Embarrassed at being caught staring, I look away, back to the rain cascading down and drowning out the world. My mind is a cesspool of emotions. I’m happy to see Logan here, relieved even to not have to go through all of this alone. Yet, the flip side of my psyche is terrified for his safety. I scramble to find a way to get him out of here quickly. “What are you doing here Logan? Better yet, how did you find me? Why aren’t you home sleeping like a normal person?”
“Geez, Aim, slow down. Which question should I answer first?” he asks folding his arms together across his chest.
“All of them,” I say mimicking his stance. Exasperated he throws his hands up, walks back and forth on the charred floorboards of my room muttering something about girls that I can’t understand.
“I couldn’t sleep after you left my house tonight. I wanted to go after you, but I didn’t know what to say. I have feelings for you, strong ones, but loving someone like you takes commitment and I didn’t want to go there until I was certain of my feelings. I was in my bedroom playing my guitar, wondering what I was going to say to you when I saw you next. Then I heard the sirens. I looked out my window and saw the flames in the sky above the tree line. I was worried so I snuck out and followed the chaos. Not surprisingly, it led me to Dejana’s house. I tried to find you amongst all the police officers and firefighters, but I couldn’t. That was when I saw Dejana with her parents sitting in the front yard. While her parents were distracted talking to some cops, I waved her over to ask her what happened. She told me about Leah being killed by some intruder. She said you had run off, but she didn’t know where. Somehow, I knew this is where you would come, so I grabbed my bike and peddled over here as fast as I could. I didn’t realize it would take this long, but here I am,” he finishes, a proud look on his face for figuring everything out.
Well, so much for abrupt. It seems no matter what I do I can’t get rid of Logan, even to save him from himself. The more I think about it, the more I realize I don’t want to get rid of him. I see him standing there with his rustled hair and lopsided grin; the melancholy that had gripped me earlier, fades away. I should feel guilty for allowing my grief to ebb, but I don’t. All I can feel is this overwhelming desire. This fierce need to feel what it is like to love before my chance is gone.
Slowly, I walk over to Logan, removing my gloves as I do. I see his face register shock at seeing my bare hands. He opens his mouth to say something, but no words come out. Never, not once since he has known me, has he seen my bare hands. Logan unwraps his arms from where they were crossed at his chest and lets them fall to his side. We’re so close now that I can feel the heat emanating from his body. In the face of an uncertain future, one that will no longer include him, fear is no longer an obstacle for me. I reach up to touch his face, my fingertips tingling with unkempt desire. I am seconds away from feeling his soft skin when the vertigo suddenly hits. There is no time to run; no time to even breathe a warning to Logan before I crash to the floor and the darkness of another memory envelops me.
* * * *
I sit alone in the corner of the same dark, torture room. My knife, never far from my side, is sharpened and ready to play. It is an extension of my arm, a part of me now. Without it, I am incomplete, lost, misguided, and enraged. It calms me to feel it within my grasps, to know of the power that it invokes. I have my flashlight beside me, but I make no move to grasp it. The truth is I prefer the dark, seek out any and every dark part of nature that hates the light. In the light, I have to pretend, I have to play the role of a person I have no wish to be. It’s the dark that allows me to see myself for what I really am: an extinguisher of light. There were many that came before me and still many more that will carry on long after I am dead. Until then, I take my craft seriously, each angel deserving of her end. Each girl has to be perfect or I would not be able to see the light as it leaves her eyes in death.
Above me, I hear the creaking of the door. I look up to see a sliver of light illuminate my dark room. I see my partner laughing with the chosen one; playing very well the role he was assigned. Per our usual scenario, the girl is blindfolded. He leads her down the steps, playing the game so well that the chosen one has no idea that she’s in any danger. I move silently to the center of the room, my feet light with anticipation. My partner twirls her around, promises a night she will never forget as he steps away and I take over. Both of us are happy, playful even, since to us this is the ultimate game. I hear him chuckle softly in the darkness, a knowing sound of a person that appreciates the purpose, the goal of the hunt.
The three of us stand cloaked in darkness, ready to go on to the next phase of our routine when suddenly an unusually bright light floods the room. Both of us turn to the light, our eyes hurting from the intensity of it. The door at the top of the stairs opens wide, swinging on its hinges. We realize with horror that someone else is here; an impossibility since no one else knows where the lair is located. The light doesn’t belong here; it is foreign to this place of darkness. Fury fills me. I point my knife up towards the light, motioning for my partner to take care of the problem. No one is allowed inside my sanctuary of darkness, no one.
My partner runs up the stairs and stops at the threshold, his entire posture a statue of surprise and confusion. He is motioning violently with his hands, talking to someone I can’t see. His stance mirrors my anger at the interruption to our ritual. The girl whimpers beside me. I turn to see her blind face register fear. She must hear the hushed voices arguing from afar. She’s beginning to understand that something is not right with the situation. I have no time to deal with two crises at once, so I punch her hard in the face and she goes down quickly and quietly to the hard floor.
I return my attention to the more pertinent crisis, relieved to see that my partner has calmed. I see him motion impatiently with his hands for the other person to go. Finally, my partner turns back towards me and nods in the universal signal that all is well. I nod back, happy to have averted such a serious interruption to our sacred game. His face is illuminated brightly in the light that’s still pouring in from the door. I see my conspirator as clearly as I would on a bright, sunny day. I motion for him to return and finish what we started. With a smile, he runs down, taking the steps two at a time. I know him better than anyone else in the world. Just like me, he plays a role; one that never shows what truly lies beneath. To me he’s nameless, just a comrade in arms. To the world, he is Logan.
Chapter Thirty-One
~ Betrayal ~
I awake with a start, gasping for breath as I struggle to dislodge myself from the memory. My mind screams at me while my heart hammers in my ears. I do my best to push away the image seared behind my eyes with hot irons, but it stubbornly remains. Even though my mind recognizes his face, one I know better than any other in the world, my heart will not allow it to be. I lie on the charred floor of my bedroom half in and out of consciousness as an intense battle between my heart and my mind begins. I justify what I saw with what I know about memories. One thing I do know is that memories can be wrong. People remember things wrong all the time.
Despite my best efforts to convince myself that I’m wrong, Logan’s face in the torture room refuses to leave my mind. The smirk I know so well is the same smirk I saw in the killer’s memory. My mind scrambles to find a reason for his being in the torture room with the killer, but I can’t. As much as I try to deny the truth, it sits there staring at me, mocking me with an intensity that burns my soul. The first and only person that I ever dared to let into my heart is helping a sadistic killer hunt me. That’s it, game over. Life is officially cruel. Willing the confusion and disorientation to leave, I sit up, cradling my head in my hands. I feel surprisingly numb despite the tears running down my face. I dropped the flashlight when the memory took over and it rolled across the room. The sliver of light illuminating the room is focused on me. I go to pick it up, but stop, remembering that I’m not alone.
I hear him before I see him, his heavy breathing clearly indicat
ing his stressed state. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Logan sitting next to what remains of my bedroom door. He’s close to me, but not moving. He’s staring wide eyed with his hand reaching out to me, frozen in midair. It’s as if he wanted to touch me during my trip to memory land, but decided against it. I know I should run as fast as I can and get far away from him, but I can’t leave yet. I have to know why.
“It was you,” I say my voice a mixture of disbelief and anger. “You brought the girls to him. Innocent, young girls that he tortured! You knew what he was capable of and you still helped him!” I scream getting angrier by the second. “So pursuing me, getting me to love you, was that just your job?” I ask, watching him for any kind of reaction. I don’t need proof. I saw it firsthand from the source. What I don’t know is if all the nice things he did for me were out of love or out of duty. I have to know if loving me was a lie.
He still sits there, motionless in the corner. Judging from the expression on his face, he’s as afraid of me as he is of the information I just found out. Witnessing my eyes clouding over during the memory must have freaked him out, but I simply can’t bring myself to care.
“When were you going to bring me to him Logan?” I ask, continuing to berate him with questions despite the frustrating lack of answers. “When were you going to hand me over to be tortured and killed?”
Frozen with shock, Logan remains huddled in the corner saying nothing. Anger finally breaks the dam protecting my hurt and grief, anger, and hatred pour out like a tsunami, flooding every fiber of my being with the dark emotions. Riding the wave of despair, I momentarily forget my fear, walk right up to him, and slap his face. Logan comes out of his stupor quickly after that. He grabs both of my arms, careful not to touch my hands and pulls me roughly to him. The intensity of his hazel eyes, normally something that makes my knees go weak, no longer affects me. All I feel is disgust. His grip on my arms is fierce, animalistic.
“I am only going to say this once Aimee, so listen up. Whatever just happened to you, it must have affected your mind. I have no idea what you are talking about. Never in my life have I hurt anyone, nor would I bring innocent girls to some psycho. What just happened to your eyes to make you think that? All I’ve ever done is love you and try to get you to love me back. I swear to you, I have no idea what you are talking about, I don’t know any killers.”
Still within his strong grasp, I stare at Logan, not knowing what I want to do. While I expected a denial, it doesn’t make this any easier. My emotions are kicking me in the gut. My indecision paralyzes me to the point that I stand here giving him the opportunity to sway me. I am disgusted with myself. Why am I not running away? I don’t know which scares me more: knowing that Logan is partially responsible for killing girls or knowing that deep inside, my heart is screaming that it don’t care.
“Aimee!” he starts as he begins to shake me softly to get through to me. “You have to believe me. I would never hurt you,” he pleads, begging me to trust him. Every fiber in my body wants to believe him, wants to go back to the moment before the memory enveloped me when we were about to kiss. But it’s too late now. When I look at his face, all I see is his sardonic smile as he runs down the steps, eager to join the kill.
“Let me go. Now,” I say, the anger threatening to take over is apparent in my words. His eyes grow wider with surprise, but he still doesn’t let go. I have no idea what he is thinking, but I’m absolutely sure that I don’t want to stay around and find out. Catching him off guard, I pick up my leg and kick out with all of my might, aiming straight for his stomach. As I had hoped, Logan is surprised and he releases his hold on me as he falls to the floor, doubled over in pain. I jump up and run across the room to retrieve the flashlight. The damaged floor creaks beneath my weight. Logan makes no move to follow; at least not yet. I grab the flashlight and run to the hole that was once my window. I pick up speed in preparation to jump through it. As I approach the hole, I put my arms out in front of me, bend my knees, and push off hard with my feet, reaching out towards the same tree that Logan once climbed to get into my room to see me after the bombing. The irony is not lost on me that I am now using that same manner to flee from said boy who claims to love me. I don’t dare to look behind me at Logan. I can only hope that my distraction gives me enough time to run away.
After a brief moment of weightlessness, my hand reaches bark. I curl my fingers around a small branch and use it to swing myself down to a thicker branch that I pray will hold my weight. Though I am not the most agile person in the world, I have been known to hold my own whenever we practiced gymnastics in P.E. With as much grace as a rookie Cirque de Soleil acrobat, I use my momentum to plant my feet on the large branch that extends out towards my window. Though my feet slip a bit on the rain-drenched branch, it does hold my weight pretty well. With my hands still tethered to the branch above, I look down and see that my current perch is located about 10 feet from the ground. Carefully, yet quickly, I begin climbing down the tree when I hear Logan calling my name from the window above me. I don’t dare look back at him, afraid that any lack of concentration right now will cause me to fall. The branches are soaked and it’s still misting. If that isn’t a recipe for a nasty fall to the ground with a side of multiple broken bones then I don’t know what is. Besides, my heart can’t bear to look at the face of a boy who enjoys killing innocent people, especially since I once loved every curvature of that perfect face.
The ache in my muscles keeps me focused, determined to make the guilty pay for all of the blood they so capriciously spilled. Best yet, the pain keeps the horrible ache of betrayal in my heart at bay. My arms shake from the strain of grabbing and holding tight to wet branches as I descend as quickly as possible. My palms are cut, but I don’t feel the pain. Finally, I’m within a few feet of the wet, sodden ground. I let go of the branch and jump, landing on my feet, but quickly slipping and falling onto my bony butt with a muddy splash. I dare to look up and immediately regret wasting the time. I see Logan is already half way down the tree, climbing quicker than I would have imagined. He’s in much better shape than I am and I don’t have much time before he catches up to me. I jump up from the ground and set out running full tilt towards the trees just a few short blocks from my house. I don’t particularly care for a brisk run in dark woods, but I know I can’t out run Logan, so my only hope is if I can lose him within the confines of the trees. I sprint through the streets of my neighborhood, running through as many backyards as I can to avoid the streetlights. I’m lucky that so many neighbors of mine don’t seem to have any use for fences.
I like to think that I’m in pretty good shape, but as the running continues, I see that I’m clearly not. I’m out of breath, there is a stitch in my right side, and I’m losing steam quickly. After what seems like hours, I finally round the last corner and see the front of my neighborhood where the path to the forest begins. I almost collapse with relief, so happy to finally see an end to all this running. I grab my side and fight through the pain, forcing myself to put one foot in front of the other. Adrenaline is all that’s keeping me going. I can see my last hope, my solace just across the road a few feet away. I smile, hopeful now.
My smile immediately fades when I hear footsteps coming up fast behind me. I dare a quick peek and see that Logan is hot on my heels, so close that I can see the steam coming out of his mouth from his labored breathing. I underestimated how fast a runner Logan is. Panic consumes me. If I can only make it to the trees! I look forward again and bear down, doing my best to give whatever I have left to make it to my darkness, my salvation. I fly past the large brick sign that displays the name of our neighborhood on it and almost run into someone who steps out from behind the sign just as I reach the end of it. I stumble back and fall onto the ground, a confused scream heavily laced with fear, escaping my mouth. I look behind me and see Logan stop as well, having reached me and the mystery person lurking beside the sign. I turn my attention back to the obscured figure in front of me. He looks so muc
h bigger and more ominous from the ground. I wish I could say that he’s my savior, but he isn’t. He is my end; the one I have been waiting for.
My fear of Logan, thrown to the back burner in light of the current turn of events, is temporarily sated as I face the killer I have worked so hard to find. The memories I hold in my mind sing, confirming the identity of the boy standing in front of me. I still can’t see his face; he’s standing just outside the halo of light emanating from the street lamp. I stare up at his disapproving figure and note that his arms are crossed and his feet are set shoulder length apart. It reminds me of a stance one would take when berating a naughty child. Silence fills the air as neither of us move, each wondering what the other is thinking. My side is killing me from running. Since my chance to make it to the trees is lost now anyway, I decide to accept my fate and end the stalemate.
“Nice of you to finally show up,” I say callously. “I was just about to give up on you. Luckily, Logan here had your back.”
The killer laughs deeply, though I don’t know if it’s out of humor or malice. Maybe he’s a little slow and didn’t get my sarcasm.
Perhaps I should remind him exactly what I think of him and his precious memories. “So are you here to take me on a date or are we just going to skip to the part that you like best, torturing and killing for the sheer pleasure of it?”
The Haunting of Secrets Page 14