted you to see.” He raised his arms. She couldn’t see him very well, but she had a feeling he was holding out his palms to her. “I have been coating my hands with liquid latex ever since I got here. You will not find a single one of my fingerprints anywhere in this house.”

  She remembered his room, so immaculate. Everything carefully in its place. She thought how he never really left his room, unless it was to eat. Even when he watched TV, he let Shaun pick the shows.

  “The sheriff knows what you look like,” she tried again, hoping to stall for time. “He’s getting a sketch done of your face. As soon as he sees it, he’ll know—”

  “I’ll be long gone before then,” he replied coolly. “You’re the last thread, Julie. After I kill you, I disappear and become someone else. Do you see now?” he asked delicately when she said nothing. “I have been preparing for this week for a very long time. And even with the unexpected turn of events, mainly you, I am prepared. After I kill you, I will bury your body somewhere deep in the woods. No one will find you. Oh they will look of course, but, eventually, they will give up. They will bury you in an empty casket, throw in some dirt, cry, and then they will all move on and you will become a mere memory. Sweet, beautiful Julie, gone forever. She will be missed. I promise to send flowers.”

  “Where’s Mason?” Her voice quivered, revealing the numbing terror rooting her to the floor. “Did you kill him?”

  “Let’s put it this way,” he took a step forward, “if you scream, and I hope you do, no one will hear you.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  She didn’t scream. He gave her no chance to when he lunged. Julie spun on her heels and bolted through the kitchen with him in pursuit. The terrace window loomed ahead, urging her to push harder. Her heart pumped fast and hard in her chest, she’d almost reached the doors when she was grabbed from behind and shoved. Her feet slid out from under her and she slammed into the ground on her injured arm. Her chin bounced off the hardwood and the tang of blood pooled in her mouth. Her cry of pain was swallowed by a whimper when her hair was fisted and her neck was forced back.

  “Killing you,” Luis growled into the side of her face. “Won’t bring me much pleasure, but I will make do.”

  The steel curve of the knife, still slick with Shaun’s blood, bit into the soft tissues of her esophagus. A fine trickle of blood ran hot down into the hollow of her collarbone. It took all her willpower not to swallow. All her training, everything she had spent years learning in order to defend herself flew out the window, and, for the first time in her life, she felt powerless. She could do nothing but lie there with her eyes squeezed shut and wait for the sharp edge to tear open her flesh and for her blood to gush across the hardwood.

  She was saying her prayers when the room exploded. The deafening crash ripped the knife wielding hand away with only a thin nick marring her skin. Shards of glass rained over her, cutting her arms when they flew up to shield her face. Something heavy hit the floor and shattered. Thundering feet pummeled the hardwood. Then there was a hard punch of air above her and more thumps, followed by grunts and snarls.

  Julie rolled onto her back, ignoring the sharp slivers that burrowed into her palms and cut her clothes to get at her flesh. She scrambled upright and squinted at the two silhouettes writhing a mere few feet away.

  The crunch of bones and thwack of fist pounding on meat muffled her erratic breathing. Lightening flared across the sky behind her, illuminating the carpet of glass beneath her like a million spilled diamonds and the two fighting just a few feet away. Tendrils of ice blew through the gaping hole where the terrace doors had once been. It slammed into her back, blowing her hair into her face but. Even then, there was no mistaking the figure on top of Luis.

  “Mason?”

  He never glanced at her. His clothes were wet. His dark hair fell in damp fringes over his scratched and bleeding face as he wrestled Luis to the ground. There was a gash on his bottom lip and it was oozing fresh blood that was running down his chin. A clay flowerpot lay several feet from the pair, shattered with the soil spilling free. It was what Mason had used to break the glass.

  Paralyzed from nearly being killed, overwhelmed with joy at the sight of Mason, Julie couldn’t bring herself to move. She sat in stunned silence as Mason cocked back an arm and launched it with a thousand watts of fury straight into Luis’s jaw. Luis’s head snapped back with a sickening crunch that made Julie flinch. He went instantly limp and Mason let him slump to the ground. He got to his feet. His boots crunched on broken glass. He swayed, but remained upright as he pivoted on his heels and faced her.

  “Julie?”

  With a cry of his name, Julie launched herself at him. He staggered under her weight, nearly went down, but she was caught mid leap and violently jerked into his embrace. One hand closed in her hair while the other became an iron shackle around her middle.

  “Are you okay?” His voice was gruff and filled with anguish.

  She nodded from her place nestled in the hollow of his throat. “Are you?”

  His response was a jerky nod of his head. His arms tightened, becoming suffocating. Then, just as suddenly, he released her and thrust her out to arm’s length. She couldn’t see his face, but the heat of his eyes burned over her.

  “Are you sure?” he demanded.

  She nodded. “I’m okay. Are you hurt?”

  He exhaled. “No.”

  As relieved as she was, her hands continued an anxious path over his chest, his shoulders, his face, anywhere she could reach.

  “I thought he killed you,” she said, tears in her voice. “I thought ... he’s not Luis. He’s the killer.”

  “I know.” He wiped the rain and sweat and blood off his face with the back of his forearm. “I heard everything.”

  “It was all a lie,” she went on, her disbelief pouring out in a flood of words. “Everything. He’s been trying to gain your trust so he could kill you.”

  “I know,” he said again, softer ... sadder. “He played all of us.”

  Trembling uncontrollably, Julie clutched at herself, trying to hold herself together. “What do we do, Mason? We need to get the police.” She seemed to think of a better question. “What happened to you?”

  For a long moment, it was only the raging storm outside that responded to her question. It pitched and rolled, slamming into the house. Finally, he seemed to draw himself together enough to answer.

  “I heard him come into the kitchen. I turned, thinking it was you. He injected me with something. I felt a sharp sting in my neck and then everything went black. I woke up in the garage.”

  That explained why Shaun was so disorientated. Why Mason was so unsteady on his feet. Julie touched the back of her skull and winced at the fresh pain the contact brought forth.

  “Why didn’t he drug me?” she wondered aloud to herself. “I think I would have preferred it to getting my brains bashed in.”

  Mason turned his head a notch towards her. “He hit you?”

  Julie sighed. “It’s a long story. The point is that we need to tie him up and get Sheriff Reynolds. We need to get an ambulance. Shaun—”

  She felt him go rigid. “Where is Shaun?”

  She moistened her lips, tasting blood and rain. “Mason...”

  “Where is he?” he snapped.

 
Julie hesitated before answering, “I ... I don’t know. I think Luis killed him.” She told him quickly what happened, everything from the point where Mason disappeared and she found Shaun in the basement. “I’m so sorry, Mason,” she said in a rush when he turned his back.

  “We trusted him,” he mumbled at last. “We took him into our home and ... all this time...”

  Julie rested a hand on his arm. “It’s what he wanted,” she tried to explain. “He gets you to trust him and then he kills you. There is no way you could have known who he really was. Dr. Nixon was wrong. Luis doesn’t have multiple personality disorder. He finds someone no one will miss and becomes them. He takes over their lives, makes friends, and kills them. Then he vanishes.”

  “Who’s Luis Nelson?”

  Julie shrugged slightly. “A boy he met at the bar one night.”

  She heard his deep intake of air. Felt him hold it before expelling it in a growl.

  “Two fucking years.” He moved away, turning his back on Luis and Julie as he stalked to the hole where the window had once been. “I’ll watch him. There’s rope in the garage. Can you get it?”

  Relieved to have something to do, Julie didn’t argue as she left him alone in the kitchen with Luis and jogged to the front door. It was only when she touched the doorknob that she hesitated. Shaun was still out there, in the dirt, in the rain, dead. She considered calling Mason and asking him to help her move Shaun, but opted against it. Mason needed time alone and it was the only comfort she was capable of giving in that moment when she herself was barely holding it together.

  She opened the door slowly and peered at the steady sheet of raining that obscured the world beyond the porch. Shaun lay in a puddle five feet from the first steps. The water around him was dark and she didn’t know if that was from the shadows, or from his blood.

  Leaving the door open, she went to him. Her hand shook. She pressed two fingers to the pulse at his throat and held her own breath.

  The figure on the ground groaned. Julie screamed. She jerked back and stumbled onto her backside. Her heaving breaths broke through the darkness in white clouds that created a wall inches from her face.

  “Julie?” Mason appeared in the doorway.

  Julie scrambled onto her knees and reached for Shaun. “Shaun?” She cupped his face between her hands. “Shaun!” Silence. “Mason, help me!”

  Mason plunged into the rain.

  “He’s alive,” she panted. “Help me get him inside.”

  It was all Mason needed to hear. He bent down and threw Shaun’s arm around his shoulders and eased against his friend’s side. Julie did the same on Shaun’s other side and together, they hoisted the man, all seven feet and two hundred pounds of him.

  Julie’s arm throbbed. Her hip where she had fallen off the porch burned. Her knees almost buckled under the pain spiking through her, but she held tight to Shaun all the way up the front steps, across the porch, and over the threshold. She was drenched and wheezing by the time they made it to the sofa. Mason didn’t seem to care that Shaun was oozing blood, or that the sofa was white. He laid his friend down and stood over him, as breathless as Julie.

  “Towels,” she breathed, dropping down next to Shaun on the floor. “Lots of towels.”

  Mason nodded and left the room.

  Julie touched Shaun’s face. The skin was cold and clammy. She pressed her ear to his mouth, listening for the soft whisper of life. She held her own breath, waiting.

  It was there, faint, but enough to give her hope. Her gaze shot to the empty doorway, wondering where the hell Mason was.

  There was a crash in the next room and Julie shot to her feet.

  “Mason?” Leaving Shaun on the sofa, she hurried into the hall. “Mason?”

  In the kitchen doorway, she paused, trying to see through the near darkness. Some of the clouds had shifted and a small patch of pale, silvery light spilled into the room, illuminating the floor like a million spilled diamonds. There was a figure on the floor, which wouldn’t have struck her as odd, except it wasn’t in the place Luis had been when she’d left and the build was all wrong.

  “Mason?” She edged closer.

  A groan came from the figure. Glass tinkled as it rolled off its side onto its back.

  “Mason!”

  Her cry of panic tore through the room. Her feet pounded as she tore across the room and dropped to his side. She grabbed at him, turning him to her and running her hands over his body.

  “Run...” His voice was weak.

  Julie shook her head, her hands ripping at his clothes, searching for signs of injury. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  She found the wound. His shirt, already soaked with rain was now sticky with blood. The hot liquid gushed from his body in a way that couldn’t possibly be good. It was fast. Too fast.

  “No!” Her strangled cry came out in a sob. “No, no, no ... Mason!”

  He tried to grab at her, but the effort seemed to cost him. “Run!”

  Weeping openly now, Julie swung her head wildly from side to side in defiance and denial. “No!” She pressed on the wound with both hands. His blood ran through her fingers, hot and thick. “Hold on. Please hold on. Please.” She sniffled in between sobs. “Don’t you leave me. Don’t you dare, Mason!”

  “Love you,” he groaned.

  His chest shuddered and she cried harder. “No!”

  “Love you,” he said again, his voice fainter.

  Entire body rocking, Julie wailed. “No! Please, no!”

  His breathing slowed.

  “Mason? Mason!” She shook him violently, not caring about hurting him. “Mason, no! Don’t go to sleep. Don’t go to sleep! Mason!”

  His silence ripped the very earth in two. Everything rang like the aftershock of a bomb going off. She might have screamed, but that too was lost in the heart shredding agony swallowing her whole.

  She gathered him up into her arms and wailed her grief into his chest. There was only a vague recollection of glass crunching beneath careless feet, but she didn’t care. She clung to Mason’s still form as though letting go would destroy her.

  The sigh sounded almost sad. The skin along her spine prickled. She felt him behind her even before something lightly brushed her hair. Lifting her head slowly off Mason’s chest, she sat motionless as the rain slowed outside the window and the storm relinquished them from its brutal hold. Her breathing synced with the slow, even pants stirring the air. She heard the quiet drop of blood hitting the floor just over her shoulder. She would have missed it if she hadn’t been so ... aware. As it were, every plop sounded like a mini grenade going off.

  She closed her eyes, felt the air stir, heard the rustle of clothes as the blade lifted. She drew in a breath. Held it. Listened to her heart slow to a regular beat. One. Two. Three.

  She exhaled, opened her eyes, and lashed out.

  Luis never saw her leg swing out until her foot connected with his kneecap. The vicious snap rang with his scream as the knife cluttered from his hand and nearly impaled Julie as it struck the floor inches from where she knelt. Luis dropped to all fours with a howl.

  Julie sprung to her feet, twisted her body in a flawless roundhouse kick, and shattered his jaw. The crunch of bones resonated through her, filling her with a bloodthirsty satisfaction that only increased the roar in her ears. Luis flew sideways and crashed into the wall head first. She waited for him to get up, to come at her, but he remained slumped over. Her labored breathing was the only sound for miles. Even the wind and rain had fled.

  She snatched up the knife and pitched it aside, away from his prone body, before dropping back down beside Mason.

  Adrenaline gone, weariness set in, followed closely by hopelessness and defeat. There was nothing she could do. Her phone was gone. The electricity was turned off. Her car was ruined. She was in the middle of nowhere with no one to go to for help. Mason was bleeding out and Shaun was probably already dead on the sofa and she could do nothing. All of a sudden, she wanted to brea
k down all over again. She wanted to scream and cry and smash everything in sight.

  But she hurt. She ached all over. Her arm was on fire and more than ever, she was certain she had a concussion and it was pushing against her brain, urging her to black out.

  Help. Mason needed help. She couldn’t ... she needed to get up. She needed to get help...

  A blinding burst of light speared through the darkness and punched her straight in the face. Julie yelped and threw up her hands as the blinding sphere bobbed. Glass crunched under tentative feet. Figures moved on the other side of the light and Julie squinted.

  “Hello?” her voice cracked, coming out hoarse and weak.

  “Over here!” a male voice shouted back.

  The footsteps grew louder. More figures stepped through the patio opening, pouring into the kitchen. More lights. More voices. Julie’s eyes began to water.

  “Who’s there?” she demanded.

  “Ms. Brewer?”

  She tried to peer through her fingers at the familiar voice.

  “Lower your lights!” the voice boomed.

  The flashlights were aimed at the floor, the walls, the ceiling, and the bodies around her.

  “Help him,” she begged. “Please. Don’t let him die.”

  Then she fainted.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The world was an angry hornet’s nest when Julie pried her fused eyelids apart. It all came flooding in through the thin cracks like a broken dame, stinging her eyes, and sending tears trickling down her face.

  She grimaced as the taste of her own sour breath made her gag. She coughed and something scuffled nearby. A low beeping filled her ears a second later and then a hand was resting over hers.

  “Julie?”

  Woozy and disorientated, Julie opened her eyes to a shimmering, murky world. Distorted figures shifted across her line of vision and she had to blink several times to bring them into focus.

  “Mom?”

  Tessa Brewer smiled through a heavy downpour of tears. Her nose was a painful red that looked tender and her gray eyes were swollen. She had no makeup on and her short, choppy brown hair was flat on one side as though she’d slept on it.