by Keya Jay
Chapter thirty-seven: Skylar Royce
Skylar couldn’t help but toss and turn last night, her nightmare wasn’t really a nightmare at all but it felt like one.
Skylar left the house last night and she didn’t know what exactly she was looking for but she’d know when she found it she was sure of that. She didn’t walk far from the house when she saw Brooke and Casper walking her way.
She didn’t feel good, and she looked like a street walker as she tried to walk toward the pair. There were words spoken between the two before they approached her, there was something off with Brooke’s voice as she called Skylar’s name. Skylar tried to answer her but she couldn’t manage the few words needed to so.
Casper walked toward her and for some reason Skylar was scared and she found herself backing up. When Brooke reached for her she smacked Brooke’s hand out of her face and she began yelling at her asking her how could she and things of that nature. Brooke looked at her like she was crazy and then Skylar said that she knew what she did to her mother and Brooke got mad and started lashing out at her telling Casper that they had to get her. Skylar got even more afraid as she backed away from the pair.
Earlier that night Skylar could see flashes of her by Mr. Wallace’s house, she doesn’t remember why she was there but she witnessing herself drain the power out of Mr. Wallace, mark him before she set his body on fire and something about that moment had clicked for Skylar.
Now Skylar was back to the night she had been found passed out in her back yard. Brooke and Casper were speaking as if she couldn’t hear them and though she could indeed hear them she couldn’t make sense of what they were saying. Casper lunged for Skylar and grabbed her by the arm and began to pull her toward them, Skylar could remember her fighting the two of them and then she felt a pinch in the back of back and was sure that she had just been injected by something but couldn’t remember what that was as she slowly began to lose conscience.
Skylar woke up panting and sweating. She looked over to confirm that Ryder was still in the bed with her and she could see him slowly awakening. She rubbed her hands down her face and went to get out of the bed.
“What happened?” Ryder asked as he peered at her through barely opened eyes.
“I remember what happened last night,” she announced.
“Really?” he asked as he got up fully. “How’d you manage to remember?”
“I don’t know, I kind of just relived it in my dreams,” she said as she lifted her shirt over her head.
“What are you doing?” he asked as he watched her.
“You think you can do me a favor?” she asked as she let the shirt drop to the floor.
Ryder raised a brow at her, “Uh it depends are you about to ask me to do what I think you’re about to ask me?” he asked with a cocky smile.
“No,” she said with a frown. “I need you to look at my back and tell me what you see,” she said as she turned around and gathered all of her hair in one hand. Ryder huffed; this was not what he had in mind. He got up from the bed and walked over to where she stood, she moved her body slightly so he could see it in the light.
“There’s nothing here,” he said.
“Are you sure?” she asked as she looked at him over her shoulder. “How about you turn the lights on,” she suggested. Ryder did as she asked and then joined her back in the middle of the room.
“Ok, now I see it.”
“What is it, is it some kind of mark?” she asked sounding a bit hopeful.
“Yes,” he confirmed.
“Oh shit a part of me was hoping you’d say no,” she said as she turned to look at him.
“Why?”
“Because that means I know who the WKK is,” she said as she walked past him and out of her room and down the stairs.
“You know?” Ryder asked as he tried to keep up with her.
“Yes,” she said as she entered the dark room. She turned on both walls and began scribbling away; she pulled out a manila folder from the only piece of furniture in the room.
“What are you doing?” he asked as he joined her.
“Look at these pictures, and tell me if the mark on my back matches any of these,” she said as she handed him the folder.
“Yea, it does.”
“Shit,” she said again.
“Do you mind explaining this to me so that I can understand?” he asked as he watched her pace and regard her wall of notes every five seconds.
“Brooke is the WKK,” she announced.
“Seriously?’ he asked disbelievingly.
“Seriously and here’s why I think she did it. You told me that Aaron was her father correct? And so all of this time I’ve been lead to believe that she didn’t know who her father was and that he had abandoned her. All growing up Brooke treated my parents like her own. When my dad had died she treated as though it was her dad. The moment my mother had gotten “sick” she became extra concerned and declared that she’d be the one to take care of her for me and me being stupid and not knowing why let her. She claimed that my mother was getting better and that she’d be ok all the while my mother was getting worse and worse. My mother was trying to tell me that she wanted to go to the hospital and that she didn’t want to be taken care of by Brooke but I never listened to her. Then my mother started to lose her mind—literally. She developed amnesia out of know where she was a little too young for it so it made no sense to me. Brooke was excellent at acting and she played us all. She got me to teach her how to drain a wisp she really wanted to learn though she wasn’t a whisperer—so I thought. So I taught her not at all knowing that someday she’d use for all of the wrong purposes. I taught her how to mark a body in order to know if something had gone wrong with the draining process if it was your wisp or not. My signature mark was always on the left shoulder and it was an x where as her’s was always on the back and it was something like a swirl, just like these,” she said motioning toward the pictures.
“What about Hank what does he have to do with all of this?”
“I’m not sure that Brooke even knows that Hank is involved. She knows that he is her mother’s boss but she isn’t aware of all of the other things he is I think she thinks that he’s pretty much harmless and nothing to worry about.”
“Well there is where she’s wrong.”
“But having Hank involved just might be a good think,” she mused out loud.
“How so?”
“Well because nine times out of ten Hank is against whatever it is Brooke is trying to achieve and so therefore his plans are to stop her for whatever reason.” Ryder looked uncomfortable as Skylar looked over her should to confirm that he was following along. “What is it?” she asked knowing that look of his all too well.
“Umm, there’s something you don’t know. Something that might or might not be of any importance but still I think you should know, any ways you never know it might help, besides your uncle said you could find evidence in the littlest of things, and God I sure hope that’s true,” he said more to himself than to her.
“What is it Ryder?” she asked. Ryder took a deep breath and let it out slowly.
“Aaron is still alive.” And just like that Skylar knew that in those four words was a connection.
“When did you find this out?” Skylar asked.
“Somehow I kind of always knew that he was but Sidney said that her mother had gotten an email from Aaron but she wasn’t sure whether or not it was a prank.”
“Are you’re sure?”
“Sure of what?” he asked confused.
“Sure that it’s not some kind of prank?”
“No, I’m not sure but like I said I’ve always thought that he was still alive, no one has ever been able to defeat him let alone kill him so…I don’t know,” he said with a shrug of his shoulder. Skylar tried to process this all but something was still missing, it made no sense to her.
“What would Brooke want with Aaron, I know he’s her father but…it just doesn’t
make any sense why would she need to kill whisperers and where does Aaron come into play?” she pondered aloud.
“Maybe we’re missing something,” Ryder said.
“We’re missing a lot of things like Aaron for one,” she said as she turned away from Ryder to look at her wall of evidence. “I know where the wisp are coming from now, I know where they’re being dumped but I don’t know where they’re being drained.”
“Maybe Hank plays a bigger part in all of this then we thought,” Ryder suggested.
“What do you mean?” Skylar asked as she turned to face him.
“I mean why would Hank go through all of those changes if not for a greater purpose? He went from Richard, then to Hank we don’t even know how many there were before that and all of those people are somehow connected to Aaron’s life.”
“Brooke did say that her mother thought that she had been Hank’s psychiatrist once upon a time but she wasn’t sure because he went by a different name, what if that was Hank? If we could find that out then there’s sure to be some tell tell sign of why he’s doing what he’s doing.”
“How are we gonna find out whether or not Brooke’s mother was his psychiatrist?”
“We have to go through her older files.”
“And where does she keep those?”
“In her office.”
“And how are we gonna get there?”
“You’re going to drive us there, silly,” she said as she flashed him a teasing smile.
“You know that’s not what I meant, how are we going to be permitted access?”
“I guess we’ll find out once we get there.”
“You know this isn’t smart,” he frowned.
“Since when does anything we do classify as smart?”
My Dearest Aaron
To: 050972
From: Unknown Recipient
Subject: 3 days
My Dearest Aaron,
I was the one you abandoned, I was the one you took for granted, the one you couldn’t stand. It hurt—to be disowned, to be let go of, to know that there is no love—left for me.
You desired better and I wasn’t it. As I sat and watched you leave you didn’t give a shit but who was I to stop you; to prevent you from moving on to new—and better things? Things that no longer involved me. I was no one but now to your very own freedom I hold the key.
So what will it be? The secret you never wanted any parts of? Or the life you favored over me and everyone else above? What will you choose? For the first time I’m leaving the choice up to you, so choose wisely. Now, what will it be?
Brooke entered the little white cubical space where she has been keeping Aaron. She could see her father huddled up in the corner and the little blonde kid she had tricked into coming with her in the opposite corner.
“What the hell do you want from me?!” the little blonde kid snapped as he seen her enter the “room”.
“Well for now I just need you to be quiet.”
“Not gonna happen until you tell me why the hell I’m here,” he said as he scooted across the floor with his hands still bound and placed his back against the wall farthest from her. Brooke intentionally separated the two just in case they decided to get slick and use each other to untie themselves.
“So what is it that you’ve decided to do daddy?” Brooke asked tauntingly.
“Why are you doing this?” he asked instead of answering her question.
“I’ll give you till tonight to make up your mind in the mean time you have three days before I decide your fate so choose wisely, and while you will be here I’ll go rally up your next sacrifice,” she said cheerfully. “Thanks to that book of secrets you have created and that I have stolen might I add, I now know that the most powerful whisperers, believe it or not ‘cause I know I sure didn’t, seems to be the children so that shall be your next sacrifice. One child contains the power of two whisperers who would have known?” she said as she laughed cynically as she turned to leave.
“Hey! What about me?!” Carter screamed as she went to leave.
“What about you?”
“You can’t leave me here.”
“You won’t be here for long trust me,” she said.
“Why are you doing this?”
“Ask him,” she said motioning toward Aaron. Brooke closed the door behind her and smiled to herself as she went to collect that child needed to finish this off.