I act like I don’t see him. I’ve always done that. Everyone leaves you alone if you act like you don’t exist.
The thing about Sebastian though, is that he doesn’t leave until he knows I know he’s watching me. Or maybe that’s just what I think because I feel his gaze on me every time and I have no desire not to look back at him.
I pull back my curtain when the car outside idles and idles. A book is open in my hand, its pages unread. I let it shut as I peek outside to see who it is. The large text closes with a dull thud that matches the single pound in my chest when I see him out there.
I try to swallow but my throat’s dry.
Angie said it’s an intimidation tactic. I shouldn’t have told her anything about Sebastian coming by like this. She concocted about a dozen theories of what’s going on with the murders and Sebastian and why he’s checking on me and instructing me on what to tell the cops. She was animated, to say the least, but I was more interested in hearing about what she did on Sunday with her new boy toy than anything that has to do with this shit city.
My eyes drift down, meeting Sebastian’s and instead of glancing away, I hold his gaze for a moment.
I would feel it, wouldn’t I? If his intention was to intimidate me, I’d feel fear, or a chill maybe? I’d feel something other than the quiet stillness that settles deep in my bones, the smoldering heat that simmers in my blood. Just looking at him, my body relaxes.
I swear I even see his lips tug into an asymmetric smile when I don’t look away.
My heart does that thud again, and I have to loosen my grip on the thin curtain and let my head fall back against the headboard.
He’ll only ever be at arm’s length, so this power he has over me, this innate emotion he controls inside of me, can’t be good.
The idling stops, fading into the sounds of the night and that warmth and soothing feeling disappear with it. It’s sickening that something so small could garner so much emotion from me. As I reach for my book, I see my phone out of the corner of my eye.
I don’t have a fucking clue where I left off. My fingers run along the edges of the pages as if my memory can lead me to the right page, but all I can focus on is the phone.
Shoving the book off my lap, I reach for it.
The cops didn’t come to question me. I text the number I know is Sebastian’s. He’s never explicitly said it was him and usually he texts me, but I know it’s his number. I want to tell him he can resume pretending I don’t exist.
When he doesn’t reply, I skim through the previous messages.
The first one reads: You did good today. He sent it a few nights after the infamous kiss. The night I first slept peacefully in this house after my uncle took me in.
Who is this? I asked, but he never answered.
When I first moved in, my uncle didn’t have a spare room ready for me. We’d had to clear out the cluttered room he sometimes used as an office. Almost all of my mother’s things had to be thrown away in the move. Same thing with some of my possessions, not that I had much. This townhouse was already full, and I wasn’t even sure if I was staying here for long. No one told me anything. No one but Sebastian in a nameless text.
The phone pinging in my hand scares the shit out of me, spiking my adrenaline and forcing my heart to race up my throat. I nearly slam my head back against the headboard, but somehow manage to calm myself down.
The memories of the week my mother died have always haunted me. That week brought awful nightmares, ones that have come back in full force now that the past is being dredged up.
It’s only Sebastian, I tell myself and breathe in deeply, calming every bit of me, although the task feels even more impossible than staying awake long enough to see what he’s written.
How are you sleeping?
It’s fitting he would ask that just as I rub my eyes with the palm of my hand and feel the sting of the burning need to sleep.
I chew on my lip, my fingers hovering over the screen. I don’t want to lie to him here, not on the phone; I don’t want to taint these messages that mean so much. After a moment I tell him the truth and see exactly what I expect in return.
Not well.
Have you been drinking your tea?
The vial is on my nightstand, staring at me as if I’m to blame for this shit. I nearly took it last night, but I don’t do drugs. Not any sort. I’ve seen what addiction can do. Although I’ve also seen what desperation can do. And I’m desperate for one night where I close my eyes and I’m not haunted by memories of the past. I was doing so well for years. Her murderer being found is what set everything off. And the nightmares have come back with a vengeance.
Take it. His message sends a chill down my spine. It’s as if he can hear my thoughts.
It takes me longer than I thought it would to write him back. Mostly because I don’t know what his answer will be, but I know what I want to read.
If I take it, will you leave me alone? I text him and then grab the vial. I don’t have a cup of tea handy, but I have a glass of water. Without even thinking, I put one drop, then another, then the third.
I watch the liquid swirl as I wait for his message. The other night I thought it was clear, since in the tea I couldn’t see its color.
But it’s pink, a pale, pale pink that quickly disappears in the water.
Before I take a sip, I check my phone only to see he hasn’t responded. The lip of the glass feels cold as I bring it up and take the first gulp, wondering what it will taste like.
It tastes like nothing at all. Maybe a tinge of sugar. Just a faint hint.
I’m still considering the taste when the phone goes off on my lap. You need to sleep. How typical of Sebastian to respond without answering my question.
He has no fucking idea how badly I need to sleep. I’m delirious.
I chug the rest of the glass and intend on telling him that I drank the stuff he gave me, or maybe telling him something just so he’ll stay with me on the phone until I’ve fallen asleep.
That doesn’t happen though. Instead, I stare at the empty glass, feeling lightheaded and drowsy all at once. My sense of time begins to warp, feeling like it passes slowly but quickly just the same.
I barely get the glass on the nightstand before the darkness takes over. I’m able to slip under the covers, feeling the weight of sleep pulling at me. And I give in to it, so easily.
* * *
“You’re late.” Tamra’s voice is clear as can be. She always had a slight rasp in the last word of every sentence and she kept her lips in the shape of that word for what seemed like an odd amount of time.
Where am I? I can feel my brow pinch; this room is familiar, but not so much that I know where I am. The carpet’s thin and worn out in front of the television where the car seats are. There are three of them, although they’re empty now. No one’s here but me, sitting on the sofa that’s just as worn as the carpet and Tamra, who’s standing in front of the open door.
“He made me stay overtime.” My mother’s voice drifts in through the tense air. She’s agitated and suddenly anxiety runs through me.
“Well, then, this is overtime for me. I can’t watch these brats for free.”
I’m not a brat. I swear I was good. I was good. I want to tell my mother, but I know to be quiet. With my hands in my lap, I wait stiffly. I’ll only move when I’m told, I’ll only speak when I’m spoken to. With my throat tight and dry, I wring my fingers around one another and glance at my bookbag at the end of the sofa. It’s already packed, and I didn’t forget anything. I never forget. If I do, I don’t tell my mom and I hope she doesn’t find out.
“Of course, you’re gonna fucking charge me,” my mother spits out her anger at Tamra. Anger which I know will be directed at me on Monday when she watches me again unless she tells my mom she’s not going to watch me anymore without being paid early. Which she’s done before. In that case, I stay in my room all day and don’t answer the door. But Mom got in trouble for doing that once.
“Let’s go, Chloe.” My mom barges into the living room as Tamra stays where she is, keeping the front door open. It’s late and I still have homework to do, but I don’t know how to do it. I don’t know how to read the words and I need someone to tell me, but Tamra won’t and Mom’s mad so I know better than to bother her.
I can tell from the way she stomps across the room it would be a mistake for me to do anything or say anything. I get up quickly. But I have to be quicker. If I move fast enough it won’t burn when she grabs my arm.
“I’m coming,” I tell her as fast as I can, snatching my bookbag and scurrying to her side even though fear is racing through me and begging me to run.
I’ll be quiet; I’ll go to sleep. Miss Parker will help me. It’s only second grade, she keeps telling me I have time to do it at school if I get there early, but that I have to learn to read. I’m trying. I promise her I am.
“You see how no one helped me?” I hear a voice from outside this moment, a voice that sounds so close, so real. So full of rage and vengeance. My mother. Fear runs down my skin and up the back of my neck, freezing me where I am as I swear I feel her hot breath at the shell of my ear.
She didn’t say that in the memory. She’s telling me now.
I look back at Miss Tamra, still trying to keep up with my mother, even though her grip tightens so hard it’s going to bruise. My blood runs cold and a scream is caught in my throat at the sight of Tamra leaning against the back wall, her left hand on the sofa. Blood coats her hair where a bullet wound mars her skull and it leaks down to her cheek, dripping onto her collarbone. I blink and suddenly she’s standing there, yelling at my mother that she’s an ungrateful bitch.
The chill doesn’t go away, the sight from just before still stealing my breath and sanity.
The hand around my arm twists, burning my skin where my mother is touching me. It hurts. Mom, it hurts! I scream out, but the words don’t come. I’m no longer there. It’s dark and the bruising hold changes to something else, feeling like the kiss of a spider climbing up my arm in the darkness. I try to jump back, but I’m trapped, with nowhere to go and I can’t see a damn thing.
She’s here. My heart races and dread ignites inside of me, but I can’t run. I can’t see her. I can only hear her so close to me.
“No one ever helped me,” she tells me. “They’re going to pay for that.”
* * *
It felt so real last night, the sensation of my mother being so close to me.
An uncontrollable shudder runs through me as I slowly walk down the stairs. My heart won’t stop racing and I can’t clear my throat. I feel like I’m suffocating.
It was only a dream.
It’s only a dream.
My chest tightens and the fear rips through me anew as I swear I hear something upstairs, something in the bedroom.
“Knock it off,” I grit between my teeth.
The floor behind me creaks, loud and heavy. It almost sounds like someone’s walking down behind me quickly and not hiding their weight, making me scream and I nearly fall down the last four steps. My back pressed against the wall and my chest frantically rising and falling, I stare behind me. No one’s there. No one’s here.
“It’s only a dream,” I remind myself and ignore the flow of ice that rolls over my body and how every hair on my body stands on end as I remember my mother’s words. They’re going to pay for that.
I’m not crazy, but I feel like I am. Crossing my arms over my chest, I feel my blunt nails dig in and remind myself that I’m alive.
The night after my mom died, I had the same type of dreams. The ones where she felt so real, following me even when I woke up.
“Please, go away,” I beg her as I fall to the floor, sitting on the steps and wishing the wave of coldness that keeps coming over me would go away. Go away forever.
I told you, I hear my mother’s voice, but I know it’s just a memory.
She’s not real. This isn’t real.
The dead don’t stay away for long. And they’ll pay. Every single one of them will pay.
Chapter Six
Sebastian
It’s been three years since Romano gave me this job. The knife slams down on the cutting board as the thought hits me. I grab the carved meat and put it in the tub with the rest of the chunks.
I’m the butcher of a shop that rides the line of his territory. When Romano hired me to work here at Paul’s Butcher Shop, I thought it meant something different. I thought it meant he was hiring me to be a part of his crew.
Now I know better; he just wanted to watch me. Train me, or maybe mentor me if he ever needed someone like me. The line of customers coming in for their packages distracts me and I glance up for a moment. Eddie, Paul’s son, rings them up one by one. I stay in the back with a few other guys, processing all the orders and occasionally we have to stay here later, after closing hours.
Like when Romano has a special order.
Picking up the butcher knife, I slam it down with my teeth gritting together. This isn’t his turf, but I’m not ready to start a war or gather an army against him. There’s no one here to recruit, just the addicts who camp out behind the line of the highway that separates his area from Crescent Hills.
Most of the meat here is shipped off to God knows where. This place sees plenty of money come in and go out, but the numbers don’t actually add up. We’re just doing his bidding.
Still, I cut the fucking carcass up like I’m told, and stay on the right side of a would-be enemy while I have to.
I vaguely wonder how long that’ll be. And when the time comes, which side I’ll be on.
The bells hanging over the front door bells, two cheap bells that ding and then ding again as the door is open and closed quickly.
My gaze rises and goes back down, only to rise again with an unsettled feeling flashing through me, to take another look.
Chloe’s not dressed to be out in public. She’s in pajama pants and a baggy t-shirt with sneakers that aren’t even laced like she couldn’t get out of the house fast enough. Her hair’s down and windblown.
“What the fuck is she doing here?” I mutter beneath my breath and drop the knife on the cutting board. Before I can even wipe my hands off, she’s brushing past Eddie, ignoring him completely. She doesn’t hesitate to go around the counter and make her way back here. “Sebastian,” she gasps my name with a mix of relief and desperation.
My heart pounds harder as every man and woman in this place watches us. I can feel all their eyes on me as I keep my shoulders straight and head to the sink to wash my hands. I’m trying not to let her or anyone else see what I’m feeling deep down in my gut. This isn’t a good look.
“I need you,” Chloe speaks before the swinging door that separates the kitchen from the front of this small shop even closes.
The adrenaline pumps harder in my veins.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I ask her although my gaze is focused on Eddie. I try to swallow but can’t, so instead, I watch the water run down the drain before turning off the faucet and drying off my hands. She doesn’t answer me, but she steps closer to me at the sink.
“What are you doing here?” I ask her in a harsh tone with no room for her to question how I feel about this shit. No one comes here. No one who knows any better. She should know better.
Her baby blues flash with something—shock, or anger—I’m not sure which. Her loose t-shirt nearly slips down her shoulder as she takes a step back. The place is silent save the exhaust fans as she takes a moment to look me up and down.
“I need you,” she tells me honestly, with a sincerity that everyone could hear, even if only spoken in a whisper. She brushes her wavy hair behind her ear and moves her gaze to the vinyl floor of the kitchen, blinking away the emotions ravaging her. The muscles of her throat tighten as she wraps her arms around herself. “Do you have a minute?” she asks as if she didn’t just run back here and disrupt everything while having no consideration for
what she’s doing. The type of danger she’s putting herself into.
With a deep crease in the center of her forehead and a pained expression in her eyes, she tells me again, “I need you.” It’s the third time she’s said it since she got here, but she’s never said those words to me until today. Fuck, I can’t describe what it does to me. Her left foot kicks the floor as she slowly seems to notice everyone else as if they didn’t even exist before.
I watch her gaze as it moves to Eddie, who’s looking at me curiously and I give him an icy stare until he looks away.
I know he tells Romano everything that happens and having her come in making a scene like this is something that would get his attention. Talking to me about something as if I can save her… that would get his attention too. Romano needs to know everything, or so he tells us. But I don’t plan on telling him shit.
Especially because it’s her. And the way she’s going about this is going to cause problems.
That anxiety comes rushing back, not just from what everyone else is wondering, but also from what Chloe has to say.
“Aren’t you supposed to be at work?” I ask her again and toss the hand towel onto the steel counter.
“Angie keeps asking me that too,” she mutters beneath her breath. Swallowing thickly, she looks over her shoulder before gripping my forearm and whispering, “I need to talk to you.”
Her pale blue eyes plead with me, sinking deep inside of me like she always does. And for the first time in so long, I wish she wouldn’t.
“Did something happen?” I ask her innocently, every hair on the back of my neck standing on end. I can hear people moving again, going back to their business, but they’re quiet and slow to move. They’re listening to everything.
“Did you see the news?” she asks me, and I stare back at her straight-faced as I shake my head no. I already know what’s coming before she keeps going. It’s only now that I regret going to see her; I invited her to think she could rely on me. She doesn’t know what she’s doing though, and all the shit I’m in right now.
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