Dark

by Aleatha Romig

  Simultaneously, I compiled as much as possible on Sergeant Major Andrew Jettison. Patrick and Mason had compiled most of his service record. I went back further, remembering Mason’s advice: if you really want to fuck Jettison, remind him who he was before you kill him for good. If you kill him as he is today, it won’t make a damn bit of difference—he’s already dead.

  Unlike all of us who had been born in and around Chicago, Andrew Jettison was born in Sacramento, California, to David and Melissa Jettison. He was the third of four children. They all survived him.

  “Oh fuck,” I said as more information came up.

  My phone vibrated with a text message. My wife’s name came upon the screen. I hit the green icon.

  * * *

  “I CONTACTED RENITA. SHE HAS MY TEST RESULTS AND WILL BE HERE AT FOUR. I’D LIKE YOU TO BE WITH ME, BUT I’M GETTING THE RESULTS.”

  * * *

  I continued to stare at her words.

  Test results?

  There was only one test we hadn’t mentioned.

  Rape kit.

  How did Lorna know Dr. Dixon had the results?

  Crimson flowed over my vision. Lorna wasn’t ready for this information. Only this morning she was crying in the shower.

  How in the hell did she learn there were results to be had?

  Not only wasn’t she ready for this information, fuck, I wasn’t ready.

  And then I had a thought—we had Jettison’s DNA. The kit would provide DNA if she was...I couldn’t even make myself think the word. My teeth ached as I applied pressure.

  If the DNA matched...

  Andrew Jettison was already taking his last breaths. If this could be added to his list of sins, there would be no salvation. And now I had more information. I’d fucking work overtime to bring back his memories, reminding him of who he was before killing him for good.

  Taking a deep breath, I laid my phone on the desk and pushing back my chair, I stood.

  The tension and tightness could be felt in my muscles. I hadn’t moved from that chair in hours. Walking away from the monitors, I stretched my shoulders. One arm over my head, I pulled my elbow upward. Closing my eyes, I pulled harder, relishing the burn. Next, I did the same with the opposite arm. Rolling my head from side to side, I knew it would take more than a few stretches to work out this tension.

  I wasn’t willing to devote the time to the weight bench or treadmill. My muscles could coil into a massive ball of yarn before I devoted more time to anything that didn’t work toward my ultimate goal.

  Finding Jettison.

  Meeting with Walters.

  And ultimately learning why the Order was after Laurel. That still seemed like a missing piece of our puzzle. At first, we assumed it was her formula, but why would they want her when it appeared as though they had a superior compound?

  The clock in the large screen above told me I had half an hour before Dr. Dixon would arrive to the apartments.

  Shaking my head, I hit call.

  “Lorna.” I spoke as soon as the phone connected.

  “Did you get my text message?”

  “Yeah, I was wondering—”

  “Reid,” she interrupted, “I can’t stand not knowing. I’m having what Laurel calls flashes—small snippets of memories. But they don’t make sense. I can’t place them or connect them. There is so much that I don’t know. I need to know something, to have an answer.”

  Her fucking voice tore at my heart. She was fighting thoughts and feelings because of me.

  If she’d been kept safe...

  My grip of the phone grew dangerously tight.

  “Reid?”

  I wanted to ask her how she even learned of the kit. I wanted to reassure her that I loved her, yet as guilt morphed into self-loathing, I turned to the six-year-old picture of Andrew Jettison.

  “Reid, are you still there?”

  “Tell me what you want, Lorna?”

  She cleared her throat. “I want to wake up and have it be three weeks ago. I want no blanks in my memory and not to hurt with every step. I want to go back to believing that despite the danger in the world, I’m safe. I want to not feel vulnerable. I’m not, Reid. I’m not. I am strong, and I want to feel that way.”

  Fuck.

  I walked over to the computers and hit a few keys, putting my screens to sleep while keeping programs running. “I’m coming up.”

  Lorna

  Twenty-six years ago

  After our grandmother died, Mason, Missy, and I moved in with our mother, Nancy Pierce. It was the first time we’d lived with our mother, other than when she would stay at Grandma’s. When she finally claimed us, she wasn’t living alone; she lived with a man named Gordon Maples and his two daughters, Anna and Zella.

  Mom told us and the lady from Children’s Services that we would all be a family and made it sound like a story from a book.

  While Missy was excited, Mason and I were weren’t sure how it would work. Why after having three children, the oldest one eleven, would she suddenly want us?

  When the car pulled up to the large white house, Mason and I looked at one another with a seed of hope. Maybe this would work. Maybe our mom could keep us and we wouldn’t end up in foster care or separated.

  It was clear even to me that Mr. Maples wasn’t pleased about the extra mouths to feed. It wasn’t unusual for one or all of us to be sent to bed without dinner. Even though he had a large house with four bedrooms, the three of us were given the attic as our room. If we behaved to his approval, we would have light. If not, there was one window and a streetlight below.

  There were ever-changing rules and long lists of chores.

  Not meeting his expectations led to punishments. Mason took the brunt of the beatings, but no one was immune from Mr. Maple’s belt, not even our mother. There were times I’d preferred the belt to the humiliation of standing in the corner of the living room while Anna and Zella watched television and laughed at me.

  Mr. Maples came up with what he called punishments to match the crime.

  One time after I’d completed washing the dishes, he found a glass I’d missed. That night, I was made to stay up all night and wash every dish. I’d put them away and he’d empty another cupboard. By morning, everything had been washed and dried five or six times. Another time it was floors that needed scrubbing.

  Days turned into weeks, weeks into months.

  My tenth birthday came.

  Then one night as I was about to sleep, the door to the attic opened. His outline appeared in the light from the stairwell. I reached for Missy, who was asleep next to me.

  “Lorna.” Mr. Maple’s voice was thick, the way it became at night after he’d drunk beer.

  Mason’s head lifted, but I shook mine at him, telling him to stay quiet.

  I’d probably need to clean some mess or apologize for something Anna or Zella did. That degradation would be less humiliating than involving Mason. He’d surely end up with a bloody lip or black eye.

  Leaving Missy asleep on the mattress we shared, wearing my nightgown, I quietly walked toward the doorway.

  “Follow me.”

  It was his only directive as we climbed down the narrow attic staircase into the hallway on the second level. We passed Zella’s bedroom and then Anna’s. My heart beat faster as I followed him down the bigger staircase that led to the living room on the main level.

  I scanned the room, wondering what was out of place, what I would need to do.

  He didn’t speak as we walked through the kitchen. Again, my eyes searched the counters, unsure what my task would be. The only things out of place were empty beer cans scattered about.

  The question of what I’d done or what I needed to do was on the tip of my tongue. It stayed there, unspoken. I worried that saying it would make him mad. Judging by the number of beer cans, he’d had a lot to drink. We then entered the rear living room, the one with the television. A cloud of cigarette smoke hung near the ceiling. My gaze went to the corner.


  Would I need to stand there?

  I told myself that it wouldn’t be as bad with Zella and Anna upstairs.

  Whatever was playing on the television echoed off the paneled walls. Every few seconds the fake sound of laughter came from the speakers. My steps stopped when I saw my mother. She didn’t see me. Her eyes were closed and her mouth open as she slept on the long plaid sofa. On the carpet, near where her hand dangled was an empty wine bottle. Mr. Maples lifted one finger to his lips before gesturing toward his and Mom’s bedroom.

  My stomach twisted and my hands trembled with each step. He was leading me into the unknown. We’d physically passed by all his normal punishments. This was different. I didn’t know what I’d done, but whatever it was, I believed in my soul that punishment was coming—I just didn’t know how he would deliver it.

  As I walked past my sleeping mother, I wanted to shake her, to wake her, and to ask her to help me.

  Would she?

  She’d probably do as she usually did, tell me to be nice, listen to Mr. Maples, and do as he says.

  I came to a stop at the threshold of their bedroom. It was the one room we weren’t allowed to enter. My eyes quickly scanned the room. The bed was unmade. The carpeted floor was stained and littered with piles of clothes, overflowing hampers of dirty laundry, cigarette butts, and other trash.

  There were more beer cans.

  “Go-on,” he urged, his two words slurred into one.

  My heart beat faster. Once he closed the door with both of us inside, I turned and apologized for whatever sin I’d committed.

  “No, Lorna. Stay quiet.”

  Though I had a strange feeling, my lips came together, obeying as I nodded.

  “I like you.” His voice held an odd tone. “You like me, don’t you?”

  I wanted to scream no. I don’t like you. But instead, I again nodded.

  “Good.” He smiled, his teeth stained yellow from cigarettes. “You and me, we’re going to share a secret.” The stale scent of beer and cigarette smoke surrounded him as he came closer. “You like secrets? Don’t you?”

  My trembling increased as I tried to back away.

  He shook his head. “You can’t tell anyone about us. That’s the rule with secrets.”

  “Mr. Maples...I need to go to bed. I have school.”

  His glassy gray eyes scanned as I stood in my nightgown. The way he stared felt wrong in a bad way I didn’t understand. I wasn’t sure why I didn’t like the way he was looking at me, but I didn’t. It sent a cold chill over my body as small hairs stood up on my arms and legs.

  “You look real pretty, Lorna. You look like your momma.” He came closer and lifted a strand of my hair between his fingers. “You have her pretty red hair.”

  I stood frozen. It wasn’t that the room was cold—it was much warmer than up in the attic. It was as if I couldn’t move. Mr. Maples was talking to me, telling me about secrets and special friends, telling me how nice he can be and how I should appreciate his compliments.

  “Don’t you like to hear how pretty you are?”

  I didn’t, not from him.

  “Don’t be scared, Lorna. We’re going to be good friends.” He continued to touch my hair and talk about the color. It was when he asked me if I had pretty red hair between my legs that my eyes filled with tears.

  “No, I’m not old enough,” I answered.

  “I’d like to see.”

  I shook my head. “Grandma taught us that anyplace that a bathing suit covers was our private areas. Those are only ours and no one else’s.”

  As he wiped away a tear from my cheek, I noticed his dirty fingernails and grimy skin. “It’s okay, Lorna. You and me, we’re friends, and friends can share special things and special places—even private places.” He reached for his belt buckle.

  Before he said anything else, I jumped backward and tripped, falling backward. “Please.” I knew the sting of his belt, not as much as Mason, but I did.

  “Shh,” he said with a laugh. “No, Lorna. I’m going to show you what friends do. I’m going to show you my private place, and then you can show me yours.”

  Still sitting on the floor, I lowered my chin, not sure what to do. I closed my eyes, wishing for anything—lightning to strike him, lightning to strike me, or maybe my mom to wake.

  “Stand up.”

  My heart beat so fast, the room swayed as I stood.

  The stench of stale beer grew stronger as he whispered close to my ear. “Be a good friend, Lorna, and this will be our secret. If you tell anyone, we won’t be able to be friends. I’ll have to make Missy my friend.”

  I sucked in a breath of the sour air.

  “Open your eyes.”

  I had a brother only a year older than me. I knew that boys and girls were different. But I’d never seen a grown man’s penis. Instead of it lying between his legs, his was ugly, big, and sticking out like an angry stick with a mushroom-shaped top.

  Mr. Maples had asked me about hair between my legs. I didn’t have any, but he did. My nose scrunched. It was black and curly. It wasn’t only between his legs. A line went up his fat belly, and his legs were also covered, just not as thick.

  “Do you want to be my friend, or do you think it should be Missy?”

  Although I didn’t know exactly what the future held, I knew that my job was to protect my sister. “Me,” I answered, my voice barely audible over my pounding heart.

  He smiled in a scary way like the villains in comic books. “So you want to be my special friend?”

  I nodded.

  “Tell me, Lorna. Let me hear you ask me.”

  “Can I-I...?” my voice stuttered.

  He reached for my chin and spoke slowly. “Please, Mr. Maples. Let me be your special friend. I promise I won’t tell anyone. I promise I won’t break your trust.”

  Lorna

  Twenty-six years ago

  The dinner I’d eaten long ago churned in my gut. I wasn’t sure how I did it, how I repeated what Mr. Maples said, but somehow, I made the words come out. “Please, Mr. Maples. Let me be your special friend. I promise I won’t tell anyone. I promise I won’t break your trust.”

  “Now that we’re special friends, you can touch my private part. Only good girls get to touch it.”

  I knew in my ten-year-old heart that it was wrong. I was wrong. This was wrong.

  However, I’d asked for it, and I was too scared to stop, terrified of making him mad. I’d seen him mad. Whatever this was that he wanted me to do wouldn’t be as bad as his belt or some of the other punishments he could invent. I could do this and go back to bed.

  That was what I told myself.

  My hand shook as if the temperature of the room had dropped to below freezing as I reached toward him. The tips of my fingers made contact.

  “That’s it. Really touch it.”

  I did. It felt...weird.

  He covered my hand with his and curled my fingers around his private part. “Let me teach you how to make a friend feel good.”

  I didn’t speak as he moved my hand up and down. As he did, he made strange noises as his eyes closed, his legs shifted, and his breathing became weird. It sounded as if he’d been running and was out of breath. Beneath my hand, his penis moved and twitched.

  “Please let me stop,” I pleaded as my stomach rolled.

  “Not yet.”

  Again, I closed my eyes. He squeezed my fingers tighter and moved my hand faster. The skin on his penis stretched under my touch. His feet staggered and more cuss words came in a mumbled whisper, yet he didn’t slow. I was afraid to look at what was going on under my grip, and then it happened.

  My first thought was that he’d peed.

  I jumped back as warm liquid hit my feet. “I’m sorry.” I knew how embarrassed Missy was when she had an accident. Mr. Maples was a grown man. Surely, he’d be angry that I saw him do this. “Please don’t be mad.”

  He breathed in and out. “I’m not mad, Lorna. What happened is a goo
d thing. You did such a good job, you made me come.”

  His words didn’t make sense.

  Come?

  Where was he that he came?

  Why wasn’t he mad?

  Mr. Maples tilted his head toward the attached bathroom. “Go fetch a washcloth and clean this up.”

  As if I was in a daze, I obeyed. My entire body trembled as I stepped around the wet spot and the debris littering the carpet of their room. In the bathroom, I found a twisted washcloth in the bottom of the tub. I quickly saturated it with water and carried it back out.

  Mr. Maples’s penis was still in his hand as he pointed to the carpet. “Clean that up so we can keep our secret.”

  Tears flowed down my cheeks, dripping from my chin, as I scrubbed the carpet. I wasn’t sure how one stain was different than the other, but I didn’t stop scrubbing until he told me I could.

  “Look up here.”

  Still on my knees, I turned. His penis was now in front of me.

  “Are you going to keep our secret?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who will you tell?”

  My head shook. “No one. I promise.”

  The hand that had been holding his penis was wet and smelled. I shivered as he used it to cup my cheek, concentrating on not pulling away.

  “I sure do like having this private secret with such a pretty little girl. Do you want to stay my special friend?”

  “Yes.” It wasn’t what I wanted. I wanted to go back upstairs to our attic. I wanted to be back with our grandmother. I wanted to pack all our things and run far away.

  I wanted anything, anything at all, except to be his special friend.

  “Next time,” he said.

  Next time?

  I didn’t want there to be a next time.

  His hand was back to moving up and down his penis. “Next time, you can show me that you don’t need my help. You can be a good girl on your own.” He took a step closer. “Now, let me tell you another secret.” I didn’t speak or move. “Secret friends kiss good night.”

  That was the last thing I wanted. I didn’t want to kiss him or for my lips to touch his. I’d seen the gross way he and my mom kissed.