by Ker Dukey
“Why?” I ask, generally confused as to why he would kill his own people. He worked for someone so surely this would have consequences. “Won’t Marlon be pissed about that?”
“Do you honestly think I can be controlled by another?”
“I’m going to kill you,” I warn him and grow more frustrated when his dark laughter resonates down the phone into every cell of my body, freezing the blood.
“You’re looking in the wrong place; these Angels are long gone. You can’t save the damned. Do you hear that?” he murmurs before the line goes dead.
A scream sounds from outside, making me startle. Rushing outside I scan the area but see nothing. Another scream alerts me to the woods. I know it’s probably a trap but I have to follow. Summer.
The screams become whimpers as I wade through the trees, branches hitting and cutting my skin as I pass through them without care. I notice speakers attached to trees and cameras. I know he’s watching me and leading me more than likely to my death but my instincts tell me he doesn’t want me dead. For some crazy reason he has a fixation with me, and that’s what has kept me alive, and hopefully Summer too.
Another cabin comes into view but it’s different to the others, it’s bigger than the roomed ones but smaller than the one hosting the reception desk. The lights scattering the trees all turn out plunging me into darkness and causing all the hairs on my neck to rise on end. I run towards the cabin and push the door with my foot.
It’s so dark that I can practically feel even the shadows running to hide. There’s a chemical scent in the air, maybe bleach, it’s toxicity coating my tongue and making my throat and eyes burn. My stomach vaults when I realize its cleaning fluid. Cleaning fluid for what?
Even the blood in my veins has stilled in terror and the skin of my lips is chapped as my teeth worry away at the soft flesh.
Feeling in my purse for my cell, I quickly switch on the flashlight. For a brief moment, I’m stunned. My mind conjured gory, haunting images of what I would find but I’m amazed to find something quite normal.
The room is a large square, the décor soft and muted even if it is dated. The furniture resembles a style from the sixties, large brown and yellow flowers covering cushions that sit on a sage green cord sofa. A plain armchair sits by the fireplace, the mustard colored pattern of the hearth tiles harsh to the eye but then a painting of a sunflower scene that hangs from the wall above is calming. It’s all mix and match, no two items complementing each other, but everything is obviously chosen for a person’s specific tastes, style be damned.
Swallowing back thick dread I step inside, my eyes flicking everywhere as I watch for any movement. I know he’s watching me, enjoying my fear, but the question is, from where?
My ears are alert, trying to catch any sound and distinguish its proximity and identity.
“Where are you?”
I can virtually hear him laugh, my fear, the fear he is providing, pleasing him extensively. I don’t want to give him that part of me, I don’t want to offer him what he is already taking from me, yet I have no control over it, my involuntary reactions in his hands, not mine.
Two doors are situated to the back of the room. It’s then that I realize the whole place has been recently decorated. There is no yellowing wood, no scuffs on the walls. It’s like the place has been cleaned and prepped for something. But what?
Nausea curdles in my stomach as my hand settles on the handle of the left door. I’m almost too scared to open it but I must. I must.
A kitchen opens up to me. The walls are as clean and new as the living area but the furniture and fixtures, like before, are just as outdated. There’s no scent of cooking, nothing to even suggest there is anyone living in the cabin.
“Summer?”
My voice echoes around the small space, nothing but my own shout answering back. A stairwell leads off towards the back of the room, the deep dark descent it presents giving me a sense of foreboding.
“Summer?” I shout once more as I hover over the top of the wooden steps and peer down. “Hello?”
Nothing makes sense. Why would he bring me here if there was nothing for me to find? Why make a game out of it if there is no prize to win at the end?
She has to be here. There’s an excitement racing through my veins at finally being close to finding Summer, but there’s also a sense of dread in my heart, a prayer in my soul that the sport is more important to him than the trophy at the end. He wouldn’t play me if he had nothing to offer, it’s how his mind works, it’s what gives his blood heat. The chase, the game, it is all important.
Replaying those exact thoughts through my head, I take a step down, telling myself the trophy awaits me and using that faith to carry me down.
This time I manage to find a light switch fixed to the wall towards the first few steps, and flicking it, a single bulb blinks a drab light over the rickety stairway.
Each wooden rung creaks and I wince as I try to listen for any sounds.
“Hello?” I don’t know why I keep shouting out? I know no one will answer me. However, for some strange reason, it kind of gives me courage, like if I’m brave enough to shout to my enemy then I’m brave enough to keep taking one more step.
The basement is the usual junk filled storage room, masses of boxes piled high beside decorating tools and various old electrical items are scattered across a dirty work counter.
But I hardly see any of these things. My heart stutters causing a fierce ache in my chest when I spot the small door to the back of the room.
I have to swallow several times to push down the vomit that pushes free from my gut, burning my throat with acid as terror and excitement clash.
I break into a run. Even though I’m shaking with fear of what I will find, impatience and hope give me the strength to move.
Breaking through the door, surprised that it’s unlocked, my whole body slams to a halt. It’s dark but there’s enough subdued light for me to see the small figure huddled towards the back of the room. She’s laid in a foetus position upon a flat mattress, there’s a shower attached to the wall next to the mattress and a row of white gowns hanging from hooks in the wall.
A broken cry bursts from me, but I still my hysterics threatening to break me. Matted brown hair lays across her face, obscuring her features from view but even from here I can tell it’s not Summer. It’s not Summer…it’s not Summer.
For the longest time I stand still, just staring at the motionless silhouette. But eventually reality forces back in and I rush towards the girl.
“Hey,” I whisper, gently reaching out and shaking her body to rouse her but scared that I might break her. She’s so thin, so very fragile that my fingers only find skin and bone as I check for any signs of life.
Sagging in relief when I find a pulse and she murmurs incoherently, I fall to my knees. “Oh, thank God.” She’s young, her naked, bruised body underdeveloped and mistreated in a way no child should have to ever know.
The girl cries out, trying but failing to back away from me. She’s so weak that she doesn’t even manage to shift a fraction, her exhausted mumbling making my chest clench with worry.
“It’s okay, honey. I’m not going to hurt you. You’re safe now. It’s okay.”
I’m not even sure she’s heard me. Yet I know even if she has there’s nothing of her soul left to care anyway.
“You’re safe now,” I repeat, hoping that she can understand me. I quickly jump up and snatch a nightgown down from the hook but she starts shaking her head with such a force I think her head may rattle from her thin shoulders. Her eyes expand and water at the sight of the gown. I hold my hands up towards her and instantly dispose of the nightgown and instead slip my jacket off and take off my own shirt, slipping the warmed fabric over her damaged, cold flesh. I put my jacket back on and zip it up to cover my bra before reaching in my jeans for my cell.
Quickly scrolling through my contacts on my cell, I pull up Cole’s number again, praying that he will answe
r. So when it connects I’m stunned silent for a moment.
“Cole. I found a girl. It’s not Summer, Cole. It’s not Summer.” I can’t help the tears that well in my eyes as I choke out the words. I’m happy to have found Angel’s latest victim, but my heart physically hurts that I’m no closer to finding Summer.
“Hello, Winter.”
Every inch of me freezes in horror. My cell slips from my hand when my muscles involuntary retract with terror.
Vomit rolls up my throat but I make myself reach for my cell and hold it back to my ear.
“Where’s Cole?”
“Such a pretty name,” Angel continues, ignoring my question. “I’d have had you more of a Delia, or maybe a Lilith.”
“Where’s Cole?” Anger is building, fright making me bolder. “Where is he? Put him on the phone, you son of a bitch.”
“All in good time, my sweet angel. I’m glad you found her, she’s quite something isn’t she. She was so very good, easy to break. Some of them can be rather stubborn, but not her. I do love a challenge though. This is why we connect, Winter, because you challenge me, and it’s so much fun.”
I have to clench my teeth together to stop myself from screaming at him. I wanted to reach into the phone and rip this fucker’s face from his head. “What do you want?”
He tuts as if I sadden him. “Isn’t that obvious, my dear girl?” I pause with him. I won’t give him the satisfaction of an answer. “Why,” he finally says, “I want you.”
Closing my eyes, I push back the nausea. I should have known. I was foolish, naïve, to think he would ever give me what I wanted. He’d played me so well, and in a way, he deserved to win.
“Where?”
His sigh of gratification makes my stomach turn over.
“I’ll text you an address, don’t be foolish now, Winter, come alone. Set the Angel free.”
“I need to know that Cole is safe first, trust is something I seem to be struggling with.”
His laugh is loud and hearty. “See, so much fun. That’s not a problem. An hour, my dark, sweet angel.”
The line goes dead and I stare down at it. However, no more than a second later a MMS lights up my cell and I click on the notification. Cole is tied to a chair. He’s awake, glaring at the phone but doesn’t look badly beaten. Within another minute an address comes through.
I don’t wait. I’m already dialling 911 and giving them the address for the cabins and letting them know I found a girl. I know I can’t alert the cops to where Angel is. I know if I bring them that Cole would be dead within seconds.
This has to be done alone. But it was time to end this shit. Once and for all.
The girl’s nails dig into the flesh of my arm as I try to leave her. “No… No… Please,” her hoarse voice breaks through the silence she’s offered me so far.
“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I need to go but the police are coming, he can’t hurt you anymore.”
I walk her through the house, grabbing a blanket from one of the chairs as I do and wrapping it around her body. Her feet are bare but she doesn’t appear to mind as she follows me through the woods until we reach the other cabins. She stills and her body trembles at the sight of the cabins, which no doubt hosted her torture.
“It’s okay, I promise, no one is here. You’re safe.”
Her head nods and she follows me to the larger cabin.
“Sit here, okay, police will be here any minute. I’ll come to the hospital and check on you when I’ve killed the man that did this to you.” I promise her causing tears to leak from her eyes.
I turn to leave but her weak hand reaches out, grabbing my wrist. “Thank you,” she sobs, and all I can think is how selfish I am to be disappointed she’s not Summer. This is someone’s child, sister maybe, and she’s alive and can go home to them.
Finally coming face to face with Angel is nothing like I could ever have prepared myself for. He’s ‘normal’, very normal. Even through all my training that killers were ‘normal’ on the outside it still shocks me how very average he really is.
His thick black hair is swept back over his head, a small portion flopping over his forehead. His face is thin but his eyes pierce me with their exquisite green coloring. His smile is soft, nothing sinister in the way his lips curl, or the way he studies me.
Very subtly he sniffs the air and his smile grows. “Still that same soft scent.”
I frown, unable to speak yet as I stand frozen in the middle of the room.
“The day we met at the small café,” Angel explains when it’s obvious his comment about remembering my personal scent confuses me. “You passed me to use the restroom. It’s not a smell I’m ever going to forget.”
My eyes move to Cole who is still tied to the chair, but now he appears unconscious, his chin on his chest but he’s breathing deeply. “Did you hurt him?” It’s a stupid question but one I need to know the answer to.
Angel narrows his eyes on me. “You care a lot about him?”
“Yes,” I answer quickly. “A lot.”
Crossing his arms over his chest, he tips his head sideways and regards me. “He’s loved you since you were fourteen. Did you know that?”
It doesn’t surprise me that he knows all about mine and Cole’s connection, our relationship.
“We were close back then.” Lowering my eyes, I ponder his statement. “But I guess, yes, in a way I did know.”
It’s very strange. Stood, my heart rate calm and my gut finally free from the last few weeks’ turmoil and worry, talking to a man that has taken my sister, and most probably tortured her until she no longer recognises herself. It’s almost a regular, carefree conversation. However, I can taste the finish line, the final square in his cat and mouse game. I know that it will all, in the end, come down to this moment.
He nods slowly. “But you were fourteen, a mere child.”
I’m unable to answer that, mainly because there’s only Cole and myself that know the context of our relationship back then. It wasn’t sexual, far from it. But I felt his care, his love and his devotion every time he had looked at me. Yet, how do you explain that to someone who is psychotic, someone who can only see the sick and twisted in every inch of the world. To Angel, our relationship was as corrupt as he is. And I know that no amount of explaining would make him see exactly how it had been.
“Yes,” I answer simply.
For a second I can see confusion flitting across his eyes but then he shrugs. “But then, every partner you choose tends to be into the young ones. Do you ever think that subconsciously you are attracted to what psychologically disgusts you, Winter? The curiosity inside you reaching out to learn, a thirst for education, as they say?”
I still, his words this time confusing me. “What?”
Sighing, he shakes his head, looking at me with pity. “So naïve, little angel. So pure that you can’t see the darkness that’s around you.”
His cryptic statements are kindling the anger inside me once again and I fist my hands. “Are we going to get to the point?”
His eyes widen, his eyebrows elevated with my sassy tone. “I can see what fires his gut, your mouth is rather entertaining.” He gestures with his chin to my disfigured thumb that I broke to get free from Cole’s cuffs. “What happened to your hand?” I’d lost the towel I had keeping it protected at some point at the cabins but I’d not even noticed, the pain had numbed.
“Will you quit the bullshit. You wanted me for Cole, so let’s do this. Let him go, I came. Show me that I was right to trust you.”
Holding out his hands in submission, he gives me a sharp nod and turns to Cole. I brace myself when he slides a knife from his belt, but just as he’d promised, he slips it over the ropes binding Cole.
I gasp when he puts the knife away and pulls out a gun and points it at Cole’s head.
“Wait!”
Tutting, he glances at me. “I never go back on a promise.” Then he slaps Cole around the face, the forceful crack making me jolt.
Cole gasps, his eyes wide as they dart around in shock. When he sees me he jumps up but Angel tuts loudly and presses the muzzle deeper into Cole’s forehead. “Don’t be stupid.”
Cole’s eyes jerk between me and Angel, horror and distress making the blood rush from his face. “What the fuck!”
“Now, we’re going to do this sensibly,” Angel says quietly but firmly. “You’re going to walk nice and slowly to the door, then you’re going to walk through it, and I’m going to lock it behind you. And you can be on your merry way.”
Cole stares at him in disbelief. “You’re a crazy fuck if you think that!”
“Let’s not judge people for their form of crazy, Cole, you appear quite fond of crazy.” He narrows his eyes on Cole before flicking them briefly in my direction.
“Cole, it’s okay. Do as he says.”
He looks to me in alarm, like I’m as crazy as Angel. I nod to him, urging him to go. I can see the racing thoughts in his eyes, his detective training kicking in as he searches for a way to take Angel out.
When Angel stabs at Cole again with the gun, the anguish that crosses his face makes my heart squeeze tight. But he doesn’t get to take control of the situation when Angel tires of waiting and shoves at him, pushing him roughly towards the door.
I can do nothing but stand and watch as Cole shouts my name and Angel forces him out of the door. Then sliding the bolt home, he turns to me and grins.
“Now, my little angel., just you and me.”
He sweeps an arm towards the chair Cole was tied to and slowly I force my feet to move towards it, the wobble in my legs making me drop into it heavily. He drags a chair from the other side of the room and plants it down in front of me before he stiffly lowers himself onto it. He looks nervous suddenly but shakes it away and leans back into the chair, his eyes heated on me. “So Winter Kelly, here we are.”
I can’t understand why I’m not scared, why I’m not figuring out how to escape. But there’s a calmness around me, exhaustion finally catching up with me. Taking a deep breath, I lift my eyes to his. “She’s dead isn’t she.”
