by Diann Merit
Anonymous can’t imagine that he was born like this. He can’t have been. Then again,
Anonymous can kill without losing sleep at night. He has done it regularly. What sets him
apart from this bastard? The method in which they kill? Because Brandt doesn’t kill for the
fun of it? What is it about this case in particular that has him questioning, and second-
guessing everything that he knows? Regardless of when Scarlet plucked him off the streets,
Anonymous/Brandt has been living this life for more years than he hasn’t. This is who he is.
He takes a second look at the body before him. She is posed carefully, the pile of entrails
on the ground leading him in the direction of the office. He knows that whatever he is walking
in on, is going to be a trap. Tara’s entrails direct Anonymous in the direction of the office. He
approaches slowly, hearing Malcolm talking to himself softly between sniffled sobs.
“Is this the price that I am meant to pay?” Malcolm sobs into the air and stares at a blank
spot on the far wall. Malcolm’s beady eyes focus back to the same spot over and over again.
“How have I failed you?” He pulls at his shirt, looking like a scorned child. “I just wanted to
make my art, to share it with the world. When you told me that my day would come, you
never said that it would be so soon! And at the hands of one so like me. Can fate be so cruel?”
He must have known that Anonymous was here; he is certain of it, but Malcolm makes
no movements to show it. “Of course they know. They must be who they are. Too corrupt to
give and take checks and balances and this is mine.” Malcolm speaks more quickly, his throat
clogging with emotion as he does. “But he will not turn me into art. He will not make me what
I am; he will not do me justice!” Malcolm’s body sags and Anonymous stands there, transfixed
and unable to move.
“It all must end I know . . . I do.” Malcolm rises to his feet and heads out past Anonymous
as if he can’t even see him. His eyes are glassed over, red-rimmed from the tears. Anonymous
knows he should have taken his shot. He should have used the free moment to end him, to
put his hands on either side of his head and snap his neck one final time to the side. End this
once and for all, but something inside him needs to know whom he is talking to. It isn’t just
the deranged ramblings of a madman; it is a conversation. He can feel it. He needs answers;
there is something in his gut telling him that he needs to follow.
Malcolm moves down the hallway, staggering as he goes, bumping from one wall to the
other in a wailing stupor. Not at all the man that Anonymous had seen the other day standing
at the foot of Tara’s bed. This is somebody else entirely.
Malcolm moves like a man possessed. On his way past his previous works, he is like a
shell of a human. Anonymous follows him. Malcolm stops to caress each painting for a second
or two--but never longer than that--until he reaches what seems to be either a storeroom or
a staging area or something of that nature. A large space has a white tarp draped tightly over
the floor. Malcolm steps out of his blood-splattered boots before stepping onto the mat,
leaving bloody sock prints as he goes.
Anonymous has been expecting a showdown. He has been prepared for something
violent that will end in more pain; he has been expecting a fight. He hasn't been expecting
Malcolm to have a full mental breakdown. Malcolm freezes, looking at something just to the
side. "Why, hello," Malcolm’s head tilts curiously.
Malcolm holds his hand as if he’s tracing the outline of a lover’s face. "Can you see
them?" For the first time tonight, Anonymous thinks that he is being addressed directly. He
turns in a half-circle, as if he is looking at a myriad of faces surrounding him. He points in
turn from one invisible being to another. "How they would love to tear me apart," Malcolm
laughs "only I did it to them first." He pulls his shirt from his body and holds his hand over
the lower half of his face. "Can you feel their rage? I know you can; they told me the one who
would come is like me."
Again, he is comparing the two of them and Anonymous doesn’t care for it. He doesn’t
want to be lumped in with the crazy . . . but he can see them. He can see hazy outlines like
ripples of air outlining the places where Malcolm is looking.
He must have lost more blood than he thought.
He must have hit his head too hard, or something, but he can fucking see them.
Anonymous’ eyes widen in surprise, almost taking his focus off the target at hand. He has a
million questions. Does Malcolm have visions too? Does he see things before they happen?
How long has it been happening? What does he see? How is he controlling it? Confused,
Anonymous moves to step onto the canvas to pepper him with questions. He will torture the
answers out of him if he has to. This is something he can’t live with not knowing. Not when
he is so close to finally, really, learning something useful.
Anonymous’ boots wrinkle the tarp they are standing on. The makeshift canvas shifts
and Malcolm screams holding his arm up to stop Anonymous. "No! This is what you're here
for!"
Anonymous realizes what he means a second too late. He is here to see Malcolm die, and
he is going to take that right away from Anonymous.
Malcolm stands in the center of the canvas with his arms outstretched to his sides for a
long moment. He spins in a slow circle and Anonymous can see the large knife tucked into
the back of his pants. Anonymous moves to stop him, just until he gets the answers that he
so desperately needs.
"My masterpiece," Malcolm whispers. A flint of silver and the knife is lifted above his
head. Malcolm plunges the knife deep into his own belly with a yowl and takes the knife up
his person until his organs start to fall from his body. The stupidly pleased smile never once
leaves Anonymous’ face.
After all of that . . . all of the blood on his hands . . . he kills himself.
Malcolm's body drops to his knees and he kneels there, using his last gleeful breaths to
flick the blood like paint splatters around himself. Sirens sound in the distance and
Anonymous knows he doesn't have enough time to search the scene like he would want. He
barely has time to check Malcolm’s pockets for clues, for anything that might help him make
sense of the situation. He must have had visions too . . . and if he is working for or with
somebody, he needs to know.
Malcolm has been saying over and over that ‘they’ had told him things. Did he mean the
visions spoke to him or was he working with that other party that had warned Alyssa’s father
about his coming? Malcolm said that somebody was saying that Anonymous was coming
even though he hadn't known who Anonymous was.
Whoever had known it . . . it couldn’t have been Scarlet. They wouldn’t have sent him
here to die, would they? He doesn’t know anymore. Not with what he has just learned about
Hayley and himself.
He has to get out of here before the police arrive. Accidentally, he leaves a path of bloody
boot prints on the large canvas in his hasty escape. He is leaving with more questions than
he came here with. He hates to think that prick is right in saying that they are like one another
in any way
. He needs to find Malcolm's file at Scarlet, and he certainly needs to find his own.
He has to figure out these visions. He hasn’t been allowed back at the headquarters building
since he finished his training and he is going to have to change that now.
Nothing about this case is right. It is all too easy. Nothing is fitting as it should and he
feels like there is way too much missing information. It doesn’t matter to him if Malcolm is
killed because he isn’t the one to do it.
Technically, Anonymous failed this mission. How is he supposed to report that to
Scarlet?
Does he even really have a choice?
He needs to go home. This is entirely too much for him.
Brandt has never had a harder time going home.
It almost doesn’t even feel like a home anymore, not because of who is in it, but because
it doesn’t feel like his anymore. With how much he is questioning Scarlet now, he doesn’t
want to step back into the life that they have carved out for him.
It is going to be impossible to look Alyssa in the eye. He has hardly cleaned himself up
properly since coming back to his town. He goes straight to the apartment and showers
without a single word. He knows that she is full of questions.
He knows that she's dying to ask him what happened, or why he hasn’t called, or what
has taken him so long. What’s more, she has that somber look on her face that he has only
seen a couple times before.
“You know, don’t you,” he starts, unsure of how to break the news to her any other way,
carefully rubbing the water from his hair with his towel.
“That my mom is gone? Yeah.” She folds further in on herself where she sits on the
couch. He hates when she makes herself look so very small. “So she called you?”
“Yeah, sort of. I was in the middle of the case; it isn’t like I was really able to talk to her
much; for what it’s worth, I told her not to go.”
“All I got is a ‘Goodbye’ text. Don’t suppose that you’re going to fill in the blanks for me
as to what must have happened with her to make her leave again?”
“I don’t think it is a good idea to involve you any more than you already have been.”
“You always say that!” Alyssa snaps, standing from the couch and nearly stomping her
foot. “I’m here aren’t I? I’m not running away, I can handle it!”
Perhaps that is true. With what she has already been through in her life, perhaps she
can handle it. Brandt isn’t going to tell her to breathe. He isn’t going to tell her to calm down
because he knows that it would do no good. Alyssa is on the brink of tears as it is. Being alone
this last while must have been really hard on her.
“Nobody said that you couldn’t handle it. I said that it would be a bad idea.”
“That’s not your choice to make! You don’t get to shelter me!”
“I don’t even fully know what happened, Alyssa. It was a garbled phone call and we were
both rushed. I told her to call me again before she left. She promised to talk to me about it . .
. but she didn’t. She just left. I don’t know what she found out; I haven’t had a chance to check
back in and when I do, it isn’t going to be good. Whatever little test they put me through, I
failed; I have no idea what’s about to come for us, what sort of shit storm we are about to
have to handle and I need to figure that out first!” He is so close to losing his temper.
Alyssa’s eyes widen; she’s never heard him say so many words at once in the months
that she has known him.
Brandt continues. “I have to go back there, and that isn’t something that I thought I
would have to do. It isn’t something that I ever wanted to do. All I know is that your mother
found something in her file and I need to do the same. This asshole that they had me kill--
that I failed to kill on this last case--I think he might have had visions like me, and now he’s
dead because that is my job and I need to finish the mission. I have to face the consequences
of my failure and face whatever the hell is about to come for me next. I can’t fix your mother.
She is an adult, and she will do whatever she feels she needs to do and you can either
understand that or you can go pout somewhere else.”
Alyssa sits down again, contemplating what she wants to say. They have never lashed
out at one another before.
“You think this monster had visions?”
“Yes. I think we shared a vision there at the end. I think he was attempting to pull me
into whatever he was seeing only I couldn’t quite do it. No matter what I do, I can’t seem to
get a handle on how to control it . . . and every place I went, every murder that I witnessed
seemed to be pulling me into their death, wanting me to see it . . . for me to hear them. I don’t
know how else to explain it.”
“So then we need to focus on figuring out the source of these visions, and if they
happened to you before or after Scarlet.”
“Yes. I have no idea how to do that.”
“Me either, Brandt.”
“Well so long as we have a plan then.”
Alyssa laughs. It is an insane thing that they are to embark on.
Anonymous doesn’t have any idea where to start. “I need to go through his personal
effects.”
Alyssa nods. “Do you want to be alone when you do it?” Brandt nods.
He takes the bag of bloody personal effects with him back into the bedroom and shuts
the door. There is the shirt and knife that Malcolm touched last. Brandt is wary to touch them
at first because he is not ready to trigger another vision, not yet. Instead he goes for the
wallet, picking apart the license, hoping for any insight at all, hoping to gather enough
information to figure out who Malcolm was before all of this. Perhaps, since he couldn’t track
his own history then he could at least track Malcolm’s and figure out who he was before all
of this. If he had always had visions, then there would likely at least be something to tell him
where Malcolm came from. Maybe they had something in common? Those were things that
he would have Alyssa look into. That was absolutely her strong suit.
The last thing in the wallet is a thick manilla business card. Brandt turns it over slowly
in his fingers.
The manilla card has one word typed on it in a simple font. Failure. It isn’t meant for
him; it is meant for Malcolm; once again they have seen him coming. Once again, they are
ahead of him. Anonymous isn’t used to having the wool pulled over his eyes, or perhaps he
is too used to it. He just isn’t used to it being done by somebody other than Scarlet. Is this
another player out there? Does Scarlet have competition? Even more, what do they want
with him?
The story continuous . . .
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be greatly appreciated.
Check out the next episode of Nadia Siddiqui’s
ANONYMOUS, The Loving Man-Eater.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Nadia Siddiqui has always been an author at heart—writing stories in her room since she
was in high school. Now her stories come to life. She spends time with her calico cat in Los
Angeles, CA.
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ALSO BY NADIA SIDDIQUI
In the Blood of Justice (Anonymous Series Book 1)
Painted Corpses (Anonymous Series Book 2)
The Loving Man-Eater (Anonymous Series Book 3)
Red Tears (Anonymous Series Book 4)
The Road to Remember (Anonymous Series Book 5)
Preyed Upon (Dark Place collection)
Document Outline
Prologue
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3
4
5
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7
The story continuous . . .
Check out the next episode of Nadia Siddiqui’s
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ALSO BY NADIA SIDDIQUI
