Deception So Dark

by Clara Kensie

  “I’m sorry you lost your best friend because of me,” I said.

  “His loss.” He brushed my hair aside to kiss my neck. I leaned against him. “Tired?” he asked.

  I nodded. “Tired of waiting. Tired of wondering. Tired of worrying.”

  “You won’t have to wait much longer,” he said, his breath warm on my neck. I closed my eyes and sank into him, bending my neck to give him more access. “Jillian and Logan are on their way to Lilybrook…” he dotted kisses under my ear. “…and Kellan is hundreds of miles away where he can’t hurt—”

  He cut himself off, and I opened my eyes. Had Nathan come back?

  No. Beverly Jacobs was standing at a table by our booth. The executive director of the APR. Aaron’s mother. Her clothes were ironed, her hair was smooth. But her brows were lowered and pulled together, making deep wrinkles across her forehead. Her lips were pressed tight together, forming deep lines around her mouth.

  Mrs. Jacobs was furious.

  And she was staring straight at us.

  Tristan and I swept everything into our bags and fled from the restaurant. “Did she hear us?” I cried. “What if she figured out what we’re doing?”

  “I’m calling my dad,” Tristan whipped his phone from his pocket. “He’ll have to intercept any message she tries to get to Kellan.”

  As he held the phone to his ear, a white sedan rumbled past. Out of habit, even in our rush, I looked at it. Thousands of vehicles had driven down Main Street over the past week, the majority of them Lilybrook residents. By this point, I was used to disappointment, and expected it.

  The sedan pulled into a parking spot near the Welcome to Lilybrook sign. The setting sun reflected on its windshield, obscuring my view, but I could see that there were two people inside. Young. A boy and a girl.

  Hope flooded my chest, a flash flood of hope, and I stopped short. “Tristan.”

  “Is it them?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, barely able to speak. Oh please, oh please, oh please.

  Both car doors opened, and they climbed out. Still shadowed, just silhouettes.

  Jillian and Logan? No. I couldn’t let myself believe it was them. I couldn’t believe it until I actually saw them as more than shadows.

  Tristan shoved his phone back in his pocket, and we crept a little closer.

  Oh please, oh please, oh please…

  They stepped into the fading sunlight. Both weary, disheveled, and much too thin.

  The girl’s hair was a stringy dull brown, cut to the length of her chin.

  Jillian.

  The boy’s dark hair brushed past the collar of his jacket.

  Logan.

  The flood of hope turned into a tidal wave of joy. “It’s them,” I cried. “They’re here. In Lilybrook. They came.” They were here, really here, not visions of the past, not premonitions of the future. They were now. Here. In Lilybrook. Safe. Jillian and Logan. Jillian and Logan!

  I pulled Tristan down by his collar. Kissed him, hard. This is it, I said. We found them. Us. You and me.

  He kissed me back, just as hard. Now go get them, Clockwise. Go get your brother and sister.

  I wanted to run to them. I wanted to fly to them. But if I scared them, they would flee again. I forced myself to walk, slowly, in the shadows. Surely they could hear my steps as I approached. Surely they could hear my heart pounding.

  Finally, I was close enough to hear what they were saying.

  “This is it, Logan,” Jillian said. She gestured to the sign. “Lilybrook, Wisconsin. A Friendly Place to Live.”

  “It’s got to be a trap.” Logan, speaking in his low voice. So different, so clear, from how it sounded in my visions.

  “It’s not a trap. Two different psychics told us to come here.” Jillian’s voice was higher, hopeful. “They said we’d be safe here. There are people here who can help us. We just have to find them.”

  I took one more step, out of the shadows. “One of the people who can help you is standing right here.”

  Our gazes locked. Jillian’s gray eyes, Logan’s brown eyes.

  “T—Tessa?” Jillian stammered.

  Logan backed up, pulling Jillian with him. “It can’t be.” On guard, he scanned the street.

  “It’s me,” I said, palms up. “I’ve been trying to find you. Don’t be scared. What those psychics told you was true. You’re safe here.”

  Jillian squeezed her eyes shut, then opened them again. “But—but I saw them… I saw them kill—”

  “They didn’t kill me. Mom and Dad are alive too.”

  Finally Logan’s gaze landed on me again. Just as I was about to raise my hoodie and expose the scars on my stomach, he exhaled, “It’s really you. Tessa.”

  That’s when I lost it. Nodding and sobbing, I ran to them, stumbling in my rush, and threw my arms around both of them at once. I squeezed. Breathed them in. They were solid. Real. Now.

  Relief and elation filled me up and I couldn’t contain it; I was bursting with it, overflowing with it, and I wanted to share this incredible feeling with Tristan, the person I loved most in the world. He was hiding in the shadows, out of sight, and I shot him a message: I wish I could share this with you.

  You are, Clockwise.

  Finally, when our joyful sobs lessened to happy tears, I released my siblings and stepped back to look at them. I’d seen them in visions a few times, but seeing them in person was like switching from standard to high def. Each strand of hair. Each eyelash. Logan had stubble on his chin now. Jillian had flecks of blue in her gray eyes that I’d never noticed before. Awed, I reached out to touch them again, as they did to me.

  Jillian finally pulled away. “Where are Mom and Dad?”

  I sniffled one more time, my heart shattering at what I had to tell them. “There’s so much you need to know. But it’s getting dark. Come with me, and I’ll tell you everything.”

  I brought them to the Connellys’.

  Dennis was still in Star River, keeping up the charade. We didn’t know if Beverly Jacobs had overheard us at Hawthorne’s, and we didn’t want Kellan to return to Lilybrook until we were sure Jillian and Logan would be safe.

  Deirdre, Ember, and the animals stayed upstairs, as we’d predetermined as part of the plan. And as much as I wanted Tristan to help me tell my siblings the truth, I thought it’d be better if he stayed hidden until they had a chance to digest the information. Now he hovered at the top of the stairs, out of sight, but close by.

  It was just the three of us. Jillian, Logan, and me. I sat between them on the couch and held their hands in mine, unwilling to let go. They sat stiffly, on guard, like their bodies didn’t remember how to relax. Their gazes darted to the exits, to the clutter, to the family photos on the walls, and to the exits again.

  “Is that Tristan Walker in those pictures?” Jillian said, her voice trembling.

  “That’s Tristan, yes,” I said. I couldn’t tell them about the Connelly part. Not yet.

  “But how—”

  “I live here with Tristan and his family.”

  Logan sat up even straighter. “Where are Mom and Dad.” A demand, not a question. “Tell us what’s happening, T—” He cut himself off and glanced at the doorway again.

  “Tessa,” I finished for him. “You can use my real name. Everyone knows who I am.”

  “Tessa,” he said, softly this time, like he was testing it. He glanced at the doorway, and when no one burst through to attack, he added, “Please.”

  I squeezed their hands. Closed my eyes. Took a breath.

  Licked my lips, swallowed.

  But I couldn’t say it.

  Our parents murdered people. Our parents had lied to us, they ruined our childhoods, they made us Killers’ Spawn. How could I tell them that? How could I give them that burden to carry for the rest of their lives?

  But we were together now. I was no longer alone. As much as Tristan sympathized, he would never understand. Even if he was an empath like Cole, h
e would never fully understand. No one would understand, except for Jillian and Logan.

  So maybe, by telling them the truth, all of that grief and despair and shame would be divided up three ways, and it would be lessened for each of us.

  You can do this, Tessa. Tristan told me from his place at the top of the stairs. I had to tell you the truth, and it was hard for me too. But I did it, and you can too.

  Tristan understood more than I thought he did.

  God, I love you, I told him.

  I love you too, Clockwise. I’ll be right here the whole time.

  Us, I said.

  You and me.

  Knowing Tristan was supporting me, I closed my eyes. Took a breath.

  Licked my lips, swallowed.

  Then I said it. “Dennis Connelly isn’t the killer,” I began. “Our parents are.”

  ❀

  The sun rose long before I finished telling my siblings about our parents, and Tristan, and Dennis Connelly, and the APR, and the Underground, and Kellan, and Aaron Jacobs, and my new psionic abilities.

  I held their hands the whole time, except when I wiped away tears. Their tears, and mine.

  Now, his muscles tight and his jaw set, Logan had the green evidence binder open on his lap, absorbing the information with his hypercognition—swiping his palm over the pages. With each turn of the page, his face became grayer. I couldn’t watch as he stared at the photos of our parents’ victims. Would he dream about them now? Would his dreams be invaded by Nightmare Eyes now, too?

  “No. No,” Jillian said. The entire room buzzed and vibrated. On the mantle, the mosaic vase I’d made in art class toppled over. “I don’t believe it. None of what you’re saying is true.”

  “I wish it wasn’t,” I said. “But it is.” I was repeating the arguments I had with Tristan when we were in the Underground, only this time, I was reciting his words, and Jillian and Logan were the ones stuck in denial.

  “They’re tricking you, Tessa,” she said. “You said this town is full of—what did you call them—psionic people? Maybe they’re controlling your mind. Projecting ideas into your head and making you believe them.”

  Memories of our father’s eyes turning Nightmare black, and the old man at Union Station, and a knife-wielding Lady Elke floated to the surface, but I shoved them back as Marmalade padded into the room on her tiny paws. She tapped Jillian’s leg and mewed. Jillian blinked her puffy eyes, and the room stopped vibrating.

  I had Ember send Marmalade to you, Tristan said from upstairs. Thought it would help if they saw that we’re not torturing you or anything like that.

  My heart swelled again. Thank you, Tristan.

  “This is Marmalade,” I said, scooping her up and nuzzling her neck. “She’s my little Marma-lady. Tristan’s sister gave her to me for my birthday.”

  Jillian sniffled. “You have a kitten?”

  I placed Marmalade on her lap. “I also have a bedroom and a painting studio. I painted a mural at school.”

  “You go to school?”

  “Of course.”

  But Jillian’s expression hardened again. “No. No. They did something to you. I don’t know how, and I don’t know why, but there’s no way what you’re saying can be true.”

  Logan tapped the binder. “This entire binder could be false. Made up.”

  “I once thought the binder was made up too,” I said. “And then I proved that it wasn’t.”

  “How?” he asked.

  “I’ll show you.” I ran my finger over Jillian’s gold bracelet, the one her boyfriend Gavin had given her. I played with the heart charm and lifted the fog.

  “You took this off once,” I said.

  “I—”

  “Six weeks ago. In the desert. Along a stretch of highway somewhere in…” I raised the fog a little higher. “Arizona.”

  “How did you…”

  “It was right after you found out Gavin was dead. You and Logan were about to burn my getaway bag. There was no reason to keep lugging it around, and he thought that going through it every day was making things worse. You also took off this bracelet and threw it in the pile. You’d convinced yourself that if you weren’t wearing the bracelet, you wouldn’t think about Gavin all the time, and then it wouldn’t hurt so much.”

  She raised her hand to her mouth.

  “But the moment you took it off,” I continued, “you felt empty without it. Logan was about to light the match. You wanted one thing to remember me by, so you swiped my Anne of Green Gables book from the pile when he wasn’t looking. You also took back the bracelet. While Logan burned everything else, you hid my book in your getaway bag and put the bracelet back on.”

  “How do you know that?” Logan said. “We were in the middle of the desert. No one was around.”

  “Maybe one of those APR people has remote vision, like Dad,” Jillian said. “Someone was watching us.” She craned her neck and looked up over her shoulder, as if she felt the Nightmare Eyes burning into her too.

  “If that was true,” I said, “it would have been a lot easier to find you.”

  “Then how can you possibly know what I did with Gavin’s bracelet?”

  “The same way I proved that Mom and Dad are guilty,” I said. “I’m psionic. I’m retrocognitive. I always have been, but it was suppressed by a mental fog until recently. I had a vision of your past when I touched your bracelet. I had a vision—lots of visions—of Mom and Dad when I touched their wedding rings. I saw it all. They’re guilty. They lied to us about Dennis Connelly. They lied to us about everything.”

  “B-but that means…” She sank back and buried her face in her hands. “That means they killed Gavin.” Her voice was very small.

  I knew the devastation she was feeling, that all-consuming ache that makes you feel hollow and heavy at the same time. I pulled her in and held her tight, and let her cry.

  Tessa watch out! Tristan shouted in my head.

  Jillian sobbed, and with it, the glass in all the picture frames shattered and shot through the air like bullets.

  Marmalade darted off my lap, and Tristan flew into the room.

  Logan jumped up, arms splayed wide. The coffee table tipped over, forming a barrier between Tristan and me. “Get away from us, Tristan.”

  Tristan raised his hands innocently. “I just want to make sure everyone’s okay.”

  “Logan,” I said. “Tristan is my boyfriend. He loves me. He wouldn’t hurt me. Or you. He almost died trying to find you.”

  Logan eyed Tristan up and down. “Doesn’t matter. Tristan Connelly doesn’t come near you until we see Mom and Dad. Take us to them. Now.”

  Mom reluctantly approved my appearance in the Underground’s visiting room because I brought her two coveted gifts: Jillian and Logan. She even sobbed a thank you.

  The warden wouldn’t let them hug. “No touching,” he grunted, as usual. Four guards stood against the wall with their tranq guns loaded, and Tristan remained on the do-not-allow list. He waited just outside.

  The stainless steel table glittered and glowed in the gray cinder-block room. Jillian, Logan and I huddled on one side of it, and Mom was shackled to her chair on the other.

  “This is where they’re keeping you?” Jillian whimpered. She peered from behind her limp brown hair at the knobless door, the intrusive security cameras, the scowling guards. “They took away your PK?”

  Mom looked at her hands, chained to her waist. “They took everything away.”

  “Tell us Tessa’s wrong, Mom,” Logan said, sitting straight on his metal chair. With white knuckles, he clutched the green evidence binder. It trembled in his grip, like he was trying very hard not to rip it apart. “Tell us everything in this binder is false. Tell us you didn’t cut those scars into Tessa’s stomach. Tell us you didn’t kill all those people. Tell us you didn’t lie to us our entire lives.”

  Jillian sniffled. “Tell us you didn’t kill Gavin.”

  A tear trailed down Mom’s cheek as she shook her head.
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  She’s going to lie to them, I flashed to Tristan.

  You need to convince her to tell them the truth. Otherwise—

  “Mom,” I said. “Tell them the truth.” The lies were awful. The truth was agonizing. But they still needed to know it.

  “We attacked the manager of a motel because we thought he was there to kill us,” Logan said. “We threw some guy’s car off a cliff. Mom. Please tell us we didn’t hurt innocent people.”

  “This is a trick, isn’t it,” Jillian said. “A trap. They brainwashed Tessa. Or they threatened her. They made her lure us down here too, that’s it, isn’t it? There’s no way a single word of what she told us can be true. Mom, what are they doing to you down here? Are they experimenting on you? Are they hurting you? Where’s Dad? Why aren’t you with him?”

  Jillian continued, words tumbling from her mouth, faster and faster, higher and higher. The air hummed and buzzed.

  “Mom, look what you’re doing to her,” I said. “You’re making it worse for them. Tell them the truth. You owe them the truth.”

  Mom opened her mouth, but closed it again. She wouldn’t look at me. Her anguished gaze fluttered to the guards, then to the door, then locked onto Jillian’s identical gray eyes.

  My sister calmed. She gave a tiny little nod.

  Then the door started to rumble.

  “Jillian,” I whispered. “Are you doing that?”

  The locked door trembled. Buckled.

  “Jillian,” I hissed. “Stop it. Don’t.” Tristan she’s breaking our mother out you need to stop her.

  Mr. Milbourne shouted, and the guards pulled their guns, each aiming at one of us: Jillian, Logan, my mother, and me.

  Tristan! I cried.

  Logan flicked his hand at each of the guards, and the barrels of their guns bent up with a screech and Mom’s shackles fell off with a clatter. The table slid across the floor, barricading the guards against the wall.

  The door exploded open with a tremendous boom, and I screamed for the first time since I was unconscious in the Underground. “Tristan!”

  Jillian grabbed my arm with an unyielding grip and pulled me from the chair. “Go. Run!”