Paper Dolls

by Hanna Peach

  Silly, I know. I was there alone. But I still felt a little guilty thrill as I surveyed his papers. It looked like he was starting some sketches. One caught my eye, a half-finished drawing of a woman, thin and pale with long red hair and a blue mask across the upper part of her face showing just her grey eyes. Her features were pulled into grim determination, her palms out and some kind of blue magic was pouring from her hands. I guessed she was supposed to be some kind of superhero.

  Maybe I was reading into it too much, but this cartoon looked…like me.

  I read the title scrawled in the top right-hand corner. Adventures of Aria: The Temple of Yesterdays.

  This was me. Clay had made a character from me? He had made a comic from me?

  I couldn’t help the grin that formed on my face. Clay was drawing a character based on me. I traced my image sake, my heart fluttering. He really cared about me, didn’t he? He even found a way to weave me into his work.

  When was he going to tell me? Maybe this was supposed to be a surprise. Well, I wouldn’t say anything to him.

  What if he actually got this comic published? I would be immortalised in ink. How fun. His love for me there on printed paper for the world to see. My smile slid off my face. What if someone recognised me? What if they came looking for me to find Salem?

  I shook my head as I turned my back on the table. Don’t be silly, Aria. That was three years ago. And it’s just a cartoon, not a mugshot.

  I tried the door to his bathroom but it was locked from this side. I’d have to go through his bedroom.

  His bed was unmade. There were a few clothes about the place. I stopped in his bedroom, chewing my lip. The place was messier than the last time. Dr Bing said that keeping things tidy was an indicator of how ‘okay’ he was. If things began to slip in his head then so would his environment.

  I began to feel a little uneasy. Clay had said that his accident was an accident, but…what if he was beginning to relapse? What if he saw something on the road that wasn’t there? What if he heard something that wasn’t real that caused him to run off the road?

  Should I bring this up with Clay?

  I was still pondering this as I stepped into his bathroom. I grabbed his toothbrush, toothpaste and a comb. He also wanted deodorant but I wasn’t sure where he kept it. Maybe under the sink? I froze when I opened the cabinet. A box of condoms sat in the middle of the top shelf blaring at me in bright red packaging.

  An open box of condoms.

  Condoms that he wasn’t using with me. Who the hell was he using them with?

  Calm down, Aria. This doesn’t mean anything. You know he had sex before you. This was probably just a box left over from before. Right?

  Slapping flesh, grunting, bumping uglies, rooting, doing it. Hard and fast and rough.

  Stop it. Clay’s not like that.

  Clay’s a guy. All guys are like that.

  I didn’t really believe that. That was something Salem said, not me.

  I spotted Clay’s deodorant and snatched it, slamming the cupboard shut.

  I couldn’t get my mind off that box of condoms in his bathroom. Then to the mess in his room. It was almost as messy as Salem’s side of the room.

  Clay had said once that when he relapsed he would sometimes hallucinate that a person in the room with him was someone else. Could he ever cheat on me without realising it? Would Salem…?

  God, I was being stupid. So stupid. I was letting Salem’s paranoia cloud my own judgement. Clay loved me.

  “Are you okay?”

  An unfamiliar voice broke through my thoughts.

  I glanced around. I was in the elevator at the hospital and the nurse, who just stepped in, was looking at me strangely. I had left Clay’s apartment and had driven all the way over to the hospital with these stupid thoughts jumbling about in my head.

  “I’m fine,” I lied.

  She pointed at the panel where none of the buttons were lit. “You didn’t press any buttons. What floor did you want?”

  My floor.

  I glanced up to the floor number. I was already on the fourth floor. I stuck my hand out to stop the lift doors from closing. “This is my floor. Thanks.”

  She frowned at me as I shot her a thankful smile over my shoulder. I must have looked weird just standing there, staring into space.

  In between doctors and patients my eyes caught a flash of red at Clay’s door. Someone with long red hair was walking away down the corridor. Was that…Salem? Coming out of Clay’s room?

  I frowned. It couldn’t be.

  I began to stalk down the hall towards her, my footsteps clipped and hurried. She didn’t glance back so I didn’t see her face but she was the same height and build. I wanted to call out to her but the corridor was too crowded and I just wasn’t sure. I dodged several people and a wheelchair.

  The redhead pushed through a door and disappeared. I walked faster, almost jogging now. I reached the door, Stairs marked across it. I shoved it open and fell into a fluorescent-lit double-wide stairwell. I gripped the railing and stared up and down the swirling stairs. But it was empty.

  She’d gone.

  She must have gotten off at one of the other floors.

  I walked back to Clay’s room, my mind a whir. Could that really have been Salem? Why would Salem be visiting Clay?

  My blood ran cold. Could she have come here to…hurt him while he was weakened?

  I barrelled into Clay’s room and found him awake. Thank God, he was fine. I was just being silly.

  His face lit up when he saw me, then soured to concern. “What’s wrong?”

  “Who was just here?”

  He frowned. “No one.”

  But I saw her coming out of Clay’s room.

  Did you, Aria? “Are you sure?”

  “Of course I’m sure.”

  “No one came to visit you while I was away?”

  “Who would come visit me?”

  “I don’t know.” Could Clay be lying? Why would he be lying? Unless he didn’t want me to know that Salem had been here. Why wouldn’t he want me to know that?

  “Aria, what’s the matter? Come here. You’re freaking me out.”

  As I walked over to him I discreetly sniffed the air. I could be mistaken but was that the faint scent of a woman’s perfume? I sat on the side of his bed and settled the bag of Clay’s things on his lap and he began to paw through it as if it was Christmas. “I can’t wait to put on my own underwear. These hospital ones are itchy. Oh, and my toothbrush and toothpaste. Come here, you.” He pulled me closer and planted a kiss on my mouth.

  I pulled back. “Maybe you’d been asleep or something and didn’t see her.”

  “What?” His brows drew together. “See who?”

  “The person who was here. I saw someone come out of your room.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “I’ve been awake this whole time you were away. Are you feeling okay, Aria?”

  “Never mind.” I took a deep breath in and let it out, releasing my thoughts about Salem. “No one. I must have been mistaken.”

  I stayed with Clay until the nurses kicked me out that night at the end of visiting hours. I didn’t realise how exhausted I was until I stepped out from the fluorescent lights and stumbled into the parking lot.

  My car was one of the few left in the section of parking I was in, the lights flooding pools of white about the gravelled area. I wondered if Salem was home yet.

  As I approached my car I noticed something that made me frown. Something I hadn’t noticed before. There was some kind of mark on the front passenger’s side. I stepped closer and bent over to inspect it further. Salem must have been in some kind of minor accident when she took my car because I didn’t do this. It was a dent and a scrape, chips of paint embedded in it. Red chips of paint.

  Dark red.

  Mustang red.

  The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end.

  I straightened, stumbling back from my car, my eyes still on that dent. Co
uld she have…?

  I was just jumping to conclusions. Stupid conclusions. She was my sister. She would never hurt Clay. Salem wasn’t capable of hurting another person. Right?

  He won’t leave us alone, Rosey. Not ever.

  I shook my head. Not now. Go away. But this time the memories would not stay at bay.

  “Please,” my fifteen-year-old sister begged me. “You have to make him go away.”

  “We can run away. Just you and me, Salem. I’ve been saving money from my part-time job.”

  “It’s not enough. He’ll come after us. He’ll find us.”

  “What else can we do?”

  “You need to make sure he can never hurt us again.”

  “I don’t know what you’re asking me to−”

  “You have to kill him. Kill him for me.”

  My body felt drained of blood, seeping down, out through my toes onto the cold tiled floor and lapping around my ankles like warm sticky puddles. The way that his blood would drip if I did what she asked of me.

  Kill him for me. Her voice echoed in my head.

  I trembled at the thought of what she was asking me to do. I couldn’t. “Salem, please. Don’t ask me to do that.”

  She just stood there blinking at me as if she couldn’t believe that I had refused her, like I had turned down her request for me to help her with her homework. She shook her head, her lip beginning to tremble. She began to cry, fat tears dribbling down her smooth cheeks like tracks in snow.

  At first I was so shocked I couldn’t move. She had never cried. She had never ever cried before now, not even when he…

  She fell into my arms. I clung onto her, holding her trembling bird-like body in my arms. I felt how gaunt she had become, how worn thin she now was and it shocked me. When did this happen? When had she started to disappear and I hadn’t noticed?

  You were too busy hiding in the corner letting her protect you, all the time letting her protect you. Guilt slammed into me like someone had punched out a hole into my gut.

  “Please,” she whispered. “You have to do this for me, Rosey. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t. I’ll go crazy.”

  I shushed into her hair. “It’s okay. We’ll figure something out.” I was responsible for this. I was responsible for what happened to her. I couldn’t keep being selfish and letting her take it all. I couldn’t keep hiding. I had to face him.

  “Friday,” she said. “Friday is the perfect night.”

  Friday night he was drunk again, passed out on the couch, having not been able to make it up to his bedroom. He wouldn’t be missed by his workers until at least Monday and maybe not even then as he had a reputation for sometimes not showing up on Mondays. It was only because he had colleagues who pitied him, who felt so sorry for him after his wife died that they covered for him.

  He had a gun.

  It was supposed to be locked up in his safe in his study. But Salem stole the key to the drawer and he hadn’t realised his key was gone yet.

  It was heavier than I thought it would be, the gun I now held in my shaking hand. We weren’t even in the living room yet and my shoulder and fingers were aching from holding it. Perhaps I shouldn’t grip it so hard, but all my muscles just seemed so tightly coiled.

  His figure lay sprawled across the couch, one arm fallen down so his knuckles brushed the carpet, the air filled with his heavy breathing and reek of cheap rum. We stood a metre away from him, looking down at him, his open mouth, his jowls scrunched under his chin.

  “Just do it,” Salem hissed at me from over my shoulder.

  I shifted my weight from foot to foot, trying to get my balance. I just felt so off. So off.

  “Just like when you rip off a Band-Aid. Just do it…”

  I could do this. I had to do this. For Salem. I conjured up the images of her, trapped under him, the light dying in her eyes that looked exactly like mine, and resolve heated my blood. He deserved it. He deserved worse.

  I pointed the gun at his chest, his chest rising and falling. Rising and falling. Once I pulled the trigger it would rise and fall no more. I gripped the shaking gun and…

  I dropped my arm, the metal slapping against my thigh.

  “What the fuck?” Salem hissed.

  I turned around to face her. I could see the disappointment in her eyes even in the dark. “I can’t.”

  “What’sssss goin’ on?” A voice slurred out from behind me.

  I jumped, almost dropping the weapon. Oh God. He was awake, his bleary eyes were open and on me. Then on the gun at my side. “Whatta you doin’ with that?” He suddenly seemed so awake and alert as he pushed himself up on the couch, the devil flashing in his eyes even as his voice was low and gentle. “Come here, sweetheart.”

  I shuddered. I hated when he called me sweetheart.

  He rose up to his full height. I stumbled back, hissing as the back of my leg banged against the corner of the table.

  “Shoot,” Salem cried. “Shoot him.”

  His eyes fell upon the gun in my hand. “Give it to me.”

  I tripped on the edge of the carpet and fell to the ground, my palms opening to try and break my fall. Pain jarred up my arms. The gun made a clattering noise. My vision shuddered as I hit the base of my skull against the ground.

  I dropped the gun. Where was it?

  Salem fell to my side, her eyes were firm and fierce. I saw the flash of metal in her hand. “I won’t let him hurt us anymore,” she hissed.

  I watched her turn to him, her arms coming out straight in front of her, the barrel pointed up towards his chest. Her hands weren’t even shaking. Not like mine had been.

  “Sweetheart…”

  “Go to hell.” She fired. And again.

  Bang bang bang the noise exploded through the room and through my head, making my vision clatter like dice in a box.

  My father’s eyes bugged open as blood spread across his torso from the six holes that Salem had plugged into him. All six bullets we had loaded. Now in his body. He made a strangling noise.

  “You will never hurt me again.”

  He fell, dropping like a sack of potatoes across my legs.

  I screamed and kicked back along the carpet until I was free of his dead weight, his wet, heavy body, his lifeless arms. I clambered to my feet and cowered next to Salem, who was already upright, standing there, staring at the carpet, a cold, dead look on her face, blood spray across her cheeks and fingers.

  “Salem,” my voice shook, “what have you done?”

  She turned her muted eyes at me, matte and cold, and a slight smile touched the corners of her lips, making me shiver. “I did what you couldn’t.” She shoved something cold into my hands. It was the gun. “Get rid of it.”

  My eyes snapped back up to her as she stood contemplating our unmoving father, the smile on her face growing wider.

  “What?”

  She made an exasperated noise. “He’s dead. That gun killed him. Think. We can’t let the police get a hold of that gun. It’s evidence of what we did.”

  “We? But you shot him.”

  Salem’s eyes narrowed on me. “Whose fingerprints are on the gun?”

  She was right. Both our prints would be on it. Both of us. Even me. Even though I didn’t pull the trigger. “How do I…?”

  “Throw it in the river or the sewers.”

  “Then what?”

  She flinched. I heard it too; the distant sound of police sirens. She leaned in close and stared right into my eyes so her face was all that I saw. “Run, you idiot.”

  13

  I drove to the hospital the next day to pick up Clay when he was released. Salem hadn’t returned to the apartment yet. I hadn’t been able to confront her about the dent in my car.

  The dent. The Mustang red paint chips. It played in my mind over and over again.

  If she had run Clay off the road, would she even come back? Or would she be too afraid that Clay would turn her in?

  It would explain why she would leave the c
ar. She was too smart to drive off in a car that she’d committed a crime in. Once again she was leaving evidence of her actions in my hands.

  She could be anywhere by now. Or…my skin prickled as I stared around the parking lot…she could be here, watching.

  “Earth to Aria. Are you okay?” Clay was staring at me with a concerned look on his face as we walked from the hospital hand in hand.

  I shook off my dark thoughts. “I should be asking you that. How’s your head?”

  “It’s fine.”

  We continued to walk in silence, the air heavy with all the things we weren’t saying. As we neared the car I made a decision that I would not hide my suspicions from Clay. “Actually, I’m not okay. I need to show you something.”

  “What is it?”

  I walked to the passenger side of the car and pointed, watching Clay’s face for his reaction. “Salem’s been taking my car without asking. This dent wasn’t there before your accident.”

  I thought I saw a flash of panic on Clay’s face before he smothered it with a shrug. “She must have scraped against a parked car or something.”

  “That doesn’t look like a parking scrape. That looks like she rammed into something beside her.”

  “Did you talk to her about it?”

  “I haven’t seen her in days. I know you told the police that you just lost control of your car. But I want to know the truth.” I took a deep breath. “Did Salem try to run you off the road?”

  Clay’s brows pressed together, anger lining the corner of his eyes. “No.”

  “’Cause if you’re protecting her for me…because of what you know about her past…?”

  “Why are you so determined to prove she did something to me?”

  “Why are you protecting her?”

  “I’m not. Aria, I swear to you, my car just ran off the road.”

  “I want to see it.”

  “What?”

  “Your car. Where’s your car? I want to see it.”