Tempted by Evil

by Amber Lynn Natusch

  Instead, I let him stay.

  24

  A knock at the door brought me out of my drowsiness and Merrick to his feet in a flash, poised for a fight.

  “Who is it?” I called out, my voice shaky. Merrick shot me a glance, pressing his index finger to his lips while he stalked toward the door.

  “Aspen, it's Julian. Are you all right?” he replied, trying the knob on the door unsuccessfully. “I tried your phone, but then I checked my voicemail and realized it’s broken. Something happened today―something at the convent. I need to talk to you about it. Please, let me in.”

  His voice was thick with concern, and my heart ached because of it.

  “I'm coming,” I yelled, jumping up from the bed. Merrick caught my arm on the way to the door, pulling me in close to him.

  “Remember what I said,” he growled so low that it was barely audible at all. “Trust nobody but yourself.”

  As my nerves raced, he silently crawled out my bedroom window and disappeared into the night, leaving me alone.

  “Aspen,” Julian repeated, again trying to enter the locked room.

  “Sorry,” I said with a shake of my head.

  Without any further pause, I opened the door to find an uncharacteristically shaken-looking Julian before me. His hair danced wildly around him and his clothes were wrinkled and askew, leading me to believe he hadn't slept at all.

  “Thank God you're okay,” he gasped, crushing me into his arms―the second pair of arms to hold me that night. Strangely, they lacked a certain comfort that Merrick's possessed. As a result, I pulled away slightly. “I've been worried sick.”

  “I'm really tired, Julian.” I hesitated just enough for him to question my words, and my incessant glancing at the open window in the corner didn't seem to help either. It was far too cold to have it open.

  His gaze was questioning, and I squirmed under the weight of it. The voices in my head picked up speed, serving only to whip me into a mental frenzy.

  Run.

  Don't trust him.

  Escape . . .

  “Do you know what happened today at the convent?” he asked, softening his expression. “Mother Superior . . . she was―”

  “Murdered.”

  “Yes,” he replied, cocking his head to the side. “How did you know? The press hasn't released anything about it yet, Aspen. The only reason I know is because my dad is close with the chief of police and they were together when he got the call.”

  “I know because I was there.” My reply was abrupt and short. That was all I could manage while I battled the urge to flee. “Why are you so concerned that I know this? You know how I felt about her.”

  “You were there?” he gasped with disbelief. “Did you see Sister Mary Constance? She's gone missing. They can't find her anywhere.”

  “She's dead too,” I told him, my voice strangely lifeless. “She's behind the wall of the bookshelf in Mother Superior's office. There's a movable panel. They'll find her corpse there.”

  “Aspen,” Julian cried, shaking me gently. I hadn't realized I wasn't looking at him when I spoke.

  “Yes?”

  “Do you realize what you just said?”

  “Yes.”

  “I don't think you do. You just told me you saw two of your mentors dead, Aspen.”

  “Yes. I did.”

  “I think you're in shock. I'm taking you to the hospital. Now.”

  The hospital . . .

  You escaped once.

  You will not again.

  They will keep you.

  Drug you . . .

  Try to paint the world in blue skies and rainbows.

  Your rainbows are black.

  The world is doomed.

  You must face the evil . . .

  “I won't go back there,” I exclaimed, withdrawing into my room further. Eyeing the window yet again, my mind wondered how Merrick had escaped the third story egress. I contemplated how badly injured I would be by the fall.

  “Okay,” he said, putting his hands up in a gesture of surrender, “we won't go there. We don't have to go there.”

  “Why are you really here?” I asked, seeking the reason for his two a.m. drop in. The true reason.

  “I wanted you to find out about Mother Superior and Sister Mary Constance from me, not from the news, or my parents, or some random person at the shop . . . from me. I wanted to be sure you would be all right and feel supported. I know she meant the world to you, Aspen. And with all the stress you've been under . . .”

  He stopped himself short, looking as though he was backed into a verbal corner without means of escape. Pained would have best described his expression while he chose his words, unsure of whether or not they would be helpful or do more damage.

  “Maybe we should go to the police station,” he started, wincing slightly at the idea as though I'd already objected. “The chief is going to want to hear what you told me about Sister Mary Constance. He'll want to know whatever else you can tell him about what you know. What you saw.”

  “I think that's a poor choice,” I replied, still inching my way towards the window.

  “I'm just trying to help, Aspen. If there's a murderer out there loose in town, that puts you and everyone else at risk. I can't have that. If you know something―”

  “Oh, they are at risk, Julian, but not for the reasons you fear,” I informed him, choking on a laugh.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They're likely going to die . . . all of them.”

  My leg bumped against the sill, and I turned to face the window slowly before opening it wider.

  “Aspen . . .”

  “It's only a matter of time now, Julian,” I said, looking back at his confused expression. “But until then, don't worry. I won't be the cause of any more deaths. Not until I have to.”

  His face went pale and slack in the little moonlight that reached that far into the room. It mattered not. The voices were in full force.

  The Shadow comes . . .

  I crouched below the sash, stepping up onto the sill.

  “Aspen!” Julian cried lunging at me.

  “Stop!” I shouted in return, my palm extended to ward him off. “You will not have me. Nobody will.”

  Jump.

  End it all . . .

  Your death for them.

  Your death for the world.

  “I killed Mother Superior. I started the end, Julian, but I see . . . I see now how to undo it. I can stop it. It's so simple. My life for theirs.”

  “Aspen, what are you going to do?” he asked softly, moving slowly toward me. But I could not be stopped. I would not be what I was destined to be―not if I was dead.

  I looked at him with a sad but satisfied smile.

  “It's simple, Julian. I'm going to save the world.”

  . . . Then I jumped.

  25

  A sensation of warmth and comfort radiated up my arm as I dangled precariously, three stories above the ground. Julian's grasp on my hand was deadly tight.

  “Give me your other hand, Aspen,” he grunted from the window above. “I can't pull you in with just this one.”

  I looked up at him as that delicious sense of calm slowly took me over. With the voices in my head giving way to coherent thought, I quickly gave him what he asked for. Dying no longer sounded like such a great idea.

  Since he was more able to leverage me up with both hands, I soon found myself lying on the floor of my room, looking up at a very bewildered and fuming Julian.

  “What in the hell was that?” he snarled. “You could have killed yourself!”

  “That was the plan,” I whispered, thoroughly embarrassed and filled with guilt. Committing suicide would have done nothing more than ensured that I never got into heaven. Although, if the prophecy really was right, that wasn't going to be an issue.

  “Why?” he asked, sounding frightened and exasperated all at the same time. “Did you truly kill Mother Superior? What are you talking about saving
the world? Aspen, you are scaring me right now, and I don't do scared.”

  “I'm sorry, Julian. I don't know how to explain this.”

  “Is this about the messages? The things those strange people have been telling you?”

  I couldn't bring myself to answer him right away. Instead, I came to stand in front of him, my head hung low and repentant while I fiddled with the hem of my shirt. I couldn't stand to look him in the eyes. With the voices quieted, my emotions took over, and I wasn't much a fan of them either. When I tentatively brought my gaze up to meet his, he caught my chin gently with his hand, lifting it the rest of the way. Again, though more subtly this time, that welcome sensation coursed through my body, calling to it sweetly. I had never noticed it about his touch before, but I was grateful for it at the time. Where Merrick's had felt like hellfire burning, Julian's felt like completion―a yin to my yang.

  “Please,” he said quietly, “try. For me. I need to know what's wrong. I need to know how to help.”

  “I don't think you can,” I argued softly. “I don't think anyone can.”

  “And why not?” he asked, bringing his face down dangerously close to mine. “There's nothing I won't face with you, Aspen.”

  “But I really did kill her,” I blurted out, choking on a sob. “I killed Mother Superior. She locked me in her office and told me of horrible things―horrible things that I fear are true, Julian. Things that could end the world as you and I know it.” When he didn't interrupt me, I decided to ramble on and put everything else I had learned and done out there for him. He needed to know exactly what had happened, and what I was destined to do. “And then Constance came in . . . she knew . . . she knew what I was too, and she tried to stop Mother Superior, but she couldn't. Mother Superior killed her right in front of me. I don't know what happened to me right after that, but before I knew what I was doing, I had a knife and I was pulling it out of Mother Superior,” I admitted frantically. “The blood―it was everywhere. I didn't know what to do, so I ran. I ran out of there to the only safe place I could think of to cleanse myself. I needed to purify my spirit and pray. Pray that none of it was true―that every encounter was a bad dream or a figment of my imagination.”

  “What did she tell you, Aspen?” he asked, moving his hands to cup my shoulders, helping me to stand when my body so desperately wanted to collapse.

  “You'll think I'm crazy,” I whispered. “I think I'm crazy.”

  “I'm not concerned about your level of sanity. All I want to figure out is how I can help you, and to do that I need to know what the problem is.”

  I paused, not wanting (in my lucid state) to fully admit what I knew. It sounded insane and would only further cement my suspicion that I was coming unhinged. The last thing I needed was for Julian to think the same.

  “She basically told me that I'm the product of evil and purity, and that I would one day do something that would start the apocalypse.”

  “Okay,” he said cautiously.

  “The Shadow,” I continued, wanting desperately not to, but needing to convince him, “the Shadow is coming for me. He'll 'seal the fate of mankind,' but I have no idea what that means or who he is.”

  “He?” he asked curiously.

  “He . . . it . . . I don't know, Julian. The whole thing is such a mess in my head. And the voices, I can't stop hearing them now. Only when you and Merrick―”

  “Merrick?” he snarled.

  “He,” I started, unsure of what to say. “He was here tonight, but nothing like that happened, Julian. What I'm trying to tell you is that the only time the chaos in my head has subsided was when you both were around me―touched me.”

  “Touched you?” he clarified, his cheeks reddening slightly.

  “Yes, but it's not what you're thinking! I was falling apart! He found me here, completely insane, Julian. He saw me when I had deteriorated to nothing more than a babbling heap and he believed me. He understood about the voices even when my mind had snapped. Look!” I demanded, reaching for the notebook on my bed. “This is what he found me doing in the corner of my room.”

  He snatched it from me and opened it up, still looking furious. That expression quickly washed to one of pure sadness and pity. As he flipped through page after page, we both stared at the same sobering display. I'd truly had a break with reality, my mind too fragile to deal with what I had done.

  “Oh, Aspen,” he gasped before dropping the book and crushing me against him. His body was strong and stable against mine, which was anything but. He was everything I needed and wanted in that moment. “I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry this happened to you.”

  “Will they put me into an institution? Or will it matter because what Mother Superior has said is true? That I am going to condemn mankind?”

  “I think that none of that matters tonight,” he said, wiping the tears gently off my face. “I think that for right now, you and I are going to go to my house, get you cleaned up, and lay together in my bed until you feel safe again. Tomorrow we will deal with the rest.”

  “I don't think I'll ever feel safe again,” I murmured to myself.

  He pushed me away just enough to stare me down.

  “I love you, Aspen,” he said sternly yet softly. “There is nothing I want to see more in this world than you safe and sound. Whatever it takes, I swear to you I'll make that happen.”

  He took my face in his hands and turned it up to meet his. I watched him lean in gracefully, as if in slow motion, to brush his lips softly against mine. Seconds later, those lips were firmly affixed to my own, kissing me deeply. If what his touch had done earlier was calming, then the sensation I felt, standing on my tiptoes in my room making out with Julian, was heaven. Every cell in my body wanted what he was giving me in a way that I couldn't fully comprehend.

  I wasn't interested in comprehending, thankfully.

  When his hands started to slide up underneath my shirt, my panic drove me away, and I stepped back a pace or two. His smile was apologetic, but his eyes were not. He hadn't wanted to stop so soon.

  “I'm sorry,” he said breathily. “I think I got a little carried away there. It's just that, with everything that's happened tonight, I needed to hold you―feel you. We can go now, if that's what you want.”

  “Yes,” I replied, taking the outstretched hand he offered me. “Oh! Wait a sec,” I cried as I made my way to the window. Before he could object, I clarified my intentions. “Not to jump out of it. Just to close it.” I heard him stifle a laugh as I pressed down on the sash and locked it. The noises in my head remained silent, making me realize just how unhinged I had become; only minutes earlier I was trying to take my own life by jumping to my death. I sighed and turned to join Julian, who waited with his hand extended toward me yet again. But in the corner of my eye, I saw a flash of darkness move in the alley below. My breath caught roughly in my throat as I stared down at Merrick's icy glare. His head rotated slowly from side to side in warning.

  “What's wrong?” Julian called, sensing my distress.

  “Nothing. I thought I saw something, but it was just a cat. Let's go.”

  Liar.

  You know where liars go, don't you?

  I clamped my hands to my temples and pressed in violently. I wanted the peace and quiet back.

  “Aspen, are you okay?” he asked, placing his hands over mine. Again, that sense of completion washed over me and the voices went away.

  “Fine . . . thank you,” I replied, putting on a brave face.

  “Shall we go then?”

  “Please.”

  He never let go of me on our way to the car―only briefly when we got in. Once we were on the road, our fingers intertwined in the most perfect fashion, as if each of our hands was meant to hold the other's.

  “Why do you look so unkempt, Julian?” I asked, still wondering about his disheveled appearance. “You're always so perfect.”

  A tiny frown danced across his mouth before answering.

  “I've been trying to find
you all night,” he explained, never taking his eyes off of the darkened road before him. “Father called to tell me what had happened at the convent. He was worried about you. He knew you had the day off and were going to be around town. When I couldn't reach your phone, I got worried too.

  “I started at your apartment, thinking that was the most obvious place to find you, but when you weren't there, and nobody at the café had seen you, I started to panic a little. I drove everywhere I could think of, all the while stopping back at your place to see if you'd shown up yet.”

  The gas light flashed in the dashboard, giving a quick beep of warning. He laughed a tiny bit too hard at it when it did.

  “I had nearly a full tank when I set out to find you.”

  “I'm sorry, Julian―”

  “You said you went to a 'safe place' when you ran out of the convent. Where did you go?”

  “The ocean,” I replied wistfully.

  “Why? Why there? Why didn't you come to me? I would have helped you.”

  “I don't know what to say,” I whispered. “I don't remember much about where I was, or how long I was there for. I don't even remember how I got home. All I remember was needing to go to the ocean and then Merrick standing in front of me in my room. The rest is just . . . gone.”

  “You don't think you . . . ?” he said suggestively, implying a scenario that I hadn't even considered.

  “Oh my God, Julian. Are there others?”

  “Not that I know of, but I'm concerned, Aspen. What you did to Mother Superior was self-defense, but if you hurt anyone else . . . Let's just not worry about that for now. Time will tell on that front soon enough,” he said softly, rubbing his hand comfortingly along my thigh. “Now, about this Merrick―”

  “It's not like that,” I protested before hearing him out.

  “I know it isn't for you,” he replied, eyeing me tightly with a sideways glare. “But I don't trust this guy. I've never seen him. Met him. And how did he know where you were? Or get into your apartment? Is he following you? Who knows what he saw, Aspen. He might go to the police with this.”