Seize

by Clarissa Wild

  The girl’s eyes fall on me during her ordeal, and I find myself staring straight into her soul. She begs me to save her.

  I beg her for forgiveness.

  Then I turn around, bend over with my hands on my knees, and puke on the expensive, hand-weaved red carpet.

  Great, first thing in the morning I’ll have to get this to the steamer.

  2 years ago

  When reluctant sex with paid hookers turns into cold-blooded murder, you know things have gone downhill quickly.

  It’s been months since they were happy with just claiming a girl’s body. It’s despicable that I even think of this, but what they do now is worse, even though I didn’t think it could be possible.

  They’ve started murdering their victims.

  A lot of them.

  The first one I have to clean up makes me puke all over the place. Blood is spilled everywhere, and the smell makes me dizzy. And it’s only from a gunshot wound. In hindsight, it wasn’t so bad. Not compared to the bloody mess that their butchering makes. Humans have become fodder to them. They slaughter them like animals, ready for the meat house. Legs, arms, heads, cuts, bruises, beaten, violated with objects … everything comes to pass.

  Whatever is in the books will happen, regardless of the moral implication. This is so wrong.

  And I participate in all of these scenes.

  They force me to watch and clean up afterward. The rooms are used extensively, so much so that I do not feel at home in my own building anymore. Everything is a lie. This whole place, my life, it is all built on lies. During the day, I pretend to curate books, while the night brings me uncontrollable monsters after whom I have to clean up.

  This is what they wanted all along. I know, because I asked Arthur why they chose me for this job. Arthur told me that he needed me because of my past. I thought it was because of my ability to select the proper books for them to read. Turns out that wasn’t the case. I didn’t realize it was because I had already killed someone and they were looking for someone who could not only cope with death but completely shut themselves off from it, too. The perfect cleaner. The perfect assistant. And soon, the perfect accomplice.

  I will fall straight into the depths of hell with them. It’s where we all belong.

  7 months ago

  For the past year, I have been participating in their so-called hunts. They go after girls or women, forcing them to perform gruesome acts. They even bring them to the forest nearby and hunt them like they’re game. I refuse to participate, but they force me to come along. I shoot deer instead of their victims, just to take my mind off what they’re doing. What we’re doing. I play a role in this, too, and I can’t forget that, ever.

  What they do to these women is despicable. Not just women, but men, too. Anyone and anything that catches their eye. I witness and help. I help cut off clothes, help them succumb to their desires. I’m a monster, and yet I cannot resist.

  I do not read those same books. Instead, I keep to the romance novels, the ones that are safe, but within their scope of approval. I find it hard to admit that I actually do find it satisfying to fuck these girls. That they do as I tell them and that I can recreate a tale spun by another. That I get to live out my fantasies.

  But I can’t let myself get carried away. Distracted by all the ripe plums this world has to offer me, it has become difficult to focus. Difficult to resist.

  I find myself plunging deeper into the darkness. I participate in deceiving women, capturing them, and using them for our own pleasures. It’s even gotten to the point that I can only get off if I have my women strapped, begging for mercy, and reluctant to give it to me. I thrive on their pain, live to break them down. They made me this way. I am a monster, and I know it. It weighs down on me, even though I try to ignore it. It has become increasingly hard for me to find anything redeeming about this world. Knowing they rule it with wealth means there is no escaping them, no escaping pain, blood … death. I sometimes wish that I did not know this information, so that I could live a happy life, albeit a lie. Maybe living a lie is better than facing the damned truth.

  Truth is where people are slaughtered like animals, where people get used like items, where I am but a pawn in their scheme. I’m not just emotionally sickened by what they do … by what they make me do, but physically as well. My energy has been drained. My will to live is waning. Sometimes I find myself staring at the knife, wishing I could cut my own throat so that it would all be over.

  I wish I had the guts to go through with it.

  The world would be better off without any of them, without me. I am part of this game, whether I want to or not. I take part in these crimes and take no responsibility or judgment for it. There is nothing worth living for anymore.

  Until the day that I meet her.

  Or actually, until they meet her mother.

  The moment I saw them at the fundraiser, how they gravitated toward the woman, I knew they were going after her. At least, one of them was. Hubert had a penchant for seducing older ladies, and I could see from the way he touched her that this was the one. He wasn’t going to let her go. The lady before me would die.

  Now, or later. There was no turning back time, no undoing the consequences of my actions. The glass in my hand is almost pulverized as I watch them talk her up. This is all my fault. If only I had stopped them sooner. If only I had the courage to kill them before they killed another.

  It’s then that I spot a young lady staring at the woman incessantly. I can tell from her beautiful face and that pretty smile that they are family. They look so much alike, except for one thing. Her hair; it’s as if it’s on fire.

  Her beauty has me momentarily fazed. She looks like an angelic being, moving so fluid as she brings the glass she holds to her lips and takes a sip. I’m mesmerized by her presence, which seems to draw me to her like a magnet. Something about her sparks my interest, and that is highly unusual, seeing that I typically hate feeling this way about women. Love isn’t something that I seek right now, and yet I cannot help being pulled toward her like a voice is telling me to go talk to her, start a conversation. The way she swallows her drink, so gracefully, so … arousing. My cock can’t help but respond to the sudden thought of her tongue wrapped around it.

  Christ, what am I thinking?

  In my confusion, I see her walk toward the center of the room, toward the woman Hubert is talking to. Pulled from my thoughts, I realize this young lady must be her daughter because they look so strikingly similar.

  Without thinking about it, I follow her through the crowd and grab her hand. Her eyes fall onto me and have me paralyzed for a second. I see in them a world of pain and fear, but above all, love. Deep and unending, the way it lingers in her eyes, as if she was just about to express it. That this walk toward her mother was meant as a statement of a pure-hearted woman. I immediately adore that look—until uncertainty creeps in, clouding her heart as she watches me with mistrust. My hand in hers feels like it is supposed to be there, and yet I can’t shake this dread washing over me.

  She’s in danger just by being near them. Near me.

  “Don’t interrupt,” I say, gesturing toward the men.

  “Why not?” she says, frowning, almost putting her hands on her hips like she means business. It makes me want to laugh. She’s cute and feisty as well. Just the type to play around with, and yet I can’t even think of attempting to fool with her. Not this one. Not her.

  I realize that she asks me something that I cannot give her the answer to. Her mother is already lost, but I can’t get the words across. I cannot tell her that her mother will die soon. Her beautiful eyes … I don’t want them to lose that fire.

  “Because you don’t want to be caught in the middle,” I say.

  They’re already worming their way into her mother’s heart. Soon, there will be nothing left of neither her nor this girl. I’ve seen it happen so many times … I can’t stand it anymore. I want to put a stop to it, and the only way is by starting now.
With this girl. If I can keep her out of harm’s way, maybe there is still hope after all.

  “Caught in the middle of what?” she says, leaning back, trying to jerk her hand free.

  I keep holding on, staring straight into her eyes to make it clear that I am dead serious. “Danger.”

  She doesn’t know the extent of it, the gravity of what’s about to happen.

  “Run …” I add. “Get out of here. Get away from her as fast as you can and don’t look back. Whatever you do … don’t return home.”

  With my eyes, I beg her not to go. I plead with her to turn around and leave this place. If she goes home, I know they will already have taken it. Not physically, but mentally. Her mother is already under their control, and it won’t be long until they find their way into her life. Into the life of this beautiful young lady. I want to keep her safe … maybe for once one of them can be safe.

  But her heart is too strong and too loving to heed and trust my warning. One second, one glance at her mother, and I know that she’s going to ignore me.

  So I walk away.

  I turn my back to her and blend in with the crowd. She won’t come with me, and I know that I have made a daring impression by saying the things I have said to her. The fact alone that I told her there was danger brings me danger as well. If they find out, it could put my life at risk. I can’t have that, so my instinct is to bail.

  However, I can’t get her off my mind. My heart is torn between doing what is right and doing what is easy, safe. I try to ignore this nagging feeling that tells me to grab her and make a run for it. It wouldn’t end well, though. In order to calm down, I promise myself that I will not stop trying to pull at least one victim from their grasp, and I will start with her.

  Accompanying song: “The Hunted” by Snow Ghosts

  Room 569. Providence, Rhode Island – June 3nd, 2013

  “You …” I mutter. “Oh God, that was really you. That day at the charity event? Oh my God, it all falls into place now …”

  “Yes, I was there, and so were they. You remember it, don’t you?” he says. “The way they seduced your mother.”

  I gasp, gazing down at his chest, not wanting to come to terms with all that he’s told me. I feel sick to my stomach. I can’t believe this has been going on for so long and that these men do all these things without anyone stopping them. When he said money could buy anything, he wasn’t kidding.

  “So this Genesis thing … it’s like Illuminati,” I mutter.

  “A little. The idea was copied but is carried out on a much darker scale.”

  I frown, biting the inside of my cheek. “How could you drag me into this?”

  “I tried to keep you away from them. That was all I was doing.” Then he sighs, big time. “But you never listened to me. Never trusted me for my word.”

  “You were a stranger; how could I trust a stranger over my own heart?” I say. “And not to mention, you were scary.”

  He chuckles a little. “Scary? You don’t say.”

  “You wanted me to be scared, I know that now. But what I don’t understand is why go through all that trouble just for me?”

  He grabs my hand and twines his fingers through mine. “Because there was something about you … something that awoke me from the trance that I’d been in since they pulled darkness into my life. The way you looked at me … it just slapped some sense into me.”

  Now I laugh. “Jesus, I wish I could enable that magical ability around my mother.” Just mentioning her name creates a lump in my throat. “Well, before …”

  “I’m sorry. About everything. About being part of her death and your abduction.”

  “Sorry doesn’t fix anything. Sorry doesn’t bring her back. Sorry doesn’t give Ashley back what she lost to those monsters.”

  “No … which is why I will fight them with everything I have.”

  “How?” I gaze up into his eyes, which are clear and truthful, like he’s really trying. I can’t give in that easily. “You took pictures of me. That’s not going to help.”

  “The pictures that I just took will show them that I did what I had to do; they’re mere tools for me to ensure that they’ll still trust me.”

  “And that’s what you used the video you shot of me for?”

  “Yes … I do not want to share you, but I have to show them proof.”

  “And then what?”

  “Patience. I need to have it and so do you.” He rubs his forehead with his fingers. “They cannot just be killed. Believe me; I thought it all out. It’s not possible. They protect each other, and if one were to be attacked, the others would surely intervene. They have enough money to persuade anyone to come to their side. They are unstoppable.”

  “Then how are you planning to put a stop to it all?”

  “I’m writing a book.” He frowns, gazing at me. “I’ll write their end. Instead of killing them myself, I will murder them with words. They’ll read it and reenact it all, unable to stop because that is their rule. That one and only rule …” He makes a fist with his hand. “It will be their downfall.”

  He grabs my hand firmly and squeezes it. “Which is why I need them to trust me, so they’ll read it. And I need your trust to pull through.”

  I gaze at our hands, firmly entwined, and even though it bothers me that he speaks to me like a lover after having hunted me like a deer, I still feel connected to him in a way that I cannot explain. This is why it feels so uncomfortable being near him and yet safe at the same time. My heart is going one way while my mind is going another, and I can’t seem to choose.

  “You put that note in my backpack, when I was on vacation in Costa Rica. You said it before, that I should’ve listened when you told me not to pick up the phone.”

  “Yes, I did. I was following you on their orders.”

  “Why?”

  He sighs and turns around to lie on his back, releasing my hand. He runs his fingers through his long, blond hair and breathes out a puff of air. “They were keeping tabs on you from the start. They had all your information, your credit card number, your phone number, your ID, where you were going, who you were with. Anything and everything was tracked. There was nothing you did that they didn’t know, and it was because of me.”

  “Holy crap …” I say, my heart thumping in my throat. I feel like this information is strangling me. It’s scary and yet I need to know more.

  “Do you want me to stop?” he asks.

  “No, no … I want to know. I should know.” I nod.

  “If I continue speaking, does that mean you trust my words?”

  I frown, gazing up at him with narrowing eyes. I’m not sure who I can trust anymore. However, if I’m going to learn what happened to us, I’ll have to start trusting somebody’s words. I guess Sebastian is my best bet. After all … he took a bullet for me.

  That has to mean something.

  “Maybe,” I say.

  A victorious smile twinges his lips, making me feel uneasy, but it disappears too quickly for me to ask about it.

  “You should’ve never have picked up that phone. I tried to warn you. I knew they were going to use your mother against you, make you come back home so they could take you instead of her …” He sighs. “Your mother was their initial target. Hubert Newman’s target. He became infatuated with her after the party, so much so that he continuously visited her.”

  “I remember that,” I mutter. My breath catches in my throat when I think about the memories I have of my mom sitting on the couch with a stranger who called himself Newman.

  “Newman,” I repeat.

  “Exactly. Hubert Newman was the one who went after your mother, who wanted to ruin her life. It was all part of the book that he was reading. To steal a woman from her husband and―”

  “Skip to the part where they go after us, please. I don’t want to hear it.”

  He furrows his brows at me, clearly upset that I interrupted him, but he doesn’t say a word. Instead, he clears his throat and conti
nues. “I remember him telling me about you and another girl coming home together very often, going up to your rooms. The way he spoke about you two was like a man obsessed. It didn’t take long for his plan to deviate into something else entirely. I thought that he was after you. I could understand that … you are beautiful beyond belief.”

  There’s a glint in his eyes. “When I found out, you had already gone on vacation with your friend. I was ordered to follow you wherever you went, but when I realized they were going to set their plan to kidnap you both into motion, I knew I had to contact you quickly.”

  “But without being seen …”

  “Right. I couldn’t show myself because that would mean you’d recognize me. You’d be able to point me out as a traitor in front of them.”

  “And that would’ve gotten you killed.”

  “Yes.”

  “But now my mother is dead and you helped kidnap us both.”

  He sighs, blowing off some steam while looking the other way. “I know what you’re getting at. And you’re right. I’m a monster. I’ve fucked up. I fucked up a lot of things.”

  He looks at me again, his eyes glazy but also filled with fire, as if he could set them ablaze. “But trust me when I say that I want to change it all. It is why I saved you from them, why I claimed you as mine, so they couldn’t touch you. It’s why I took you to the hospital … and why I took you in when you came to find me. I brought you to all those places so you could remember the things that we had done to you. I knew you would one day remember all that I had done, too. I knew it was going to happen.”

  “And yet you did it anyway.”

  I realize now that, in spite of it all, this is one thing I cannot ignore. He acted out of selflessness. If only once. But it’s enough to crack my icy heart.