by Zara Zenia
Frozen to the spot, I remained still. My eyes met Anya's and she looked up at me with pure hatred in her eyes.
"She didn't do anything wrong," I said. "You can let her go."
The agent laughed and yanked at her hair until she began to scream in pain.
"Don't tell me what to do," he said. "If she's in my grasp, she's mine."
He slapped her across the face and the sound of his palm making contact with her face echoed off the walls.
"Bastard!" I yelled.
"Careful now."
He pressed his gun into her temple.
"Don't tempt me. I'll kill her in a heartbeat. It's not like she's my girlfriend now, is she?"
Thinking fast, I knew I had to push his buttons, find his weak spot and gain access to his memories.
"No, she's not your girlfriend, but you have one back home, don't you? Or a wife?"
He frowned and wrinkled up his brow.
"No girlfriend, no wife," he said. "So, you can't try your mind games on me."
His trigger finger moved slightly and with one last chance to save her, I said:
"But you do have a daughter?"
Something flickered across his face and his grip on the gun loosened.
"A daughter about her age?" I asked.
He looked down to Anya as though he was seeing her for the first time and I took my chance. Lunging at him, I grappled for the gun and turned it toward him, blowing his head apart as I wasted no time in pulling the trigger.
Chapter 12
Anya
My hands wouldn't stop shaking. Even as I pressed them against the cold concrete of the walls, my fingers trembled. Eventually, I held them over my face as the tears fell. His hand landed gently on my shoulder but I didn't dare to look at him. Instead, I pulled away and began walking toward the stairs.
"Hey, where are you going?" he asked as he caught up with me.
"Away from you," I replied.
Taking the stairs two at a time, I hurried away, but he was quick on my heels and before long he was tugging at the back of my dress and pulling me into an embrace.
"Stop it!" I screamed. "Get away from me."
He looked shocked and took a step back.
"What's wrong?" he asked.
I glared at him, then looked down at the body on the floor. Blood was seeping out of his head and running in our direction.
"Are you serious?" I asked. "You don't know what's wrong?"
He looked down at his shoes for a moment before running his hand through his hair. Meanwhile, I couldn't take my eyes off the body. That was a man, a person with feelings and hadn't he said he had a daughter? That girl as now an orphan and it was all Dray's fault.
"You killed him," I said.
"I had to," he tried to explain. "Otherwise, he would have shot you."
Again, I covered my eyes with my hands unable to look at the murderer in front of me that only a few hours ago I was so convinced I loved.
"You had him subdued," I said. "You didn't have to kill him. You had his gun remember? What would he have done without it? You could have left it there. Let him go to return to wherever it was he came from."
"It's not that simple," he said as his eyes fell.
For a moment, I thought I saw the slight glimmer of remorse in his eyes, but it faded quickly and he was once again gesticulating wildly toward the corpse a few feet away from us.
"That man is evil! To you he was just a man in a suit, to me he was death incarnate. You have no idea what he would have done to you if he had a chance. Besides, I had to kill the trail, see that-"
"Kill the trail?" I asked.
He said nothing and for the longest time, our eyes focused on the blood running the length of the floor below us. It glinted green in the flashing light from above as it thickened and coagulated on the cold floor. Someone was going to stumble across this in a few hours and their lives would never be the same again. It would be the early morning cleaner no doubt, a woman who had worked at the facility as long as I had. She was sweet and old, worked to support her two grandsons who she cared for like her own. Despite knowing her all this time, I realized that I didn't know her name, but I could recognize her blue hair ribbon from the other side of the parking lot as she packed her cleaning kit into the back of her rusting Hyundai. The thought of her stepping into this mess made my heart ache.
"You don't know what you've done, do you?" I asked, then a thought struck me. "Wait, you've done this before, haven't you? You've killed before!"
Again, he said nothing.
"Are you some fucking psycho serial killer?" I screamed.
I was barely hanging onto my sanity and every minute with him terrified me.
"Are you going to kill me too?"
"No!" he assured me as he stepped forward to grab my arms. "I could never hurt you."
"I don't believe you," I coldly replied. "Tell me, how many people have you killed?"
He looked up to the ceiling as though he was trying to remember a complicated math equation.
"You don't know, do you!" I cried. "Jesus Christ! Who are you? Some lunatic?"
His eyes met mine and he said.
"Please don't be afraid. I've never killed a woman before."
All I could do was stare at him in absolute horror as I tried to understand how that was meant to comfort me.
"You've never killed a woman before, but how many men?"
His eyes darted from left to right.
"Tell me! I need to know. How many men?"
He cast his eyes down toward my shoes before saying:
"I don't know."
My heart hammered in my chest and it felt as though the breath was being knocked out of me.
"I need to get away," I said as I turned on my heel. "Get the hell away from me."
Leaping up the stairs, I ran as fast as I could and burst out the front entrance where the sunrise was rising through the sky.
Suddenly, it felt as though I couldn’t breathe as the clean desert air reached my lungs. Then I clutched hold of my breast and felt the rise and fall of my chest as I tried to calm down. The smell of death still lingered around me. The stench of blood twitched at my nostrils and all I could see was the deadness in the man's eyes as he lay in a pool of his own blood, fragments of his skull peppering the ground behind him. For as long as I lived, I would never forget the noise the bullet made as it penetrated and cracked his head.
As my hands shook and my legs gave way beneath me, I cried and let my body crumple to the ground. My tears fell into the sand before drying quickly in the ever-growing heat of the morning sun. Somewhere in the distance, a car sped down the highway and somewhere behind me, a bird chirped. It wouldn't be long until people started to arrive for the morning shift and how long would it take until they found the bodies?
Behind me, footsteps crunched on the gravel. I could smell him already; the animalistic scent of his leather jacket and the unfamiliar, mysterious musk that I had once found so alluring. Now it sickened me and just knowing he was behind me, made my stomach churn and my whole body shake. I fell forward, retching up what little substance was in my stomach.
"Hey, are you okay?"
He crouched down beside me and rubbed my back as I vomited up long strands of whitish, yellow bile.
"Get the fuck away from me!"
I pushed him away and he looked hurt for a second before standing up.
"Won't be long until the cops get here I suppose," he said as he rubbed his tired eyes.
"And then what?" I asked. "They'll know I was here with you. The guard you knocked out will wake up and remember me. He took my employee pass, remember?"
This revelation seemed to do nothing to impress upon him the severity of the moment. He simply shrugged and looked up to the blue sky.
"It's a beautiful morning, isn't it?" he asked.
"Small talk at a time like this? Really?" I said aghast.
He raised a hand to shield his eyes from the burning sunlight and sa
id:
"Sorry. It's just that we don't get mornings like this where I come from."
"And where is that?"
I stood up and brushed the sand from my dress.
"Who are you and where do you really come from?"
He lowered his hand and gave me a sorrowful look.
"I barely remember anymore," he said. "Besides, you wouldn't understand."
Who the hell was he? I found myself starting at a human enigma. Nothing about him seemed real at all, but at the same time, he was the most frightening man I'd ever met.
"I know nothing about you," I said.
"You know everything you have to," he replied.
It infuriated me and I kicked the ground sending broken stones and dust over his legs.
"Everything you say is bullshit! Everything is a lie! Are you even called Dray? Do you even work for the military?"
He pursed his lips and looked at his fingernails, that I now saw were encrusted with blood. After I left the building, he must have returned to the body, but why and for what? Was it for his own amusement? Was he taking a trophy to remember him by?
"Answer me?" I said as I pushed him in the chest.
He looked up, surprised as though he wasn't sure what was causing my outburst.
"You're a psychopath," I said. "Nothing seems to matter to you, does it? You just drift through life breaking hearts and killing people."
Marching away from him, I walked through the parking lot and out onto the open road. I didn't know where I wanted to be or where I was going, but I just knew that I needed to be away from him. My body was filled with nervous pent up energy and I needed to rid myself of it, needed to tire myself out. I walked along the highway in my pretty, pink dress that I had adored so much when I slid it on last night. I remembered looking in the mirror and loving the way it slinked over my curves while somehow making me look demure and feminine. It had cost a lot too, but Susan had insisted I buy it. After all, how often was it that I went on a date. Now, as I looked down to the rose-colored silk with the cherise lacing, it felt and looked dirty. Sand clung to the edges and rubbed against my thighs while the high collar that I had once thought was cute, now felt as though it was strangling me.
I pulled at it roughly and felt it tear along the back of my neck. It stung too, with the lace burning my skin as I pulled it free, but for a moment, the stinging sensation and the feeling of blood dripping down my shoulder blades freed me from the torment of the memories.
As I trudged along in the sun with my feet aching and mouth becoming dehydrated, I couldn't shake the thought of seeing that man back there, alone in the darkness with his blood surrounding him. Obviously, he wasn't an angel either. He'd hit me and held me, hostage, he'd slapped me across the face and laughed when I cried in fear, but somehow, I didn't feel as though he deserved the fate Dray had dealt him.
Reaching a crossroads, I felt the burning that was emanating up through my feet and stopped to remove my shoes. Blisters were forming along the edge of my pinky toes and they hurt, the more I noticed them.
"Ah, shit."
With my heels dangling from my hands, I continued walking barefoot with each small rock and piece of dirt digging into the soles of my feet. Meanwhile, the sun was rising higher in the sky, giving me an intense headache as I felt my sensitive skin fall victim to the heat. I shouldn't have left the facility, I thought. I should have stayed where it was cool, where I would be safe. But he was there... And I'd rather walk into oblivion knowing I could die in the desert, than be anywhere near him.
It was then that I heard something behind me. Turning around, I saw the heat haze being penetrated by the black bonnet of a familiar car. It was him.
Without thinking, I began to run. Although I knew it would take me nowhere and he'd catch up with me in a second, I still ran. As the car approached, I took a swift right into the desert hoping to get as far away from the road as possible. He braked hard, the tires screeching and burning along the tarmac, then I heard the sound of the engine being cut off, the slam of the driver's door.
The baking sand burned my feet and at last, I succumbed to the pain and exhaustion. Collapsing to my knees, I cried out as the jagged rocks scratched my legs.
"Hey, what are you doing out here?" Dray said.
"Just... get away," I croaked, struggling to speak through my dehydration.
"I've been looking everywhere for you. You've been walking for miles."
I coughed and lay my head on the desert floor. He knelt beside me and too exhausted to move, I remained still and hoped that eventually, he would leave me alone.
"What are you doing?" he asked.
"Getting the fuck away from you," I replied.
He placed a hand on my face and pulled the loose strands of hair away from my eyes.
"You still look beautiful out here," he said. "Even though you look as though you could do with some water. Here."
He handed me a bottle. "It was in the glovebox of my car. It's a little warm but it's better than nothing."
I ripped open the lid and guzzled it down in one go, feeling the delicious nourishment as it traveled down my throat and spewed out the sides of my lips. I let the empty bottle fall to the ground with a clatter before I attempted to stand up.
"You chased me out here," I said.
"You make it sound as though I was chasing you down," he said.
"Well, aren't you?"
He shook his head.
"I was looking out for you. I thought something had happened."
"Something had happened. You killed a guy, remember?"
I looked into his eyes for any sign that he knew what he had done, but there only seemed to be emptiness. He seemed dead inside, void of love or conscience.
"I get that you're angry with me," he said. "But at least let me drive you home."
"No, I can get home by myself," I lied.
"Seriously. You'll die out here. Look."
He pointed up to the sky and I saw the ring of birds circling us. Vultures, they'd be thinking I was the tastiest looking snack they'd had in a long time.
"I promise I won't hurt you," he said.
"How am I supposed to believe that?"
"I suppose you're can’t," he lowered his head. "But let's look at things logically for a minute. If I were to kill you, wouldn't I have done it already?"
I looked across the vast expanse of desert. It was the perfect place to kill and lose someone. I would never be found out here.
"Okay," I relented. "You can drive me home."
Seeing the greenery of my front garden gave me a little sense of comfort. Who knew how long I had to enjoy the simple things in life; a hot coffee out on the porch, a cupcake in front of the television, a long lie in bed on a Sunday morning watching trash TV. It was almost eight o'clock now. The bodies would have been found, my employee badge would have been discovered and they'd soon see that I wasn't in work. It didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out I had something to do with the deaths in the facility, and then what? Would they come straight here?
"Home, sweet, home," he said as he pulled up in my driveway.
In the moment, it felt like the sweetest thing I'd ever seen, my own personal sanctuary. Making my way to the front door, I felt his presence close behind me, and as I reached for my keys, I hoped he'd take the hint and leave. Yet as I opened the door and stepped inside, he followed.
"No," I said as I pushed him back out onto the porch. "This is when you leave."
He looked momentarily hurt before reaching forward for a hug.
"You're tired and shocked by it all. I'm sorry but I can make it up to you. Dinner tonight? I could pick you up at eight and-"
"No. You don't come back here. You forget I ever existed. You delete my number, you deny ever knowing me, you forget about every second we spent together. I never want to see again, ever and if I see even a glimpse of your car in this neighborhood I'm calling the police."
And I slammed the door in his face. For an ex
cruciating moment, I waited for him to get mad and kick the door. He was a murderer, wasn't he? Who knew what he was capable of? When it didn't appear that he was going to do anything, I waited for the sound of his footsteps, but didn't hear a thing. He was lingering out there, waiting for something, but what?
A metallic clang startled me and I jumped back as I saw his hand poke through the letterbox.
"Anya?"
"Get away!"
"Anya, I just want to say something and then I'll leave. I'm sorry. It wasn't meant to turn out like this."
I kicked the letterbox and caught his hand between the metal slats. He yelped in pain and shrunk back.
"Fine, I get it. You don't wanna see me again."
His footsteps finally faded away but I didn't move an inch until I heard the sound of his engine starting and his tires crackling along the gravel of the driveway as he departed. Even then, I was still petrified that he could still be there and scrambled along the floor of the living room to pull back the curtains. Only when I saw the vacant spot where his car was that I relaxed.
"You idiot, Anya. Only you could fall in love with a murderer."
Hurrying through to the bathroom, I locked the door out of sheer paranoia and ran the bath until it was almost filled with scalding water. Then I sank down into it, feeling the heat encapsulate me as my pale skin turned crimson. It burned, it hurt, and it made me wince in pain, but I needed it. I needed the feeling of being so hot that all the badness he had touched me with was obliterated. Emptying almost half a bottle of soap onto a loofah, I began scrubbing furiously at my skin as the remnants of the desert scratched me. I felt myself begin to fall apart and it wasn't long until I was sobbing, my chest heaving up and down and struggling to catch a breath as the tears mingled with the bathwater.
Chapter 13
Draygus
Anya was right, the rooftop garden would have been the perfect place to put a telescope. It seemed strange being out here without her. As I looked over at the empty lounger beside me, I imagined her there, telling me how much of a space geek I was.
But I didn't have her beside me. I had a bottle of whiskey, instead and it stung the back of my throat and no matter how much I drank, it did nothing to take away the aching sensation in my heart, the one that told me I did something wrong.