by N. M. Brown
Pari’s eyes exploded with rage and pain. “Yes.” She hissed, before raising her head high. “My husband and I were happily married for many years before we were invited here. We lived in a small home in a pleasant neighbourhood.” She raised and hand to her throat where McQueen caught a glimpse of a delicate gold necklace. “But then he made some right investments, shook hands with the right people, and we became suddenly rich. Rich beyond comprehension. Suddenly there were all these dinner date’s, luncheons days, or out to clubs and events. We loved it.” She said with a sigh, “But he grew distant: late nights, didn’t answer his phone.” At this point she wasn’t looking at them but lost in her own memories. McQueen tried the cuffs again, but they weren’t cheap ones from a kink shop. Really, government issued cuffs didn’t just ‘snap’. Whatever strength Echo mustered, McQueen put it down to rotting wood.
“It wasn’t long before I discovered he was coming here with a few friends. He said it was a selective House and to be invited was an honour. It ended up taking up so much of his time, I insisted he take me. Of course, this was when I thought we were still happily married.”
“Ah.” Echo suddenly cried. “Tall guy, moustache, with bright blue eyes. Also, Indian.” She smiled having figured it out. “I remember him. Samantha pegged him as a closet gay. Man!” She exclaimed, “Sam and I had so much fun with him.”
“He was not gay!” Pari snapped. “He was my loving husband.”
“The guys he fucked might think differently.” Echo answered back with a know-it-all-smile, shrugging her shoulders.
“Lies!!” Pari screamed with a ragged breath. She was stood, stone still, like a cat about to pounce. “My husband was devoted. He was straight, and he loved me, made me promises. If my husband… if he did anything, well, I guess I can blame you for what happened to him more than I thought. You poisoned him, body and mind!”
McQueen prayed and prayed and prayed like he never had before, but they went unanswered as Echo rolled her eyes. “Oh, grow up! Being gay isn’t a choice. It’s a lifestyle. A state of being. Your husband found relief here, instead of in your stuffy home where he was probably smothered by you. He was gay here. He was free here. He knew it, I knew it. Fuck, everyone knew it. Except you.”
McQueen saw as that last comment struck Pari deep. “Everyone knew?” Her smiled dropped. “Well then. That makes this easier.” Drawing out from behind her, a long, ugly looking kitchen knife gleamed under the bare bulb. “You see, that stupid little man took me by surprise last time. I had to knock him out, deal with him and then cart his body into that tiny locker. It also meant I had to clear out quickly. Now, I have no dogs.” She smiled sadly like it was a real shame, but it quickly turned cruel. “I will just have to do this by my own hand. But I killed my husband in a similar manner, so I don’t mind the mess.”
She began to approach Echo who had the sudden epiphany on the situation. “Come near me with that knife bitch and I’ll tear you to pieces.” Even Sydney seemed unhappy with Pari taking steps towards Echo.
McQueen needed to get a handle on the situation, quickly. “Wait, Pari, wait.” He strained against the cuffs as if he could stand between her and Echo. “Tell me; tell me why you’re doing this to us? What did we do to deserve this? What shame do we have?”
“What shame?” Pari laughed. “Isn’t it obvious?” She pointed the knife at Echo, “She is your lover, no? And you Detective, you are a married man. You are a cheater and a liar, just like the rest of them. It’s only a bonus you work my case.” She smiled. “Sorry, soon to be worked.”.
McQueen gasped. “How did you-,”
“You’re married?” Echo cried out, again forgetting she was at a knife tip. “Why the fuck didn’t you say Queenie?” she laughed, “You kept that quiet. Where is the darling Mrs. McQueen?”
“In Ireland still,” Pari answered for him, “Where he left her.”
“It’s more complicated than that.” McQueen bit out as painful memories arose.
“No. It. Isn’t.” Pari flew into a rage. “You are married, and you slept with this-… this whore.” Echo growled, asking who she was calling a whore, but Pari had her full attention on McQueen. Let Pari come for him, he thought. “You broke your vows to your wife. You left her high and dry. You are scum. I will carve you up until you bleed your vows, your heart gives out and your wife is freed from the obligations you bound her in. The obligations you tossed aside into the trash.”
“The same obligations your husband broke?” McQueen pushed, trying to keep her anger flowing. If she stopped, she would stop to kill. He needed time. No cavalry was on its way, Hale didn’t know where they were and he couldn’t see Echo’s family coming looking for her. He needed time to think of a plan. “Is that way you killed him? Fed his body to dogs too?”
“Ugh, this is boring,” Sydney wined, her body looking agitated. She was tapping her foot impatiently and so far, hadn’t removed her eyes from Echo. What was scary however, was how Echo was staring right back. “You promised I could kill her.” She snapped at Pari.
“And you will when I say so.” The woman snapped back, showing McQueen how this woman could have so easily committed murder. Turning back to McQueen, she snorted at his ridiculous assumption. “Of course, I didn’t use dogs with my husband. I might be rich but I’m not a dumb trophy wife. The poetic irony would have suited his death but I am better than that. I strategized until my plan was perfect: I found a look alike so close to my husband that he could use his passport. He booked flight to New Deli, India while his fake emails, sent by me, stated a business deal needing a face to face. I had my copy-cat fly out and suddenly get lost amongst twenty-one million people. I filed a missing person’s report after two weeks and waited.” She smiled triumphantly. “While the police were looking four thousand miles away, my husband was rotting under my rose garden.”
“That’s very clever.” McQueen was surprised more so at the shoddy police work than her criminal expertise. “How did they not find evidence of your husband’s death in the house? They would have checked for blood and foul play.”
Pari smiled, like she was almost pleased he’d asked. “I said we became rich Detective. We were quite humble before that. Some days I wonder if anything would have changed had my husband not made those good choices. I would expect he never would have been invited to that House, nor mixed circles with such powerful and corrupt people. But I digress. Before I was rich and a wife to be thrown aside, I worked for a cleaning company. You don’t work in such a business for twenty years without picking up the right chemicals for the right jobs. Ones that wouldn’t leave a trace, or if found by criminologist couldn’t be passed off as some expected contaminants.” A cunning smiled slipped across her lips.
“Then with the recent murders, you cleaned-,” McQueen tried but she waved the knife in his face.
“No, no Detective. That’s quite enough chatter now. You’ve flattered me quite enough and pressed for far too much time.” The colour drained from McQueen face. “Yes, Detective, as I say again and again, I’m not a stupid woman. Now, shall I kill you or your lover first?” Pari flipped the knife back and forth from one of them to the other. “Choices, choices.”
“Hay! You said she was mine-,” Sydney snarled, gesturing wildly with McQueen’s gun.
“Don’t tell me what I can and can’t do! Do not speak for me when you are on my pay roll!” Pair screamed back, getting dangerously close with her knife. “I will cleanse them of their Sins and I will make sure the world knows of their shame!” Sydney took a step back, seething, though Pari didn’t seem to know or care, spinning back to face McQueen. “So, who first?”
“Me, Pari. Start with me. I caused the sin. I created the shame. Take me first.” McQueen spoke, feeling his mind go numb as he accepted his fate. In that moment, when Pari’s eyes widened with delight, McQueen felt the sensation that Echo had described for Doctor Cassi in the morgue. The moment he registered his fate and accepted it: he let go of his life and his future an
d awaited death.
It was a calming feeling, but not as calming as he thought. His body still wanted to fight. His heart raced, and his muscles tensed, imagining the pain he would feel. He glimpsed for but a moment, how Lizzy would have felt. He, for a fraction of a second knew that Echo had been right. That in this moment, as he accepted death and prepared for the pain, he knew that she had been right. If what was about to come, was but a sliver of what Lizzy had gone through, he would wish for death. They had been wrong to bring Lizzy back; he knew why she would ask for death even now.
“Then my dear Detective, I shall start with her.” Pari smiled and sauntered over to Echo who looked her fiercely in the eyes while taking a step back. If ready to run or ready to fight, Echo wasn’t going to lose.
“No.”The fierce objection tickled the end of McQueen’s tongue, but hadn’t made it past his lips. The outcry, instead, had come from Sydney who looked more than displeased at the notion. “She is mine. I didn’t help you all this time to lose this!” She snarled.
“Help me?” Pari laughed, “You’ve made it more than clear a few times you helped with nothing. Not only is she the Detective’s lover so dead by association, but she fed that swill water to my husband. She poisoned him against me. So, I shall take her apart strip by st-,” Pari let out and massive gust of air as the world, suddenly and surprisingly went silent.
In the small, cramped room, the bang was deafening. It rebounded off the wall and rang in McQueen’s ears making all other sounds obsolete. Echo flinched, ducking down and curling inwards to protect her centre. McQueen twisted away to let his back take the damage but by the time they had moved, the damage was done.
A chuck of plaster and red brick from the wall between Echo and McQueen shattered apart, raining on to the floor while a choked gurgle wheezed in the silence. Facing the room again, McQueen looked over to Pari, her face twisted in pain and confusion as she looked down to her chest. Like a spring time rose, red petals bloomed across Pari’s chest while vines trailed down her shirt. The red blood turned black as it mixed with the bright orange of her top and the roots were lost in the black of her pants. Pari’s legs gave way as she tried to comprehend what was happening. Slowly, her eyes rolled back as she hit the ground dead.
Breathing heavily McQueen looked to Sydney, her face sombre and hand as still as a rock. “Gods, that woman really hated finding out her husband was a cheater. Every night she’d come back to the House, just too sit there and watch him cheat from the shadows.” Sydney snorted, “Must have made her blood boil. But never the matter; she won’t take this from me.”
The ringing had finally stopped in McQueen’s ears and he could hear it, his ragged heartbeat, Echo’s fearful but pissed off breaths and then…. Nothing. Sydney was calm. No shock, no surprise of what she’d done; just cold, hard, calm.
“Did you-…. Did you just get blood on my clothes!?!” Echo screamed, furious.
“Quite possibly.” Sydney answered mildly as she inspected the specks that had dotted her top and watched the blood seep from under Pari’s body. It ran like rivers between the cobble stoned floor. “But what’s a bit more blood on your clothes, when so much drips from your hands?” Walking forward, Sydney picked up a set of keys that had fallen from Pari’s pocket, sticky with blood. “Now, we’d best get your Detective down. I can’t very well make it look like self-defence if I kill you all tied up now.” With a low under arm swing, Sydney threw the keys to Echo, who caught them despite the surprise on her face.
The way she said it, so chipper, McQueen could have almost hurled. “Why do you want us dead?” He had connected most of the dots: why the victims were killed, how, the logistics of how the strength of one person was actually done by two… but why Sydney…
“You, poor Detective are collateral damage.” Sydney smiled, “But don’t worry, I’ll make sure when I sob my story to the police, the media, the general population; I’ll sell you as the hero, diving to save me. Taking a bullet for little old me and with your dying breath, ask that justice will forever be served…or something like that.” Sydney smiled with a laugh, “I have some time to come up with the most poetic last words for you.”
“You’re crazy.” Echo whispered in disgust, not quiet believing what was being said.
“Oh, yes, I might be crazy, but things must be done. Too much has gone into this. I might have ridden someone else’s coat tails, but they won’t mind.” Sydney muttered to herself. “They won’t mind at all. I still did the job. I finished. That’s what counts.”
“Counts? Towards what? You’re a pathetic little bitch and there is nothing you could do to replace me?” Echo mocked, making McQueen grind his teeth. If they made it out of here, first thing he was going to do was strap that girl down and force her to watch ‘Hostage Negotiation: 101’. That would, of course, only happen if Echo would un-lock his damn cuffs.
“Oh, always with the self-proclamations!” Sydney groaned. “You think you’re so fucking unique, so fucking special! Well, not any more. Now you’re about to find out how wrong you are.” Sydney snarled with a smile. “Unlock your precious ‘Queenie’, Echo. This show needs to get underway.”
Giving his cuffs a slight shake, the rattle drew Echo from whatever wrath induced trance she’d been in and she finally moved with the keys. “You need to talk her down.” He whispered to Echo who was watching Sydney like a pacing wild cat.
“Talk her down from where?” Echo spat, never quite taking her eyes of Sydney. The crazed gun-woman in turn never let Echo out of her sight, or from the other end of the barrel. “She wants to kill me. You think I’m going to let her?!” McQueen could feel her trembling at his side. She said she wasn’t scared of her home, but it wasn’t a safe place any more. McQueen couldn’t blame Echo if she was scared right now. “I’m going to rip that girl a new one!” McQueen would give her this; she had good fake bravo.
“Just… keep her talking, try and get an opening. Whatever you do… don’t be yourself.” He whispered as the cuffs clicked open and McQueen’s arms popped free.
“Against the wall Detective!” Sydney ordered, cutting their chat off. “You’re next, but first little miss perfect and I need to have a chat.”
McQueen side-stepped slowly towards the back wall, broken plaster crunching under foot. Sydney kept both of them in sight, clever girl, and kept a far enough distance too; bonus points. If they were going to get out of here alive, and McQueen was putting that as a big ‘if’, they were going to need a miracle so big, it would make Noah’s Ark look like a bath toy.
XXXII
Echo trembled again as she felt the wrath pool off Sydney. Free from the cuffs made no difference; Echo felt as trapped as before and Sydney was very, very unstable. Echo had only ever seen someone like this once and it had left Adin and herself trembling under their bed, tiny three-year-old hands clutched tight together as they rode out the waves.
Sydney was beyond mad; yet not even that, because mad didn’t… couldn’t cover it. She was infuriated but calm, which were two emotions that spun Echo on her head. Jealousy covered her like a heavy fog and yet Echo could taste the pride coming off her and sticking on the roof of her mouth. Needy but strong, fearful but empowered, invigorated but unsure… Echo could only guess that everyone in the house had done a real number on her. The constantly spinning emotions were making Echo feel sick and that was the aftermath. She couldn’t imagine what Sydney was feeling.
“What’s wrong Sydney?” Echo asked, channelling her best Sage Willows impression. The Nurse had infuriated her, but she seemed like a calm person you could speak to. Lizzy reacted well enough to her… maybe the same could be said for Sydney. “You’re not a killer. I know you. Why would you want to kill me? We’re not the best of pals but…I mean… murder? It’s a little beneath you?”
“Isn’t it obvious by now?” Sydney chuckled in a voice a little too high pitched to be completely sane. To Echo though it wasn’t obvious. “You’ve claimed everything that I’ve ever wanted.” Sy
dney span round, venom in her words but a wild smile on her lips. Pointing at Echo with her finger rather than the gun she laughed hysterically. “I had it all planned out you know. I was so grateful when they gave me a job. I needed it and this place was so renowned I couldn’t’ believe I was invited to work here! But I quickly saw I was second to you. Wonderfully wicked Echo. So damaged. So destructive. How could I compare to you?” Going back to pacing, she shook her head over and over, as if sill in denial. “I knew then I couldn’t beat you. Not when I found out the truth of who you were. Who they were. So, I thought if I couldn’t beat you, I would just have to make you less desirable.” Sydney smiled, like she’d been doing Echo a favour. “I knew you were stuck. Stuck in your broken life with your demonic family.” She laughed getting side tracked. “Family isn’t quite the word I would use to describe the Hellions.” She looked at Echo before looking at McQueen. “Does he know?” Sydney asked.
