I Am The Lion: A Riveting Psychological Thriller

by Rachelle Lauro

  My heart rate ratcheted up to DEFCON 2. "Are you quoting the bible?" I asked, very slowly.

  Virginia nodded her head, as if in a trance. "I should have listened. I should have—" She broke off and looked at the door, alert to any sound heralding Dillon's arrival. "I should get going," she said in a quiet voice. "I'm not allowed to stay."

  I glanced at the door, infected by her fear. Dillon could easily overpower us both. And if he arrived in a rage, he'd use Virginia's infraction as a reason to rain blows on us both. I looked again at Virginia's face, thinking that she probably couldn't take much more. Thankfully, the hallway was silent.

  "I should have listened to you," she continued. "You were always a better judge of character. It's like when your dog doesn't like someone, but you blame the dog for being jealous. You knew there was something wrong with Dillon, but I didn't listen. I didn't want to admit it."

  I ignored her unflattering metaphor. "What does he want with us?" I asked. "Why is he doing this?"

  She met my gaze. I had to look away. A little blood vessel had broken in her bad eye, filling the white of her eye with red. "He wants book two and three . . . and more."

  He wants it or you want it? I wanted to ask, but one glance at her condition told me the truth. Maybe they had both schemed for the continuation of the series, but nobody, not even Virginia, would put herself through this just to keep her day job.

  "He says he wants us to help us keep the dream alive. He wants us to—to reach our full potential."

  "Our full potential?" I asked incredulously.

  Virginia nodded.

  "He’s insane," I muttered, thinking back to his video remakes. "Totally fucking crazy. Well, I’m not lifting one measly fucking finger for him. You tell him—"

  "He wants me to tell you that—that he wants a page a day or . . ."—she clenched her jaw—"or I'll pay for it."

  "Oh my God," I whispered, reaching for my sister’s cold hands. I squeezed, trying to bolster our collective morale. I didn't know if I could produce a page a day under duress. Brain didn't typically do well with deadlines, let alone threats to our existence. I thought about Rhenn, Falco, Madeline, Amelia and Maxim—all lying dormant somewhere out of reach. Perhaps fatally dormant. I wasn’t sure.

  Virginia looked at the tray. "I brought some paper . . . and a pen."

  Suddenly, a ray of hope opened up. Dillon just wanted one page. All I had to do was regurgitate something like a nursery rhyme. Dillon could peruse my daily offering, none the wiser, and leave my sister alone.

  But then Virginia spoke, shattering my clever plan. "A publishable page. He wants book two in the couple of months that you promised. I'm supposed to deliver it to David."

  "What?!" I dropped her hands and backed away, all the way back to the dingy mattress, and sat down. "That's not possible! I was just—that was bullshit to get him out of the house!"

  "Keep your voice down!" he said suddenly and crossed the room towards me. She sat down on the springy mattress next to me. Nervously, she reached for my hands, like Mom used to do when she was scared. She dropped her voice into a whisper so soft I had to lean in to hear. "We need to work together. We need to come up with a plan."

  I nodded slowly, numbly. Of course we did. But what kind of plan? Mine had just been decapitated. Then it came to me. "You need to push the panic button." I mouthed the words, paranoid that Dillon had somehow developed superhuman hearing. "Can you get to it?"

  She shook her head. "He installed metal boxes over all the intercoms. I'd need tools and time. He'd hear me." Another swift arrow pierced our hopes.

  "Can you make any calls? Where's your cell phone?"

  "Same place as yours."

  In Dillon’s pants pocket.

  "I’ll break the window and start screaming."

  "Nobody will hear you," she said. "Except Dillon . . ."

  We both fell silent.

  "I’m not allowed out of his sight," she said. "He’s doing all the ‘interneting.’ I don’t have access to anything."

  "You need to run, Virginia. You need to escape, climb over the wall, do whatever you can, but you need to run and tell someone. Tell them . . ."

  She didn't need to shake her head this time. The sad, forlorn look in her eyes told me everything I needed to know.

  "He said he'll kill you if I run."

  "Oh," I said, the breath punched out of me.

  Cold fear washed over me. There was a short period in my writing life that I had toyed with the idea of writing murder mysteries. I liked the idea of coming up with puzzles and ways to outwit my smarty-pants readers.

  So I started some preliminary research on how to actually disappear a body. I looked to nonfiction for inspiration, true stories of how real murderers actually did it.

  In addition to reading The Ice Man, I’d read books about other mafia contract killers, like The Butcher and Murder Machine. Then I’d read about the minds of serial killers and watched some interviews. That was an even more depressing topic than vampires. At least vampires valued life, however grotesque, at least they weren’t psychopaths, well, not my vampires. Anyway, I gave up on that idea.

  But all of my accumulated knowledge rose to the forefront of my mind as I sat next to Virginia, looking at her swollen lip and bloodshot eye. I knew there were many disturbing ways to kill people and hide their bodies. If Dillon wanted to kill me, the chances were pretty damn good he'd get away with it.

  "Maybe you shouldn't run," I concluded.

  We fell into morose silence. I didn't think I could write to save my own life, but maybe I could write to save hers.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  After Virginia left, I sat on the edge of the bed for what felt like hours, trying not to panic, but panicking anyway, desperately wishing I could put my arms around Ben's waist and cry. But I couldn't do that. I couldn't even contact him. I wondered in a dull state of alarm, how many messages he had sent me, and how many Dillon had cruelly replied to.

  Incredibly, Dillon was in charge of my relationship now. I’m sure he would take great pleasure in eviscerating Ben with a breakup. Maybe he’d toy with him and make him think I cheated—as if.

  Then Virginia’s words, never far, came back to me. For anger slays the foolish, and jealousy kills the simple.

  Had she actually quoted the bible? And where would she have gotten one anyway? Maybe she’d read that a line from a self-help book. That was more her style. But anger and jealousy and the foolish . . . those were all the teachings of moral codes that could only be found in the Word of God.

  Was she jealous about something? Or someone? Had she possibly meant me? I actually scoffed. What did I have to be jealous about? Amy Mathews’ success was all hers. I just did all the lonely grunt work. She couldn’t possibly be jealous about my relationship with Ben. He wasn’t her type, clearly.

  Was she jealous that I’d been able to toss out all my pills? That would hardly drive someone to seek solace in the bible. Would it?

  I watched the light in my room fade, thinking. Then I shook my head. I didn’t know. Maybe it was just some crazy ramblings. I’d probably think of some real gems too, if I had to spend my every waking hour with Dillon.

  As the shadows started to darken, my thoughts turned back to Ben. I could only hope that Dillon would at least have the decency to string him along. Anybody with four working brain cells would know that a breakup is hard work. There would be questions and demands for answers, but hope could be found in evasive words.

  Ben would inevitably show up at my doorstep and demand an explanation. That is the expectation of love. First comes the initial entwining of two hearts, followed by the slow and painful separation. Dillon was certainly a dangerous dickhead, but he was not stupid. Surely he understood some matters of the heart, right?

  I sighed. None of that changed the fact that I needed to start writing. Our very survival depended on it.

  Night shadows settled in my little garret room. The house was dead silent. Brain had pr
obably deserted me along with all my characters, but if either Virginia or I were going to survive this catastrophe, I had to try and find everybody. I had to coax them back to life.

  I flicked on a cheap table lamp that I had dumped up here many moons ago. The energy-saving light bulb annoyed me. It gave off a bluish hue of artificial light that seemed to cover the room in a faint sheen of plastic. I picked up the pen and pulled a deep, bolstering breath. This wasn't going to be easy. But it was my only choice.

  I discovered that Brain wasn't a grumpy gnome that lived in my head, showing up for work whenever he felt like it. Brain turned out to be more like an on demand faucet. I just needed to prime the pump, and out poured some ideas. So I wrote, trying to put some sentences together.

  Together, Brain and I sent out urgent missives to all my long dormant friends. Amelia, my soft-spoken girl, responded almost immediately. She had a lot to share. While she sat next to Maxim on his sailboat, she filled me in about her latest happenings. She’d romped with Maxim more times than she could count. She thought that she might be pregnant.

  "If it happens, I won’t fear it," she told me, while the wind jostled her hair. Then she leaned in close. "But you know, there is something that’s kind of . . . strange. I’ve been meaning to tell you. I walked up to the village the other day, ‘High Street’ they call it—isn’t that cute? Anyway, I went down to a local shop to buy some nice new sheets and I ended up meeting the shop owner.

  "She was saying stuff about Maxim’s . . . ex-wife? I didn’t even know he had one. Well, she’s gone, apparently. Dead. Maxim forgot to mention that part." She glanced furtively over at her lover, who stood at the helm, gazing up at the sails. She scooted closer to me. "Maxim’s been acting really strange since I asked him about it."

  Amelia was on track to make a very gruesome discovery, but I had other plans. She had absolutely nothing to do with vampires, but she was the only one talking, so I laterally transferred her over to Rhenn and Friends post haste.

  As I wrote, I felt bad for hijacking her and taking her away from her warm nights spent in Maxim's arms, but this was an urgent matter. She'd understand, hopefully. So I plopped her right in the middle of Falco and Rhenn's rivalry, and hoped she’d keep on yammering.

  She didn’t let me down. Amelia kept my hand moving. She alone produced my daily word count. She carried my mind far away from the occasional thumps and screaming matches that rose up from downstairs.

  Every morning, like a golden goose pooping out another page, I slipped a folded piece of paper under the door with the previous days offering.

  Virginia came once a day with a tray of food, while Dillon stood in the threshold, watching. Virginia’s eye was healing, but Dillon’s permanent presence was starting to take a toll on her demeanor. She’d been a fighter all her life, wresting from life what it wouldn't freely give, always ready to scuffle.

  But as the weeks passed, she became meek and cowering, an inferior person that looked to Dillon for direction. One day, she apologized for bumping the tray upon docking and sloshing juice over the rim of a tall glass.

  Virginia never apologized. She bullied and pushed her way through life, with rough words ready on her tongue. She was a vibrant person, either loved or loathed, but never apologetic.

  Under Dillon’s tutelage, she was becoming vague, like a cartoon slowly getting erased. I suspected he’d been giving her my Demerol—it was easy and free, perfect for Dillon—but I couldn’t ask, not while he stood in earshot. So I could only hope and pray that I was wrong.

  But she was like the disappearing girl, cowed and frightened. She was becoming "feminine," Dillon had told her one day as she walked docilely out of the Dungeon. And there was nothing I could do besides scribble out my daily page of poop and wait for our opportunity to escape.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  I kept track of my carbon copy days using the traditional method that of millions of prisoners have used since time immortal: I scratched lines on my wall. The only variety in my day came from the ongoing adventures of my characters.

  Falco returned. His wings had grown a good two feet since our last meeting. He hadn't lain dormant like I'd feared. In fact, his quick progression left me running to catch up with him, working in bits of backstory to get the reader to where Amelia found him: lying in a filthy heap, wings battered and bruised, in an inner-city gutter.

  Amelia had some medical know-how that I wasn’t aware of. She cleaned up his wounds, and splintered a wing, all the while telling me about her stint as a nurse trainee in college and how she decided against medical school after a fluid-filled twenty-four-hour shift. Things I never knew.

  And in fact, after all the arguments about me finishing the series, I was starting to enjoy myself. I think maybe if I had some real life distractions, like Ben, perhaps I would still insist on pursuing my writing career as a soloist. But now that my circumstances had changed, I clung to my characters, desperate for them to get me out of this rapidly deteriorating hellhole.

  Ben. I thought about him almost every minute of the day. I wondered what Dillon had texted him. I wondered if he'd forgotten about me.

  The days were cold. Winter deepened. And still, nothing changed. I began to wonder if I would ever see my own release. But how?

  This had gotten too out of hand for Dillon to just simply walk away. Surely even he could see his worsening predicament. If he left, the only way to guarantee his freedom would be through threat of blackmail.

  Threats or not, he still faced charges of felony kidnap and assault and battery. Maybe he could somehow intimidate Virginia into not talking, but not me. I would go straight to the police, and press charges in every city and every state of this great land.

  In the meantime, I had lives to save with my written word. I had work to do on this small, uninspiring desk with peeling varnish and water stains.

  Dillon had kindly provided me with a folding chair that made my back hurt and my bum numb. I could only work for about an hour before I had to get up and unfreeze my back with a series of awkward stretches and grimaces. I missed my office. I missed my old comfortable coffin of a life. I missed Ben.

  I finished a scene whereby Rhenn tried to sink he teeth into Falco's right wing and missed. Falco flew away, vowing revenge. I stood, stretched, and rubbed my hands up and down my arms for warmth. At intervals like this, I would normally walk to the kitchen and make myself a cup of tea. But I'd lost that pleasure long ago.

  I was thinking about Wonder Couch and cozy hearth fires, when the I heard the faint buzz of the intercom. I froze. There were heavy footfalls down the hallway, followed by silence.

  I dashed to the little window and looked out. There sat Ben's blue mustang, idling just outside the gate. He was leaning out of the car window, bent arm resting on the door frame, talking into the intercom. I banged on the postage stamp window frantically and waved my arms.

  He wouldn't be able to see me. That great oak that I had heartily preserved directly blocked his view. I could only hope that his keen sense of perception might detect me. Screw hope. I’ll make him hear me. I was hurrying my chair over to the window to break the pane, when I heard quick footsteps up the stairs.

  I stopped, listening. The locks rattled outside of the door; I watched the doorknob twist, hope billowing in my heart. Someone was coming. Virginia. She’d found a way to get us out of here. And then the door slammed open.

  Dillon. He stood there in a murderous rage. He strode across the room in three steps, grabbed my arm and shook me violently.

  "That piece of shit boyfriend of yours is here. You're gonna tell him it's over. You're going to dump him and tell him you never want to see him again."

  And before I could reply, he jerked me across the room and pushed me down the stairs.

  I hadn't seen my own house for exactly twenty-seven days. I recognized all the features—the crown molding that ran along the hallways, the wool carpeting, the pale blue tones of wall paint—but everything was unfamiliar.
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  As we moved through the house, with Dillon’s iron grip on my arm, I noticed that the furniture had been rearranged. All of our careful decorating had been obliterated with chaos. There were trails of stains that ran along our expensive area rugs. Old newspapers covered our beautiful pieces of furniture with trash strewn everywhere.

  A distinct malodor hung in the house, taking me back to the days when we first toured the property, back when the previous owner's corpse had recently been cleared out of a bedroom.

  We passed my office, but the door was mercifully closed. I couldn't bear to think of the sacrilege. Then we entered the kitchen area. Dirty dishes filled the sink. A puddle of milk lay coagulating on the counter. I looked away, disgusted.

  Then I found Virginia tied to a chair, both arms strapped down to the arm rests. The sleeve on her right arm had been rolled up, exposing the soft white crook of her arm, marred with tracks. So that’s how he brought out her femininity.

  Dillon propelled me across the dining room, toward the intercom box by the front door. Upon our five thousand dollar Hermes dining table, I glimpsed a film of white powder, hypodermic needles, spoons with folded-over handles, and my stolen pills. Demerol, I thought, my heart sinking down to my feet.

  And Virginia was hooked on it.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Dillon smelled bad. He reeked of stale cigarette smoke and the pungent smell of someone who hadn't bathed in recent history. I tried not to look away when he bent slightly and put his face in mine, breath washing over me like a noxious tidal wave.

  "I'm going to push the button. You're going to talk. And if you say anything like, Help me! Help me!"—he threw his hands in the air like a damsel in distress—"your sister is going to accidentally overdose. Fatally. Won't you, Virginia?"

  We both looked at my sister. Tears filled her eyes. She nodded her head slightly, as if to encourage me to do the right thing: coldly dump Ben over the intercom like an unwanted piece of trash and save her from her "accidental" overdose. My heart shattered into a million pieces.