One for Sorrow

by Louise Collins

  Chad shuddered, and his cuff rattled against the radiator.

  “And in two months, you’ll do this again, walk the road, hoping for the right person.”

  “Might take a few days, ten failed opportunities, but I only need one to be right, and then I’m done. I’m finished.”

  “Then what?”

  “I leave.”

  “And go where?”

  Romeo scrunched his face up tight. “I haven’t thought about that yet. No need to plan that far ahead. If I do that, I won’t enjoy the moment. What about you? What will you do when this is all over? Go back to your fiancé?”

  “How do you know about him?”

  “The ring on your finger’s a bit of a giveaway,” Romeo said.

  Chad clutched his free hand to his chest, looking down at the sparkling band of silver. He had tried repeatedly to get it off, but it was too tight.

  “And he’s been on the news.”

  “Been on the news?”

  “Yeah. He made a statement outside of your house, impressive place.” Romeo looked pointedly around the kitchen. “This place must seem an absolute dive compared to his mansion.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Said that he’s in shock, and hopeful the police will find you… Then he appealed directly to me, asked me not to hurt you, to let you go. I must admit, it was a thrill having him talking directly down the camera to me. Pleading with me not to hurt you.”

  Chad screw his face up. “You’re messed up.”

  “Anyway. He’s got nothing to worry about. I will let you go, but only after I get my number one. I’ll make an anonymous phone call and lead the police here. You’ll get to cuddle up in the arms of your fiancé again.” Romeo brushed his hands together. “Right, I need to put you back in the barn.”

  “What, why?”

  “I need to go out. I’m running low on food especially now I’ve got your mouth to feed, too, so come on…”

  He disappeared from the kitchen. Chad heard the stairs creaking, then a door closing. With him out the room, Chad yanked the chain as hard as he could. He gave up and tried to reach for something to use as a weapon, but everything was strategically away from him. Romeo had cleared the area to make sure he couldn’t use anything.

  Chad stiffened when Romeo moved in the doorway. He hadn’t noticed he was there. Sometimes Romeo was so still, so quiet, it felt like he was stalking, like Chad was prey and he was getting as close as he could without spooking him. A big smile spread his lips; Chad narrowed his eyes. Romeo was proud he’d made Chad jump.

  “You can’t reach anything.”

  “Yeah, I realize that.”

  “You’re not gonna get away from me. Give it up.”

  Romeo undid the cuff around the radiator, then tugged Chad along by it.

  “How long will you be gone?”

  “Why, will you miss me?

  “No.”

  Romeo smirked. “A few hours at most.”

  “Will you take the car?”

  “Yes.”

  Chad’s heart picked up the pace. Romeo had the keys to the mini. Romeo was inadvertently walking him closer to freedom. He just needed to knock him out. Chad thought of the paint pots—one of them swung at Romeo’s head would do it. Then he’d tie Romeo up like a dog, and drive to get help. Chad’s plan was all laid out. He followed behind Romeo, obediently being led, and then when he stepped into the barn, he made his move.

  Chad yanked his cuffed hand to his chest hard, and he slipped from Romeo’s grasp. He backed away fast, side-eyeing the paint pots.

  “Now, now, Chad, you promised you’d behave.”

  Romeo wasn’t panicked or worried. He looked amused. Before Chad could reach the pots, Romeo stepped in front of them, and folded his arms.

  “Bludgeon me to death with a paint pot huh?”

  Chad scarpered back, towards the mini. He needed the keys—

  Romeo pulled them from his hip pocket, flashing them at Chad. “You need these, right?”

  “No.”

  “You think you can hot-wire it before I can get to you.”

  He couldn’t hot-wire a car. Heat built in his cheeks, and he dropped his gaze.

  “Are you serious, that was your half assed plan?”

  Romeo was closer to the barn doors than Chad was, and he stalked forward, as if he really were a wolf closing in on some cornered animal. The smile was back, the toothy one that was all predator.

  “Enough now,” Romeo said firmly. “Hands out in front of you. If you keep this up, I’ll cuff them behind you instead of in front.”

  The car was out of the question, so Chad went towards the only free exit, the hole in the roof.

  He ran up the stairs, only just keeping his balance on the sodden hay. Romeo didn’t follow, but smirked at the bottle of the steps, amusement dazzling in his eyes.

  “Now what you gonna do … fly to freedom?”

  Chad couldn’t reach the hole and climb out, but something even better glinted a few meters away. A scythe was propped against the wooden slats. Romeo couldn’t see it from his position. Romeo didn’t know it was there. Romeo hadn’t planned for the scythe.

  “As amusing as it is to see you fail, I do have to go into the city today…”

  “You need to be stopped,” Chad said, stepping forward.

  “And you think you’re the one to stop me? From up there?”

  The wooden slats creaked beneath Chad’s feet, a slow whine that sounded like a tortured animal.

  He couldn’t save the four, but there was a chance he could save one.

  Number one.

  “By any means necessary,” Chad whispered.

  He took another step, out of Romeo’s view. He stretched his hands out. The free cuff swung, and he shifted all of his weight onto his right foot, leaning forward while the wooden slat whimpered. The sound the barn was making a decrepit groaning, moaning—it was haunting.

  “Chad.”

  He shivered at the warning, one he perceived as threatening. He knew he’d hear that tone again, as soon as Romeo saw him with the weapon. He would do anything to get control of the situation back. He’d puff up his chest, have an expression of rage, and order Chad to drop it, just how he’d been when they’d first met. Chad licked his lips, almost there.

  “Get down.”

  I’m gonna,” Chad whispered under his breath. The anger in Romeo’s voice kicked his heart into overdrive.

  He needed to grab the scythe, hide it for as long as he could, then swing it at Romeo. He heard the steps behind him, Romeo coming after him. He had to be quick, whirl around with the rusty blade and slice Romeo’s handsome face. Kill him. Chad shook his head. He didn’t want to. He didn’t think he could, but if it was the only way of saving number one … of ending the countdown…

  Chad stopped, suddenly breathless. He was contemplating killing—

  “It’s not safe!”

  The wooden slat Chad stood on fell silent. He felt the weakness and looked down. Then it broke, and he was falling, away from the scythe, away from another half assed escape attempt.

  Before disappointment or embarrassment hit him, pain did. An all-consuming pain that shot straight up his spine. He’d landed on something, something sharp that had gone through the back of his thigh.

  He screamed, he knew he did, not from the sound, but he knew he was screaming from the pain in his throat. A rawness, that when vomit bubbled past only got worse. Chad heaved. Between gasps of breath he screamed, and shivered and tried not to move, but his body spasmed, making everything worse. Moving was agony, not moving was agony, there was no relief.

  “Help me!” Chad shouted. “Someone help, please!”

  He clawed at the straw around him, revealing the long pole attached to the rake head. The rake head that was deeply inside his leg. His hands hovered over the injured bit of his body. He couldn’t see the wound. It all looked normal, but when he tried to lift his leg, the rake moved with him, imbedded in his muscle
. He didn’t know what to do, how to help himself without making everything worse.

  “Does that someone extend to me?”

  Snot and tears were streaming down Chad’s face, and all he could taste was sick. His body shivered, and twitched, and the pain came in waves. Never softening enough for the pain to end, but rising in intensity, getting rougher, battering him until his head started to spin, and he just wanted to drown, drown in the raging fire of pain.

  He looked at Romeo crouching a few meters away.

  “Please…” Chad said.

  “Please what?”

  “Am—ambulance.”

  “No.”

  Chad panted through another wave, then screamed into his arm. The sound tapered off into a whimper, and then a wet sob. He felt dizzy, and sick, and tortured.

  “A doctor.”

  “No.”

  “My leg—”

  “You’ve landed on the rake, I can see. Didn’t even know that was there.”

  His voice sounded distant, like he wasn’t in the barn, but far away, somewhere above. Chad’s ears were ringing from his screams, and he drooped forward.

  “Romeo,” Chad gasped. “Help me.”

  “You forgot to say please…”

  “Please,” Chad begged, “please—please.”

  Romeo shushed him. “I’ll help, but no more breaking promises. You’ll behave from now on.”

  “Yes.”

  “Good boy. Now, I’m gonna knock that pretty face of yours out … again.”

  “Please,” Chad begged. “Please do it.”

  “I like hearing you beg,” Romeo said, advancing across the barn.

  When Romeo’s fist came towards him, Chad sighed at the mercy, not registering the pain, only the relief before darkness.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Days bled into each other. The pain didn’t stop. It morphed into something else, a fire that roasted Chad’s insides. He shivered with fever, and sweat coated his skin. He could smell the sickness, but the worst was the pain, so raw and dominating, he was sure it burned his flesh and melted his bones. He didn’t know how much more pain he could endure, but he didn’t stop enduring it.

  Sometimes he heard a man talking to him. He barely recognized individual words, it was a murmur, but it softened the pain if only for a little while. Chad clutched onto the voice in the darkness, turned towards the source of it to hear it clearer. He mourned the voice when it faded and was relieved when it came back to him.

  “Infection,” the voice told him, and he heard another word. “Rusty.”

  He accepted water through a straw and sighed when he felt something damp being pressed against his forehead, cleaning his sweat-coated skin. Hands brushed his hair back, doing their best to soothe him. He’d never had someone take care of him before, not like this, not like a child with an attentive parent. But the man with the rumbly voice was looking after him, doing his best to dampen the fire roasting his insides. It was an impossible task, but Chad was glad he wasn’t alone.

  “Get some rest.”

  He gave into the voice’s demand and sank even further into unconsciousness.

  ****

  Chad’s eyelids felt heavy, glued shut. He forced them open, blinking obsessively to adjust them to the room. A bright-white room, he was lying on a bright white bed. On his left hung a blue curtain, and when he turned his head, he saw the same on his right.

  There was pain, but it was muffled, half blocked, only an undercurrent of nerves twitching. The curtain was more important, and he reached tentatively to the one on his left, pinched it in a weak grip, then slowly opened it.

  He gasped when he saw what was on the other side. The DI was in the neighboring bed, tubes up his nose, machine beeping his heart rhythm, and sobbing wife and daughter beside him. His pulse was slowing, and their sobs grew louder. Chad pulled the curtain back across, hiding the family from view. The sound stopped instantly, and he was back between the blue curtains in the bight white bed.

  He stared at the curtain on his right, not wanting to open it, but knowing he had to. He had to see what was on the other side, what his tormented mind wanted to show him.

  Chad pushed back the curtain on another hospital scene. One he’d watched before but from a different perspective.

  He saw himself standing by his mother’s deathbed. Her frail body appeared skeleton like; her thin skin stretched over her sharp bones. She was dead, and unlike Caroline and Lucy, Chad didn’t sob. He stared with at her with a vast emptiness expanding inside him.

  He remembered that day clearly. He remembered her beeping machine falling silent. The soft whispers of the doctors and nurses as they waited for him to break down in despair. He never did, and their concern for him soon turned to confusion before finally something that twisted their faces and had them sharing not so secret looks.

  They looked at him like he wasn’t normal, like his reaction was wrong, but they knew nothing about him and his mother, or their relationship.

  Chad yanked the curtain back again, then lay down on the bed. He sank into the pillow, shut his eyes, and slept.

  ****

  “You need to drink,” the voice told him.

  So Chad drank, small sips that felt as if they evaporated on his tongue.

  “You need to eat.”

  So Chad accepted the porridge spooned into his mouth. He didn’t want to eat it, but the voice encouraged him. Then he was rewarded with fingers through his hair, and soft touches to his face. His whole body burned, but when those fingers touched him, he got chills.

  “You need to take these.”

  Chad allowed the pills to be slipped past his lips and swallowed them. The straw was offered to him, and he took a mouthful of water to take them down.

  “You need to rest.”

  Chad agreed with the voice, turning his head to the murmuring sound. The man understood, and started playing with his hair, luring him into a deeper state of unconsciousness once again.

  It happened over and over, and Chad found himself longing for that voice, those soothing hands, and scratching fingers more than the food, water, and pills.

  He saw green eyes. Intense green eyes that studied him. They were wide, looking at him expectantly, almost excitedly. The fingers in his hair stopped moving, and he gave those eyes a pleading look. He didn’t want him to stop touching, to stop comforting him. He needed the man with the rumbly voice and the green eyes.

  “Please,” Chad croaked.

  The man’s eyes sparkled, a soft laugh breezed past his lips, and then he was stroking again, staring into Chad’s eyes until the need to sleep became too strong, and he drifted off.

  ****

  The next time he forced his eyes open, he was in the incident room. Kate and Martin were over by the water cooler, talking between themselves. Gareth pushed through the doors, eyes fixed on Chad.

  “Tell me what you’ve got.”

  “The farmer,” Chad said. It hurt his jaw to speak, and he tried to massage it, but couldn’t move his hands. He heard tapping but couldn’t work out where it was coming from.

  “The farmer?” Gareth said.

  “It’s him, drive there. He’s keeping me inside the barn.”

  “The barn?”

  It was Zac’s voice. Chad turned to him in the DI’s office. “Yeah, the barn—”

  “The one with the monster?”

  “That’s it, you need to find me—”

  “It’s impressive, isn’t it?”

  “What?”

  “The monster.”

  Chad could still hear the tapping, more of a knocking. Someone was knocking, but when he looked around the room, he couldn’t see anything.

  Chad scrunched his eyes shut. “I’ve not seen it.”

  “You need to see it; you need to see the eyes of the monster.”

  “I’ve seen them, I’ve seen them for real. I need you to find me.”

  “What’s he doing?” Gareth asked.

  “He’s looking
after me.”

  Gareth raised his eyebrow. “Looking after you?”

  Chad squirmed. The killer was taking care of him, trying to put out the fire inside him, helping him, and he was about to offer him up to Gareth. He’d be taken away by the police, and the fire would come back.

  “The monster’s looking after you?” Zac said, getting closer.

  Chad didn’t want to tell him; he didn’t want the pain to come back. He wanted the damp cloth on his forehead, the spoonsful of porridge, the cool water through a straw. He wanted fingers rubbing circles into his temples, and hands stroking his weakened body. He wanted care and compassion, even from a monster.

  Chad turned his head, caught something in the corner of his eye, and found the source of the tapping. A window, that shouldn’t have been there, had no place in the incident room, and faced muddy fields, and stormy clouds.

  The window was shut, and on the ledge outside sat a magpie. It was knocking a snail against the glass, trying to break the shell, trying to get to what was inside.

  The unwanted hard shell, for the wanted soft interior.

  Chad scrunched his brow, feeling another headache coming.

  Was the magpie trying to get to the snail? Or was it trying to break the glass, help him escape? The magpie knew the hell he was stuck in. The magpie had seen the monster, too, but Chad didn’t want to escape. He turned away from the magpie.

  “Chad!”

  Consciousness hit him hard, and he lurched forward, sparking pain in his leg. Romeo pinned him to the bed, then lifted his head. A disapproving look was plastered to his handsome face.

  “No sudden movements, remember.”

  “Okay…”

  He didn’t want to irritate his leg. Romeo had wrapped it up, and he couldn’t see the wound.

  Romeo hovered over his bad leg, then touched each of Chad’s toes, asking if he could feel it. He did it every time Chad woke up, and he was relieved to feel Romeo’s gentle fingers on his toes.

  “I can feel it.”

  “Good… The color’s good, too. I think I got the infection under control, but it’s taken a lot out of you.”