There was a wet sound that Bella knew was Salem grinning with pride.
“Perfect. Excellent. Now, let’s retire inside, shall we? Go ahead.” He poked the cold muzzle of his gun between her eyes, causing her neck to snap backward. “It’s unlocked.”
Her heart dead in her chest, Bella turned and opened the door, and with the gun buried into the base of her skull, she walked into the dark entranceway. She realized, as Salem closed the door behind them, that she remembered the layout of this home like she’d lived there her entire life. Although she’d only walked through the house once, she’d seen it in dreams for years. Terrible dreams where Salem had dragged her back to the place she would’ve given anything to escape.
Bella strained to see. There was a single light shining at the end of the hallway. She knew it was the kitchen, not that she’d been there before, but the floorplan of the house was so deeply implanted in her brain she could’ve made her way there with her eyes closed.
They stepped into the room. The light was warm, a single bulb covered in a glass fixture so filled with the bodies of dead insects it looked like it was made from lace. It was barely enough to see by, but enough to light the piles of cans and gutted electronics that covered every available countertop. The wooden doors of the cupboards hung off at odd angles, and the linoleum beneath their feet was bloated and chipped.
“Have a seat.” Salem kicked a shipping box full of wires off one of the two chairs around the small kitchen table. “Make yourself comfortable. You’re not going anywhere.”
Bella lowered herself into the seat. It groaned beneath her, the torn upholstery belching out to mix with the rest of the garbage that littered the floor. She could see Salem properly now. He walked around the round table, the angles of his face demonic under the weak light. He was grinning—a hungry, wolfish smile that stretched his lean cheeks up and outward. She could see his pale gums glistening with saliva. She’d seen starving dogs less obvious.
How she hated him. She hated the sound of his feet plowing through the carpet of trash, the way his eyes scoured every inch of her, the soft exhale of his breath as he sat down. She’d like to squeeze every last gasp of air out of him. She’d like that very much.
“Well, well… this is much nicer than the other place, isn’t it? Homecomings are always sweet. This time we actually have time to talk. Nothing like a good catch-up conversation between old friends, hey? Sorry I have nothing to offer you.” He motioned to the crowded table in front of him. There were a few takeout bags growing mold beneath piles of boxes balanced precariously on top of each other. She needed a weapon. If she just had something to hold, anything at all, she’d at least be able to go out having defended herself. Even if only a little. “I thought of picking up snacks. A bottle of wine, maybe. But I’ve been so busy chasing you. You’re not the easiest girl in the world to get hold of.”
“I like it that way,” Bella said, still scanning the table for anything within reach.
“I’d say you do.” Salem was oblivious, still examining every detail of her face and body with his dark, unblinking eyes. “How many months did we spend together, and you leave without so much as a goodbye? Not even a wave as they drove you off in that cop car? I’d guess your mother didn’t teach you manners, but she didn’t get a real chance to, did she?” Salem made a shooting noise and jerked his gun.
“Go to hell.”
Salem laughed and nodded his head backward to a portion of the wall near the half-open fridge. Bella’s stomach clenched as she recognized the unmistakable splatter pattern of a kill shot. She followed it down to the stained floor that had long ago turned black. “That’s where they got Scott. When your knight in shining bullshit finally got his buddies to come in here and put an end to our games. You know, that was the worst part. Not the fact that you didn’t say goodbye, or even thanks for that matter, but that we didn’t get to finish the game. I hate unfinished things. They hang over your head. For years.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, creep.” Bella had spotted a rolling pin wedged under one of the boxes between them. She continued speaking, keeping her tone as jovial as his while she plotted how many seconds it would take her to grab it and whack the gun out of his good hand. Did she have reactions that fast? Was it worth the gamble? “That’s a long time to wait for a game to finish.”
“Right?” Still pointing the gun, he kicked his long legs up and onto the table, stretching them out lazily. Bella’s heart sank as she watched the rolling pin fall to the ground with the rest of the garbage he knocked off. “But it doesn’t seem that long, does it? That’s the thing with best friends. You can be apart forever, and it only feels like a few days. Or is that just me?”
Bella heard the rolling pin rumbling out of reach. He’d known she would make a grab for it. He had all of this planned out. She’d underestimated him. Hopelessness was replaced with anger, and her molars ground together.
“I hope you’re ready for a matching stain on your kitchen wall,” she said, alarmed at the force of the anger that made her voice shake. “They know I’m here, Ross. When they don’t hear from me, they’ll descend on this place and burn it to the ground.”
He was unfazed, still stretched out in his chair like a twisted, diseased cat. “I figured as much. That’s why I’ve been working on a little welcoming present. Hold on…” With some difficulty, he pulled his wounded arm from its sling. He winced as he took a cell phone and a remote from his pocket. The gun still trained on her forehead, he held up each object in turn. “The phone is so I can see your heroes coming. It gives me a little warning when the cameras pick them up. This, though…” He held up the roughly constructed electronic object with obvious pride. “I’m pretty proud of this one. Made it myself. You see, as soon as I get the warning, I wait for them to gather in the sweet spot, and then… boom!”
Bella felt her jaw unclench and drop. It wasn’t the Little Flower Academy he’d been building his explosives for—it was the Portland Police Department. She was leading them all to their deaths. “What about the threat?” she managed, feeling all her anger boil to the point of explosion. “The girls at the academy?”
“Oh my gosh, duckling. No. That was just a way to get you down here. I figured you’d probably have a soft spot for innocent little girls. Besides, I couldn’t care less about those little bitches. I have the only little girl for me right here, and that’s all that matters.”
Bella floundered. Of course Kyle would come. Brooks, too. They’d grab everyone she worked with and cared for, and roar up that driveway to save her, only to be killed before they even had the chance to realize what happened. And that was if they were lucky.
She was trapped again, stuck to the louse-eaten chair he’d put her in, no more able to defend herself than she had been years ago. “Fuck you.” That was all she could manage. She couldn’t let him see her cry. She hadn’t ever given him that pleasure before, not even when he was ripping her tiny body to pieces. She wasn’t going to do it now.
Salem laughed.
“No, Isabella, not yet. You see…” He swung his long legs off the table and tucked them beneath his chair. There was a squeaking and a rustling as he pulled himself closer to the table. “I never meant for any of this to happen. I never meant for my brothers to die, to kill any of those cops that day. I didn’t want to kill that little girl or that meathead who looked so much like your pretty-boy partner. Truth be told, I actually enjoyed shutting that reporter up, but that’s a different story. I did this—all of this—for you. It’s always been about you.”
“Spare me the crap,” Bella spat. “You loved every minute of the killing. Psychopaths like you always do.”
“I loved every minute of you, Isabella. Every moment I spent with you. I loved you then…” He paused, and for one horrifying moment, real emotion transformed his face. It was more terrifying than anything she’d seen, either in reality or in her torturous dreams. He looked soft. He looked human. “I loved you then, and I love you no
w.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
She hadn’t been his first. There had been plenty of little girls lucky enough to play with him over the years, but none of them had stayed with him for as long as she. She haunted him long after she’d left him, planting some insidious seed of restlessness in his body that put him in a constant state of longing. Nothing could satisfy him. No furtive glances or sneaky touches. No blurry image online. There was nothing he could do. She’d made him helpless. He couldn’t even look at other girls. She hung over his every private lust like an invisible vampire, the memory of her bronze limbs and stubborn little chin draining the beauty from anything else that might catch his eye. Little Isabella Cruz had made him impotent.
It was easy for him to remember his first, however. It was easy for him to remember every one of his ducklings, as a matter of fact. Unlike his dumbass brothers, Salem’s mind was a sharp, dangerous tool, and he went out of his way to keep it that way. The things Jim and Scott loved were all the things that numbed the mind, that robbed memory and sensation. As they grew up, he watched his brothers grow more stupid with every passing year while the glint of his golden child crown only grew brighter.
How his mother had loved him. He could still picture her, before she grew so large she had to be bedridden, waiting for him on the porch of their home. Her entire day was planned around him; she made his lunches for school in the morning, helped him dress, and then planned his meal for when he returned. Those yawning, lonely hours when he was away from the house were hell for her. He knew that by the way she craned her heavy neck to catch the first glimpse of him coming up the street and back to her arms. He was her world.
She never hit him the way she hit his brothers either. There was never a reason to her violence. It would come on suddenly, like a phone call in the middle of the night, jarring whomever she inflicted it upon with an equal mix of pain and shock. It was usually Scott. He made the most noise, cried the hardest. He gave her the misery she was hungry for. Salem had considered telling his brother this—that if he just stayed still like Jim did, she wouldn’t beat him as hard. But he didn’t. Truth be told, it thrilled him. He recognized the satisfaction in his mother’s eyes when she’d finally reduced her child to a whimpering, bloody lump in the corner. He recognized the beauty that radiated out of her when she chastised him for getting her house slippers covered in his own vomit. He recognized it because at twelve he’d already felt it himself, and the taste for it ran in the blood.
Their house in Detroit was in one of the city’s most forgotten neighborhoods. Situated on a large, overgrown lot, it was one of the larger homes on his street. After his father left, it’d started to fall into disrepair, and a few of the neighbors offered to help keep it up for the poor single mother and her three boys. The stream of filth she’d hurled at them then—her massive head wobbling like a barking bulldog and her tiny pink claws grabbing—had been impressive enough to earn their entire family complete solitude. No one delivered papers. No one invited them over for tea or to play. They all could’ve died in there and no one would’ve noticed.
Which was why the cellar under the house was the perfect place for Salem to start his games.
He buried his first duckling right away. She was the new girl in his sixth grade class and had a head of copper hair that was both fascinating and disgusting to him. He’d never seen a girl so pale; even her eyes were a watery shade that in some lights looked more silver than blue.
The cool dirt under the house looked even darker than usual as he scraped it in heaps over her body. It was winter, and the ground was frozen. It’d taken him longer than expected to carve out a hole big enough for her body. That was the most annoying part of the process. Killing her had happened in what seemed like seconds. A few squeezes and what had once been a live, sobbing, struggling person was gone. He was suddenly alone, crouched under the house that cocooned around him like one of his mother’s massive skirts. Now that he’d buried her, he’d have to dig the soil out from under his nails before dinner. And change. He knew what happened to little boys who came to the table in the state he was in. He’d seen it enough.
After the copper-headed girl, there were two more. It was harder for him to remember details about those other two, but he was certain one was wearing a cheap rhinestone bracelet. He had a clear image of it, glinting off her thin wrist where his mother was yanking her body from the ground.
She’d found his playmates. He didn’t think she’d ever have the ability to get off the couch and squeeze her way under the house, but somehow, she did.
“I saw… a rat.” His mother had turned to him, her face jiggly with the effort of breathing. She was hunched over the three even mounds he’d created, looking bigger and less human than he’d ever seen her. Despite the cold weather, sweat was dripping down over her pencilled eyebrows. She continued huffing, holding the girl’s bloated wrist in hers. Now that she was unearthing them, the smell made his eyes water. She dropped the hand and sat back on her haunches. She rolled on her heels, her obscene body unsteady in her position. Still regarding her son, she brushed the dirt off her hands. Her nails, piggy pink and glossy, were covered in the hard clay he’d buried his ducklings in. “Rat ran across the front yard, bold as brass. Rats only go where there’s food. I thought to myself, there’s got to be a dead cat or something in here. Crawled all the way down here to die, but… those ain’t dead cats, Salem.”
She’d shuffled toward him then, moving like a corpulent, floral-robed beetle across the stinking ground. “Everybody’s looking for these girls. You need to find yourself a better hiding spot than this.”
It was a beautiful thing to watch her protect him, keeping his filthy secret.
Salem had killed her soon after.
She’d made that decision for him. Every time she looked at him after she found the bodies, there had been something in her eyes that made him sick to his stomach. She’d given him more food than his brothers. She’d schlumped into his bathroom at night, breathless and sweating to scrub his back for him, cooing as the bubbles ran down his concave chest.
“You’re growing up and becoming a man,” she’d murmur between wheezing inhalations. “Man’s got needs. Some needs are better than others, mind. You just got to find a way to satisfy yours. You know, private-like.”
Her rings had caught the bubbles—the bubbles that dripped off the tarnished gold like he’d seen his brother’s blood do so many times before.
They’d left her body to rot in the living room. Her oversized cup and straw were still beside her, her television still blaring stories, her house slippers askew where her dead feet hung off the couch. Jim had put one of her embroidered tea towels over her face before they left, as if leaving her with her slit throat open like a second hungry mouth was just too disrespectful.
Salem hadn’t looked back, not once.
They traveled to five different states after that. Scott was big and scarred enough by their late mother’s abuse to pass for an adult at fifteen, and he became responsible for bringing in the money. They found abandoned houses in every state, robbing the bleeding hearts that stopped to give them rides and slicing a clean line through anyone that stood in their way. They’d called a cabin in Nebraska home once, as well as a shed in an Indian Reservation in Montana, and even an old lady’s apartment in North Dakota. Their stays were limited only by the amount of attention their activities garnered.
Salem quickly discovered that three was the magic number. Any more than that, and towns went into states of panic. People were like that when it came to murdered little girls. Touchy, touchy.
That day that Jim and Scott rolled up to the farmhouse with Isabella in the back—that was the day that changed his life. It wasn’t that she was particularly beautiful—he’d had girls that were far lovelier. It was something in her eyes that had trapped him. There was fear there, of course. When she registered pain, they widened in a way that made her face look miniscule. He’d seen hate in there, sadness, even the
approach of death, but not once had he seen tears. This little girl had a core he couldn’t touch. And he had tried. He’d tried so hard.
His biggest mistake was losing her.
As soon as that balding, suburban disappointment of a detective had walked up his front stairs, it’d been game over. If he’d only killed the man when he had a chance, he’d never be in the position he was. He’d never have had to suffer the twentysomething-year absence of the little duckling that had finally stolen the hard lump of his heart and allowed him to experience love.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Love?” Bella fought to keep control of herself. Disgust competed equally with rage, rushing through her arms and legs with a force that made her shake. She felt her hands curl involuntarily into fists. “You don’t know the first thing about love.”
Salem’s eyebrows raised. He was clearly enjoying her anger, and it only made it worse. He was still leaning forward, his head directly under the filthy lamp that decorated his face with ominous shadows. His old skin was stretched so tight over his bones that it looked like a Japanese paper lantern. All she needed to do was punch it, just once, and it looked like it would split beneath her knuckles.
“Why don’t you tell me what you know about love, Detective?”
“I know it doesn’t involve raping little girls.”
The grin spreading across Salem’s face was greasy, inching ominously like lava. “If that’s what you call what we did.”
Bella’s stomach dropped, churned, threatening to overshadow the rage that still paralyzed her. She was afraid that if she spoke, she would scream. The muzzle of the gun still stared her down. “We didn’t do anything. You did. I had no say in with what you did to me. None.”
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