I Am The Lion: A Riveting Psychological Thriller

by Rachelle Lauro

  Today, they were off to Manderley, Maxim's estate, where Amelia would discover some of his darker and conveniently undisclosed secrets.

  Falco, I discovered during a short vibrant dream sequence at the hospital, had white wings in his natural state, a fitting tribute to his name. I left the finer details for Brain to figure out, while I made the morning coffee.

  It seemed that Falco's wings weren't fully formed yet, the development of which would provide some interesting plot points. As the coffee began to percolate, I imagined Rhenn clashing with Falco in a battle of good versus evil. My black-clad hero Rhenn fought for good, and Falco, who would eventually sport great white wings, gravitated towards evil. I liked the opposing symbolism: black for the good guy, and white for the bad guy. I thought that was very clever.

  Pleased with the fruits of Brain's labor, I frothed some milk and dashed some chocolate powder over both mugs. Then I went up to Virginia's room and set the mugs down on her bedside table.

  I pushed aside her heavy curtains and opened the sash window, letting in a gust of fresh air that chased away the musty smell of the infirm. She groaned.

  "You're supposed to take the decorative pillows off while you sleep," I said, sitting down on the edge of her bed.

  She pulled down the bedspread and maneuvered herself up to sitting, propped up by a soft cloud of throw pillows. She looked as if she'd been electrocuted; her eyes were swollen, her chemically straightened hair had started to grow out, leaving tight curly roots that I sometimes joked looked like pubic hair. But I didn't tease her today. I picked up a coffee mug from her bedside table and handed it to her. "Here you go."

  "Thanks, Genie." She took a sip, leaned back and closed her eyes, her hands cupping the warm mug. "Thanks for everything . . ." she said. "I don't know what I would have done without you."

  I looked at her silver-blue sateen bedding that she'd ordered from an ultra-expensive store in New York City, much to my great annoyance. I wanted to say something along the lines of, "Well you wouldn’t be able to waste any more money," but all my sarcasm had withered. It was enough to know that she was still with me and getting better.

  She took my hand. "I'm serious, Genie. I'm so sorry for everything. For telling Dillon about—about that terrible name. For drinking. I don't know what happened. I just—I just, you know the thought of losing Amy Mathews made me want to . . ." She didn't finish her sentence, but I was well aware of what it made her want to do. My only worry was—would she do it again?

  "You started cutting again," I said, squeezing her hand. "You said you wouldn't do that anymore. You said you'd get help, remember?"

  "I'm trying," she said, chin puckering. "I really am."

  "I know," I said, wishing that she'd try a little harder. "Have you seen your arm?" I smiled a little. "You look like Amy Mathews' number one deranged fan."

  The corner of Virginia's mouth went up. "Who needs a stalker when they have me?"

  We laughed a little, but not much. The stalker-induced scars were still raw. She leaned over, put her coffee cup down, and winced when the zipper of her throw pillow raked across her fresh wound. She leaned back again, hand over forearm, and closed her eyes. "So are you still going to kill Amy?"

  I'd thought a lot about over the past week. Amy Mathews represented a part of me that had died when Mom died, a part of me that I had buried along with her. I felt as though I'd discovered everything I needed to know about being mostly dead. Writing about the undead was a perfect allegory for how I felt at the time, for who I was when I lost Mom. And it was true that I wanted to write about life now.

  But if rising up meant losing Virginia, then it wasn't worth it in the end. Falco would have to carry us through the next few books on his white wings of evil. Falco would have to rise up for us both.

  "Not yet," I said. "Rhenn just made a new friend."

  She didn't reply, but a palpable calm fell over the room. Without opening her eyes, she said softly, "Don't forget about lover boy. He needs a new friend too."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Don't forget about lover boy . . .

  Virginia's tired voice accompanied me for the following two days. Dillon stopped by, but didn’t stay long, thankfully. Soon thereafter, I picked up my phone and dialed Ben's number before sweating profusely and backing out all seven digits. I had to call him. I knew it. But I every time I got close to hitting the call button my innards turned to water and my heart started thumping so hard that my vision jumped.

  So I sat down on Wonder Couch, stomach fluttering, and death gripped my phone. This is it, I told myself, dialing in his number one last time. Just grow some balls. Grow some balls, grow some balls . . . I thought of said balls, bouncing along the lyrics of my life that ran like a ticker tape across my mind to the tune of Knick Knack Paddy Whack.

  Grow some balls. Grow some balls. And while I was tapping my finger, thinking of something that rhymed with "balls," somehow I pushed the call button.

  The screen changed to "calling now." I gaped at it. There were two options: push the red "eject" button or green to continue. Red—push red!

  Suddenly I heard a small voice through the receiver. "Domino’s Pizza. You make 'em, we bake 'em."

  "Oh." I put the phone to my ear and cleared my throat. "Sorry, I guess I dialed the wrong number." And I hung up. At first, amazement swept through me. I’d actually called! But then bewilderment set in—Domino’s Pizza?—followed by disappointment. Had I dialed the wrong number?

  I got up, walked back to my desk, and sat down.

  As I reached for the sticky so I could compare numbers, I bumped my computer mouse. The screen lit up. There, I found "Rebecca" staring back at me. I blinked a couple times. Strange. I knew for a verifiable fact that I never left the document open. One, I was a stickler for saving and closing. And two, I hadn’t worked on "Rebecca" for at least a week. Was Virginia checking up on me again?

  That same old shifting shadows feeling came over me again. The one where I felt like I couldn’t trust my own eyes, thanks to the stalker episode. It was the same uneasy feeling that got me started on pills in the first place. Maybe I’d opened it and forgotten . . .

  I was deliberately saving and closing the document—save. close.—when my phone rang. The same number that I had just dialed lit up the screen.

  "Hello?" I asked, confused.

  "Hey, I was just kidding," said the voice on the other end. "This is Ben. Who's this?"

  My breath caught. Ben. "Oh. Hi. Ben. It’s—it's Eugenia from . . ."

  "Hey hey!" he cried. "I was beginning to think you'd never call."

  I couldn't think of anything to say. I wasn't used to telephone conversations with people. I wasn't used to talking to people at all. But Benjamin, bless him, steered us toward friendly ground.

  "So what have you been up to?" he asked. "I haven't had a delivery to your house since I dropped off my number. Have you been cheating on me with USPS?" He laughed. I broke out in a cold sweat.

  "No! No, never. I guess my sister hasn't ordered anything lately. But don't worry, I'm sure she's working something up." Working something up? I mouthed, hand covering the phone.

  "Oh that's good. Good. So how have you been?"

  "Good."

  "Good . . . hey, don't talk my ear off okay?" He laughed again. "How's your book coming along?"

  Books. Now that was something I could talk about. "Really great, actually," I said, leaning back in my chair and propping my feet up on my desk. "I'm kind of busy expanding my horizons into the realm of urban fantasy."

  "Cool. Aren't vampires considered fantasy though?"

  I hadn't expected him to be so well versed in the nuances of genre. "No, not technically. Vampire stories usually fall under paranormal. You know, paranormal romances? That's when vampires or werewolves, kind of known and established monsters, have some romantic interludes. Fantasy is when you get to make up your own creatures. And urban—well, that just means the setting."

  "Oh right, kind of
like Dungeons and Dragons, with elves and warlocks and you get to make up the rules as you go."

  "Yeah, kind of like that."

  "And zombies? Where do they fit in?"

  "Well, they kind of don't. They're just . . . zombies." I tried to think of where zombie books might fit in the bookstore. "I guess they would fall under horror, but even that's not quite right because in horror the bad guy is a monster. Though zombies are kind of monsters . . ."

  "So they're misfits."

  "Yeah," I laughed. "I guess so."

  "That must be why I like them so much. Hey, did you hear about that new street drug? It's called spice and turns everyone who takes it into zombies."

  "Really?"

  "Yeah, really! I just read about it the other day. It's crazy."

  "That's kind of scary . . ."

  "Not as scary as my zombie costume. You oughta see it, seriously. I've been working on it for a good four years now."

  "Wow." Wow, indeed. I couldn't believe we'd been talking for so long.

  "I'm sure you have a good costume around there somewhere, don't you?"

  "Actually, I don't." I wouldn't have anywhere to wear it to. I didn't go out on Halloween. And after the stalker episode, we'd stopped welcoming strangers to our front door.

  "Well, you better get one. The zombie block party is this Friday. You're coming, right?"

  As in meet him there? As in get dressed in some ridiculous costume, drive over to a block party filled with loud drunkards, query all badly dressed zombies—Excuse me! Do you know Ben? Ben!—until I found him, standing in a circle with his friends, surprised that I'd managed to find him so soon.

  Not a chance.

  Then disappointment wormed its way into my heart. Friends. That's what he wanted. He wanted to be friends. How stupid I'd been to think that he actually wanted to take me out on a date. Totally stupid! Of course he didn’t want to ask me out on a date. Why would anyone—

  "I mean," he said, quietly. "Can I take you?" My heart thumped. "I'd really like that . . . to take you out.”

  "I'd like that too," I said, heart thoroughly lodged up my esophagus.

  Then he said the resounding words that would echo in my soul for all eternity, the first three words I had ever heard: "It's a date."

  "Okay," I managed.

  "I'll be there at seven, looking my very worst." He laughed a little.

  "Okay . . . me too . . . bye . . ." And slowly, I hung up the phone.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  I spent the week scouring the internet for a good zombie costume. I was both surprised and fascinated to find a vast community of DIY zombie enthusiasts. I'd initially expected to find a costume in a bag, like your standard vampire, fairy, or superhero variety. But my search quickly diverged into the multifaceted world of zombie subculture, including origin and subclass.

  When I discovered that zombies, like plants and animals, have their own kingdoms, I briefly toyed with the idea of including a rage zombie in the second installment of After The End, but decided that I didn't want the book to be a vomit fest of every possible monster. No, my imagination would have to work on the finer details of my costume, while Rhenn and Falco worked out their differences on the page.

  So I decided to be a zombie nurse from World War II, which would require some specialty clothing and yards of gauze. A mummy-nurse-zombie, why not? So I went to an online vintage clothing store and ordered a parcel of bulk clothing, hoping to find something that would fit the bill.

  Virginia, feeling better, went down to Party Supplies on Decatur Street and picked up some fake blood, flesh wound kits, fishnet tights, and some plastic medical props. I meant to talk to her about the open file I’d found on my computer, but decided against it. While it annoyed me that she had dug around in my files, "Rebecca" wasn’t exactly a state secret. Besides, I didn’t have the energy for another fight.

  I wasn't able to concentrate on writing for the rest of the week. I was too nervous about my looming date. I would be able to hide, in a way, under my gory costume, but under it all, there was just plain ole me, Pewgenia the Piss Drinker, going out on a date for the very first time.

  The week passed with sickening speed. On Thursday night, I sat at my desk, composing a "sorry I can't make it" text message. I'd intentionally left the "to" field blank, just in case I got a case of fat fingers and accidentally pushed the send button.

  My stomach churned and roiled. In less than twenty-four hours, I would be answering the doorbell, leaving the house with a boy, and going on a date with said boy.

  It helped that I would look like a car crash victim. It's not like anyone would recognize Pewgenia (they were all two thousand miles away on the West Coast anyway), but it was human nature that scared me. That doesn't change regardless of the zip code. It was the carnal instinct of bullies that worried me, their primal nature that scented fear.

  Girls were the worst. Correction: the masters. They were professionals at launching scathing attacks that absolutely nobody noticed except for the victim.

  Girls were like black widow spiders. I was wary of girls. Boys were easy going. They were simple. They were nice. And they were always something worth jealously guarding.

  I sighed and leaned back in my chair. Would there be any girls tomorrow with a crush on Benjamin? One that would slash me to pieces in front of Ben? Maybe I shouldn't go.

  Lost in my dark thoughts, I didn't hear Virginia come in.

  "Hey, what are you doing?" she asked, startling me from my dark reverie.

  I pulled in a long quavering breath. "Ohhhhh . . . just thinking about canceling tomorrow night."

  "What? Why?" She sat down on other side of my antique desk and propped her feet up on the edge. "Talk to me. The doctor is in."

  I smiled. It was an old line from our tumultuous California days. "I just . . . I don't know. I don't think I'm ready."

  "You're twenty-two, Genie. More than old enough to go on a date."

  "I know. I know. I mean, you're right. It's just that . . ."—tears pricked my eyes—"I’m really afraid he won't like me, you know? Nobody has ever liked me. Nobody except Amy Mathews’ fans, but they just like my stories and your face."

  "You did have that one friend with a stupid name, Missy something."

  "Misty," I said. "Misty Winters."

  "That's the one. I mean, that’s like naming your kid Sunny Sommers. Who would do that?"

  My office was dark. My desk lamp cast a cone of light over my laptop and splashed some light on the contours of her face.

  Virginia was only twenty-five, but life had brought out hard lines on her face. I could see the hint of a scowl line between her eyebrows. Life had galvanized her into a warrior, while it had shunted me into the shadows.

  "Just go out there and be yourself," she said.

  "Easy for you to say. Everyone always likes you, Jinny."

  "They don’t have a choice." And we both laughed.

  Virginia could be the funniest girl in the room or the most brutal. Nobody had ever dared bully her, and I admired that rough side of her character. The confident, independent side that didn't care what other people thought.

  "You have to stop making this into such a big thing, okay?" she said. "You have to compartmentalize. Just shove whatever’s bothering you into a nice little box, put a bow on it, and toss it aside, never to be thought of again. That's what I do."

  "That's your super power," I said. "Compartmentalization." I, on the other hand, was a brooder, turning things over and over again in my mind like a broken record player, trying to dissect where I'd gone wrong.

  "You just have to embrace your own super power," she said.

  I scoffed. "I don't have any super powers."

  "Yes, you do. You have a sixth sense. You can intuit things about other people that I miss entirely. You're smart about people, whereas I just go barging into a room like an elephant, not even noticing if I've knocked over a priceless vase with my big fat ass."

  "It's not that big
. . ." I teased.

  "You're sensitive, Genie," she continued. "Too sensitive. And you know, that's a big part of this phobia problem. You just have to train yourself to be a little less sensitive. Don't care so much about what people think. I mean, don't get all rough and tumble on me, we don't need two elephant asses in the room, but try to put a little padding around your heart, okay?"

  I thought about what we'd both look like if people could see into our hearts and our minds. Virginia's mind would be a dusty attic filled with thousands of discarded boxes, each of which contained a horrible memory, never to be thought of again. And my heart would be a giant pulsing ball, haphazardly wrapped in gauze.

  She smiled and got up from her chair. "C'mon, I want to show you all the great stuff I got at the costume store. I even got some padding for your heart."

  I rose, pushing away my phone. "Thanks, Jinny. You think of everything."

  And then we hugged. "I try, little sis. I try."

  In her arms, I thought about how nice she could be to me. How sweet. And how cold she’d turned that day in the hospital. That day that had changed everything between us. Unbidden, the question rose up to my lips. What had happened? And why wouldn’t she talk about it?

  I was afraid to ruin the closeness, but it seemed a little window of opportunity had opened up. A window that I didn’t want to close.

  "Jinny," I said, still clinging to her shoulders, afraid to ask, afraid not to ask. "Are you ever going to tell me what happened that day in the hospital?"

  She tensed under my arms. I braced for her arctic blast. But when she pulled back, her eyes were misty, soft with what seemed like nostalgia or maybe sadness. Then she pursed her lips. "You already know," she said, shaking her head a little.

  But I didn’t. I didn’t have the first clue. And by the time I opened my mouth to say something, she’d already turned to leave, conversation over.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Virginia must have bought up all the gauze in Glenhaven. We'd started on my costume four hours before Ben was due to arrive, which turned out to be barely enough time to transform me into a mummy-nurse-zombie. We were rushing towards the end, dabbing on a bit more fake blood here and there and adjusting my wrappings, when I heard the intercom ring.