by Ker Dukey
My phone drops from my hand, crashing to the floor. Hernandez's muted voice vibrates the device. Horror washes over me. This man is not Jack. He’s playing me. “Lizzy, what’s wrong? Who was that?”
Lifting my hand, I point to the picture. “That’s Jack’s mom,” I croak, my voice breaking. He’s not Jack. He’s not Jack. He’s not my lost boy. Jack’s dead. Has been dead his whole time. No. No. No.
Sorrow creeps over me like moss clinging to a derelict building. He frowns, studying the image. “They found, Willis,” I announce, watching, studying his face for surprise or shock. He closes his eyes, his breathing increasing with each inhale. A stray tear leaks down my cheek.
“I can explain,” he murmurs, taking a step toward me as I take two back.
“Don’t,” I whisper, my hands outstretched.
“Liz…”
“No!” I bark, a sob bursting from my chest. “Who are you?” I scream, the veins in my skull straining.
“You know who I am. You know, Liz. You feel it.”
Shaking my head, I try to think, to play everything back, but my head is too muddled. “Who is killing people?” I blurt as the thought bursts in my head like a balloon popping.
“I don’t know…”
“No!” I bellow, keeping my hands up and bending down to reach for my phone. His eyes track my movements—a hunter is what he called himself. “Willis is dead. He’s fucking dead. It can’t be him.” Is it you? Oh god, it’s you. I stand, flicking my eyes to the screen. It’s cracked and the call has ended. Slipping it into my pocket, I say again, “Willis is dead!”
“I know he’s dead!” he roars, launching the picture across the room. The frame obliterates against the wall, showering the room in speckles of glass. My body is frozen in fear, grief. A collision of every emotion leaves my insides a car wreck.
“I killed him!”
My heart obliterates at his confession.
“I fucking killed him,” he reiterates, taking a step in my direction.
Run! I move through the apartment at full speed and take off running, knowing he’s behind me. I feel him there. My feet stumble as I reach the stairs, slipping and tumbling down the last few steps as Mrs. Briggs pokes her head out her front door, frowning at me.
“Call the police!” I screech, but she slams her door in my face. The pounding of footfalls has me spilling out onto the street, crashing into passersby. Their shocked gasps don’t stop me. I run, thrashing the asphalt. My screams are internal, tearing at my soul, trying to rip free. This can’t be real.
“Lizzy,” his voice calls out, roaring, but I don’t slow down. I run and run.
My feet are on fire, the skin chaffed and raw. I reach Marley’s and slam my hand against the door. All the lights are out, and it’s locked up. Every headlight appears to head straight for me. My mind screams for me to keep going, flee, find safety. Everything hurts, but I push my body to its limit, hammering the asphalt until I find myself on Stephan’s porch, hammering on his door. “Let me in,” I cry. “Please?”
Please be home. Please be home.
The door opens. Stephan looks shocked to see me. I launch myself at him, cradling my body to his, needing stability, safety, familiarity.
“What are you doing here?” He’s rigid against me.
“He’s not Jack,” I choke out. The agony of my words cuts so deep, I may bleed out right here at Stephan’s feet. Frowning, he checks the street, then pulls me inside, closing and latching the front door. Entwining his hand with mine, he drags me upstairs and into a bedroom.
“How did you know where I live?” He picks up a box from a shelve and shoves it beneath his bed. The room is nothing like I pictured for him. It’s barren, sterile. A bed, desk, small mini-fridge, nothing else. Everything is white. No pictures, no posters, no personality anywhere of the boy I know. “Liz, how did you get here?”
I swallow past the stone in my throat. My body is trembling. It feels like the floor is moving beneath my feet. “I ran.”
“Barefoot?” He frowns, pulling out a chair from his desk. “Sit down. You’re bleeding.” I comply, almost robotic. He leaves the room, disappearing into a bathroom, and returns with a washcloth. Bending a knee, he takes my ankle, lifts my foot, and dabs the sole. “How did you know where I lived?”
“You brought me here before. Made me wait in the car while you ran in to get your wallet.”
He pauses a couple seconds, then continues to clean my feet. “Want to tell me what’s going on?”
“You were right about Jack. God, if that’s even his name,” I ramble, my words coming out rushed, exhausted.
“Don’t move,” he orders, leaving the room. My head swims, a thousand different thoughts racing through it. Why did I feel such an instant connection with him? How did he know who I was, how to find me? Why would someone pretend to be a missing child? Questions barrel into me, knocking the air from my lungs. Could he be capable of murdering those women? It has to be him. It can’t be a coincidence.
“Here, take this. It will help with the pain,” Stephan says, coming back into the room, handing me a pill and a glass of water.
Swallowing the tablet, I down the water, spilling it a little in my trembling hand. I can’t control the shaking of my body. “Willis—Willis is dead,” I stutter out.
Stephan jerks away from me like I hit him. “What did you say?”
“I know, shocking, right?” I hobble to my feet, the sting centering me. “He’s not the one killing people.” A painful throb on my side makes me flinch. I lift my top to see a bruise forming there from my fall on the stairs.
“Wait, how do you know he’s dead?” Stephan asks, holding his hands to his head. I’ve blown his mind. I’m right there with you…only, I’ve shared my body with the real killer. Moving to his window, looking out, the trees sway to the rhythm of the wind. The world just keeps moving despite mine coming to an abrupt halt. All I see are the streets coated in blood, the moon mocking me.
“Lizzy, fucking talk to me. How do you know Willis is dead?”
“The police found his body.” My head becomes thick, my words slurring. Dropping to his bed before I stumble, my eyelids feel heavy. “What pill did you give me?”
“It’s just a Valium. Lay down, Liz.”
“No, I can’t.” Everything feels thick like I’m in Jell-O. My cell phone vibrates against my leg. Scrambling to free it from my pocket is such a task. My arms feel so heavy, I almost drop the phone when I finally grasp it. Charlotte’s picture fills the screen.
“Charlotte.” I panic. She was going back to the apartment. What if he hurts her? It takes me a couple attempts to swipe to answer her call. Stephan’s piercing eyes watch me with interest.
“Charlotte,” I groan, my tongue too thick inside my mouth.
“Liz, thank god. Where are you? Jack is freaking out.”
Run.
“He’s not Jack. Stay away from him.” It sounds weird to my own ears.
“Lizzy,” Jack’s voice croons down the line, making me weep.
“Don’t hurt her please.” Being responsible for her death is something I’d never recover from.
“I would never hurt her—or any girls, you have to know that.”
“I don’t know anything,” I sob. Stephan moves around the room, pulls out a sweater jacket, and places it over my shoulders. Something thumps from somewhere in the house, summoning Stephan’s attention, leaving me alone, fragile, broken.
“Willis kept a photo of my mother. It was the only damn thing he cared about and kept with him always. He would take it out of his wallet and show it to me, telling me about her. I think she was the only person he ever loved.”
He killed her. That’s not love. He was a beast, an animal.
“Liz, it wasn’t the woman in the photograph you had.”
I pinch the top of my nose, trying to ground myself, to stop the floor beneath me from quaking. “What?”
“I’m going to send you a picture of the picture
he had. I kept it after—”
“After you killed him,” I slur my mouth too dry. I need water. Standing on unstable legs, I stumble to the dresser, knocking the glass over when I reach for it. My phone dings, so I pull the phone away from my ear and open the image. The racing of my heart roars in my ears. A beautiful woman, hugging her rounded tummy. “That’s my mother,” I croak. Darkness closes in around me and I drown into the abyss.
Twenty-Nine
The sun has been hiding from me. I’m lost in darkness, clawing to get free, only to gasp and choke on my own despair. My skull quakes and groans, my eyes fluttering open. It takes me a moment to remember where I am.
Moonlight drips in through the window, highlighting Stephan’s bed I’m lying on.
Jack.
I search around me for my phone, the image of my mother burning into my brain.
What did that mean? Finding it next to me, I bring up my aunt’s number and call it. The battery beeps in warning. Shit.
“Lizzy?”
“I need to ask you something—and don’t lie to me.” Her breathing is all I hear. “How did Willis Langford know my mother?”
Silence.
“Tell me!” I bark, my hands balling into the duvet.
“Why don’t you come to the hotel and we can talk?”
“I don’t want to come there. Just tell me,” I demand.
“Oh, Lizzy.” Sorrow coats her words.
“No!” I snap, my head cracking in two. “Just answer the question.”
“Willis…Willis and your mother.”
Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
“She met him when she was too young—married too young.”
No. She’s lying.
“No! He’s Jack’s father! He stole Jack! He came for Jack!” I try to make sense of her words, of the photo.
“Your mother told him she was having a boy. It made her ill knowing all the girls he killed only for her to give him a daughter.”
“No!” Hot wet streams flood down my cheeks.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart.”
“But how—why wouldn’t you tell me?”
“I thought about telling you a thousand times, but you not knowing was safer. The police held this information from the public. They feared Willis would kill Jack if he found out he took the wrong child.”
I’m dying. This is what dying feels like. My insides are disintegrating. Willis was there for me that day, he just didn’t know it. I killed them—Jack’s mother and mine—just by existing.
“Lizzy…”
“My phone’s dying,” I grunt out, ending the call. Dropping back onto the bed, guilt crashes in with the power of a storm.
My heart skips when someone steps from the shadows of the corner of the room.
“How do you know that name?” the figure whispers. She steps into the light, frail, skin hanging over bone, sunken eyes an aqua blue just like Stephan’s.
“How do you know that name?” she urges, coming at me like a crazy old lady. Only she’s not that old; she’s just been beaten down by life.
“What name?” I ask, scooting up the bed, wary of her approach. She’s like a witch creeping from beneath the bed.
“Langford. Bad man. Bad, bad man.”
Pounding of my heart roars in my ears. The bedroom door flies open, and Stephan waltzes in, wearing Hades himself like a suit, his eyes stone cold.
Hands reach out for me, the woman grasping my arm. Weak, cold, fingers nip at my flesh. Stephan wraps an arm around her from behind, placing her in a headlock.
“Stephan?” I cry out as he bites the lid from a syringe, spits it across the room, and injects a needle into the woman’s neck. Fragile arms try to fight him to no avail. Her eyes flutter, arms dropping limp to her sides, and that’s when I see it. A gasp whooshes from my lips. I cover my chest with my arms to prevent my heart from bursting free. She’s missing her little finger.
Leaping from the bed, I grab a hold of her as he attempts to pull her backward.
“Who are you?” I breathe, my mind exploding with all the new information.
“She’s Natasha,” Stephan grinds out, heaving from her dead weight against him.
Natasha Presley, missing teen, victim of the Hollywell Slayer, survived her injuries…
The muscles in my legs solidify, my body frozen in utter disbelief.
“He left her with more than scars that night—a baby in her womb.”
Stumbling backward, his words whip out, striking me. Backing out the room, taking his mother with him, he says, “I know you have questions. Let me just deal with her and I’ll be back.”
The room expands, the air thick and threatening. I need air or water or to wake the hell up. My fingers splay over my chest, the thundering of my heart almost painful. Searching the room, my eyes fall on his mini-fridge. Water. I yank it open, only to realize it’s not a fridge. It’s a small freezer with a lone plastic food storage container inside.
“I wouldn’t open that,” Stephan calls out from the doorway, rubbing down his shirt to remove the creases.
“What did you inject her with?” I ask, my voice shaking. Who is this man I’ve allowed into my life? Your brother.
He takes another step into the room. It appears to shrink around him, his demeanor suddenly menacing.
“She suffers from breakdowns, delusions.” He puts a finger to his head, swirling it around in a crazy motion. “I gave her a sedative.”
My hand lingers on the box, the cold chasing a shiver up my spine, chilling my blood. He hasn’t looked away from the freezer. Why would he have a freezer in here?
“Why did you never mention who she was?” Nerves eat at my stomach. My skin tingles all over with the need to flee. The boy I called my friend looks nothing like the man before me now. There’s a change in his character, a shift to his posture, the look in his eye.
“I didn’t want you figuring things out too soon.”
This isn’t happening. Pain spreads out over my palm, my nails burrowing into the flesh. “What does that mean?” My head feels like it’s full of helium. I’m about to float away.
He takes another step toward me, so I pull the box out, holding it like a hostage victim.
He fixates on it, and tenses, his eyes glued to my hand. “Don’t make me take that from you,” he growls, and for the first time, I fear him. His jaw flexes, his mouth twisting into a sneer. “Lizzy…” My name is a warning, terrifyingly pungent on his tongue. Without thinking, I rip off the lid, my body flinching back when he roars, “Nooo!” His hands are outspread, eyes wide with horror.
I drop the box like it’s made of hot coal, each finger hitting the floor in slow motion.
Dink, dink, dink…
Vomit races up my throat, spilling from my mouth, splattering at my feet. “It’s you!” I cry out, retching. A calm appears to wash over him. He closes his eyes for a fleeting moment, then walks to where the horrors litter his bedroom floor. Kneeling down, he collects his trophies like it’s an overturned jewelry box, not human flesh.
“Why? Why!” I scream, my soul wanting to tear through my skin and flee the carcass holding me hostage.
“To draw out our father—at first.” He shrugs. Our father. “Then, I have to admit, I got a taste for the kill.” He stands, tucking the box back into the freezer. I eyeball the door behind him, weighing my options. As much as I want to escape him, I want answers just as bad.
“Do you know what it’s like growing up being hated by your own mother?” he asks, looking over at me. Rolling his shoulders, his size appears to expand under the moonlight, the monster coming alive, taking the reins. My heart splinters, the shards cutting through bone, skin, deserting me.
“I didn’t have a mother. Willis killed her,” I spit out, hatred overwhelming my sense of fear.
“Well, he failed to kill mine.” His brow quirks. “He tried. If they hadn’t caught him right at that moment, she would have bled out and died, and little me already taking root wo
uld have died right along with her. Does that terrify you or make you feel alive?” He turns to me, a callous smile transforming his pretty face.
“Impregnating her without knowing?” I breathe.
“She was sixteen when she had me. The wounds barely healed, and the scars never would. They called me a miracle child. So much trauma, yet I stuck.”
“I’m sorry.” And I mean it. What a twisted way to enter this world.
“I believe you.” He smiles, pacing the floor between us before stopping in front of me. Taking a strand of my hair, he curls it around his fingers. “You were nothing like I expected, Liz. Damn, I thought after everything you’d witnessed, you’d be just as fucked up as me. Willis’s blood in your veins on top of the ordeal…”
“I’m nothing like him,” I grit out.
“Oh, I know. But you’re not exactly normal either, are you?”
“Is that what you are—normal?” I mock.
“Fuck no. What a boring waste of life that would be. The Abigail’s of the world disgust me.”
Abigail. Sorrow and shame marinate inside me. “Is that why you killed her?”
Moving away from me, an expression of satisfaction shining in his eyes, he says, “That and to see your reaction. Someone you knew but weren’t particularly friends with. Close enough to get a reaction, not close enough to cause you pain.”
Is that what he believes? That her dying because of me wouldn’t cause me pain? Seeing people lose their lives in gruesome ways, dredging up my mother’s murder, wouldn’t have a profound effect on me? “I’ve been in pain. It fucking destroyed me thinking that bastard came back and was killing people to torment me. Why the rose? How did you know about Marco Polo?”
Scoffing, he scrunches his nose like I insulted him. “You’re always scribbling Marco on any piece of paper in your vicinity. I knew it must be for a reason.” Tilting his head, he adds, “The rose—a prop to get under your skin.”
“Why now?”
Leaning against the dresser, ankles crossed like he doesn’t have a care in the world, his shoulder jerks up. “I’d been watching from afar for so long, it became a game for me, testing my restraint, an edge game that kept my adrenaline pumping and my fire burning like a fine wine I’d been saving for the right moment. I spent weeks watching, learning your routines, the people in your life.”
