My Black Hole Heart (Colour #3)

by A. Giannoccaro

  He left me sitting here to consider things hours ago, only now I wish I had tried to stop him.

  “You need to decide and so do I, Avery. I can’t promise you that I will come back. I’m afraid to love you because you have already hurt me and I cannot stay to be destroyed by toxic love. Think about your life, you need to follow that heart. You told me you were a black hole, well you sucked me in, consumed me and made me lose myself in you now I need to try and fix that. Bye, my angel.” He kissed my lips softly and left. The electric spark of our past kisses absent now.

  The house is empty and dark, I haven’t bothered with lights. I just sit in the blackness and consider how true it is. My father once said to me that he would rather raise me to be a monster than allow the monsters to eat me alive. I was too young then to understand what he meant, but as I sit next to his blood stain on the bed I think I finally get it now. I was waiting for a saviour, waiting for Mathew to fix me, fix my life when I am the only person who has that power. No one can save me except myself. In making me the villain my father left me open to be eaten alive by my own monsters, he failed me in so many ways. I lie in the spot where he died because Harmon lied, we all know that Callum murdered Renzo, it was like a campfire story to us all. He was the big bad wolf and Callum was the unsung hero that came and killed him, it was meant to set my father free but nothing could break the bond he had with my mother. When I think about it they were straight out of a Shakespeare novel, his love stories were labeled tragedies for a reason, because real love destroys you.

  Now I’m here, alone and there’s nothing but silence surrounding me. Silence and the sadness that when I needed them most, my family was gone and I was left behind. My mother’s letters spoke of following my heart and finding my place in the world, I don’t think I have one. Jameson nudges me with his wet nose, he is also sad that Mathew left again. He whines a little and I realise I haven’t fed the poor dog yet and it’s way most past his dinner time. Sliding off the end of the bed, I walk through the dark house to the kitchen, I drop his metal bowl and the clang echo in the emptiness. Flicking on a light as I got to the pantry to get his food out, the empty kitchen glows and my eyes adjust to the light.

  “Here you go, silly boy.” I pet Jameson’s head as he patiently sits for his dinner, he’s now the one constant in my life. There when I wake and there when I sleep every single day. No person has ever had that presence in my life and the true solitude of my existence surrounds me. I’m always going to be alone.

  I STROLL BACK DOWN to the graveyard just before dawn, I miss the swing and the tree from when I was young. I miss sitting here watching my dad cry for her. Now the row of headstones has gotten longer, Mick, my Mom, Eiran and Callum are all here. A nauseating anger turns my stomach as I look at them all resting peacefully in a line while I struggle with the torment they all left behind. I stand over Callum and I cannot help but scream at him.

  “I idolised you, I trusted you, I did everything in this fucking world to please you and for what? You lied! You used me!” I spit on his grave the fury in me escaping now. “You never cared further than some sick plan you had conjured up in your demented mind. No wonder she killed you! I want to kill you only you are already dead. I hate you now, I hope you know that. I fucking hate you.”

  I rest against his headstone so he can hear this bit clearly. “I’m going to destroy your little empire, Callum, I’m going to give it away. I don’t want to be the queen and your brother will be the last prince in your fairytale because I am going to gut him.” The words are a whispered hiss before I stand and move to Eiran.

  “You shouldn’t be here, but I loved you despite the monster you were. I let you take from me and I took from you. So this grave is our truce.” His grave is not elaborate it has only his first name on it. I kiss my hand and touch the top of it as I walk over to where my parents are buried beside one another.

  I cannot find words for them, so I sit between them and cry. I cry for the mom I never had and the father that was lost to grief before he could love me. I cry because I’m a killer and because I know that will always be inside me. The sobbing doesn’t stop, every heartache and fear I was never allowed to feel is coming to live in between them and I’m letting it all go so that I can be free. Next time I visit this place, I want it to be with a peaceful heart, I don’t want to come here hating them again. When the sun appears over the hilltop I get up and dust the sand off my pants, Jameson is at my heels waiting to follow me wherever I go. I love waking the path through the vines to the house, it’s like an enchanted world where nothing else exists for the time you are in there. I pick a grape and bite it, but spit the sour globe back out. Thankfully our wines taste better than the grapes that was awful. Jameson is quick to lick it up, he has no tastebuds at all. When I open the gate to the house, I’m met with Harmon leaning on his car nattering to someone on the phone. His face is pulled tight with agitation and he glares at me like I just killed his kitten. That glare just made my choices that much easier. I ignore him and unlock the front door allowing Jameson to barrel in without knocking me off my feet before I walk inside my home. Harmon isn’t far behind me still whining on the phone to someone, I go to the kitchen and put the coffee machine on.

  “Where the fuck have you been? I have been calling you half the damn night woman?” He booms at me as he hangs up his phone call. “There was shit to deal with, Avery. People get pissed when you aren’t available.”

  “People, or you, Harmon? I was busy, I had things to deal with that were my business and not yours.” I seethe back at him. “Well it is still my four days of the month so since I thought you were dead and I drove all this damn way let’s fuck then I’ll drive us to work.” It is like a gunshot goes off inside my head, the noise of his intrusion on my life is deafening, blinding and drives me to the pinnacle of my own madness. There was a good reason the O’Reilly family was all dead, they are a plague and I am going to eradicate them. I stand dead still with my coffee in my hand and just look at him, he is perfect on the outside the ideal trap for anyone who gets close. He would make a handsome husband and I bet his babies would be pretty if I let him live to have any, but I won’t. I’m not fooled by conventional beauty, nor am I lured by money. I have my own money and I do not need a man. My life is testament to succeeding alone, I have learned a lesson from Callum and Shannon—two monsters cannot be together. My parents taught me the same lesson, it is impossible for them not to destroy each other. I will not be destroyed for this dick, when I let love destroy me it will be with someone worth spilling my blood for, because love is sacrifice. I was never going to love this man, we were a nuclear explosion waiting to happen.

  “Go to my room, I’m coming, Harmon.” I send him away so I can find what I need in the office. “I just want to drink my coffee and put the dog out so I don’t have to listen to him barking at your naked ass.” My dog hates him, always trust your dog they have great sense about these things.

  Harmon sulks off down the passage and I open the kitchen door for Jameson on the way to the office, as much I want to slice the flesh from his bones and make him suffer I don’t have the time, he will know the second he sees me that I’m going to kill him, I won’t be able to hide my intentions for long. The familiar feeling that claws its way up my spine as I anticipate the moment I put an end to all of this mayhem, the second I kill him, I’ll crave the rush this time. This time I want to kill so badly it hurts me, I imagine my knife slicing into his flesh, staining that perfect skin with his blood. Tearing his beautiful, deceitful muscles from his bones, running my blade from his sternum to crotch. Killing him slowly would be so satisfying, instead I will have to settle for a single bullet from the gun next to my bed. Quick and relatively painless which is so much more than he deserves, running my finger along the blade of my favourite knife. The razor sharp stainless steel taunts me with possibilities. I pick it up and grab some cable ties with it, I might be able to have some fun with this yet. I lose the ability to control this des
ire for blood and death.

  “Are you coming, Avery? We have to get to the office at some point too,” he yells at me from the room down the passage. I grind my teeth and close the door behind me as I imagine what comes next. The good part and the part where I have to get close to him. I swallow the rising bile in my throat as I step into the doorway he is already half undressed. If I didn’t know who or what he was I would look at his bare chest and bite my bottom lip, instead, I struggle to contain my gag reflex and rage. He watches me as I look at him, he thinks I’m admiring the view, his cocky smile is taunting my demons to play. I’m looking but I’m not admiring in the way he thinks. I’m imagining the way my knife will carve through those abdominal muscles. Crimson blood pouring from him and pooling around his lifeless, waste of a body. The pictures in my head are vile, I shouldn’t want to kill someone so badly, I have killed many before but this desire hasn’t accompanied those kills. I lust for his death.

  “Take off your pants and lie down Harmon. I want to have some fun today. This baby making shit is getting tedious,” I say, side stepping so he cannot see me lay my knife on the dresser. He shoves his pants down and folds them, this man’s control issues are off the charts. I watch him settle himself on my bed, his hands behind his head and the arrogance bleeding from him. It’s almost too perfect, too easy as I straddle him with the cable ties held in my teeth, he looks at me with greedy lust on those stupid eyes. Sliding my hands under his head, I bind his hands together right where they are. His eyes get big and he lets out a growl from his throat as I lean down and kiss him, a kiss of death. Sliding down the length of his naked body I slip off the end of the bed and stand there. I look over every inch of my enemy and I feel the betrayal of his brother, the man I admired. The person whose approval I sought every day for most of my life. I offered him my kidney, I would have died to save him and it was all a lie. A carefully crafted plan to get me to give him what he wanted most and couldn’t buy. The violent malice of his forward planning have set the killer in me completely free, there is no consequence for this action. Anyone who feels sorry, sad or hurt by this murder deserves to feel the torment.

  I slide out of my clothes, it’s easier to clean myself up afterwards that way. Harmon licks his lips and rakes over me with eyes, he is partially restrained but I will still have to move quickly so he can’t hurt me or get away. I grab his tie and bind one leg to my bedpost, he thinks I’m being kinky. It’s turning him on and his hard cock is on display in the bright morning light. The sun catches the ridges of his perfectly sculpted and manicured body, I wonder how much he spends on waxing? I turn my back, draw in a cleansing breath and grab my knife off the dresser, it fits perfectly in my fist allowing me to wield it with power and finesse.

  “Let’s play a game, Harmon.” I turn around and bring the blade to my mouth, biting down on the sharp end strolling back to him I see his eyes grow wide. He doesn’t know if I’m actually playing a game or not. Picking up my undies off the floor I crumple them into a ball and as I clamber back over his naked body avoiding his dick. I shove them in his mouth that was gaping open with shock. Silenced, bound and vulnerable, I see the fear creeping over him, his cock turns flaccid. He squirms beneath me but I have him pinned with my whole body weight.

  “Do you want a baby, Harmon?” I whisper in his ear. “I don’t want babies, they would end up like us. Fucked up monsters with nothing to lose.” I sit and watch his eyes as he closes them and opens again in the hope he is dreaming this. “You see, Harmon, if you don’t feel anything, if you are not attached to anything you cannot suffer. You can’t lose anything you don’t have. A child would be an attachment. Something I could lose. Something that could hurt me. Because I would love it. Love is the most excruciatingly painful thing in this world. So we are not having any babies. In fact we no longer exist. I’m taking back my life, your brother fucking stole my childhood, every action has a consequence this is the consequence of his.” My knife plummets into his chest with force, the sound of it hitting bone and tearing flesh is cathartic, a high like no other surges through me as I pull it free and watch his tears flow. His head shakes violently from side to side begging me through the gag in his mouth. I cannot stop, I’m setting myself free and nothing will stop me now. His blood stains my hands and sticks to my body as I mutilate the flesh and blood of my childhood tormentor. I never considered how Callum had tormented me into being the little girl he needed and not the girl I was born to be. This is me! The killer not the queen of his depraved empire, I’m not meant to sell people or diamonds. I never wanted to trade in human spare parts or ammunitions to start wars. He stole me from who I am and now his stupid brother is paying the price for it.

  Wiping my hair out of my face and smearing what’s left of him on my skin, I stand up on the bed ready to step off, the carnage is beautiful as I see the blood pool on my bed. I smile and for the very first time I know exactly who I am. When I look up out the window my attention drawn to Jameson barking, I see Mathew standing at the gate watching me. I can see his heart breaking from here as my demons have shown their true colours. Naked, covered in blood and completely exposed, I cannot hide any part of myself from him like this. If he can love me through this then his love is real and if he leaves me now, I know my monsters are bigger than the angel in him. He may be an angel of death but to me he was a saviour, a guardian angel. To me, he was love.

  I close my eyes to stop the tears that threaten to fall and when I open them, he’s gone, the gate is open and him and my dog are gone. I’m alone again. I’m always alone.

  Grief is the price of love.

  ONCE MY MIND HAS reconciled the fact that while she was with Harmon physically, she never gave him her heart, she didn’t let him in and for her the physical was meaningless. She had given me her heart, bruised, battered and bloody but it was still beating for me, I can’t ignore what she does to me or how I’m drawn to her, even the darkness in her pulls me closer. I drown my irrational jealousy in a bottle of liquor, it isn’t even good booze it just numbs out the pain and quiets the screaming voices telling me to leave and never look back. I saved her, at least I did everything I could to save her. If she doesn’t want to be saved that is not on me. By the time the sun and my phone wake me from my self-inflicted coma, it’s mid-morning. My head is pounding like a snare drum and my mouth is dry with the vile after effects of my wallowing. Showering the hangover away as much as I can and drown the rest in black coffee strong enough to fuel a car. One thing is still there in my thumping head. Her.

  I know I said I had to think and that she had to decide but that was my ego talking and I need to go back there and tell her that I understand. I need to help her choose right. I want her to choose me even if I am not sure that I have chosen her. I’m selfish. But I know that being with her will hurt me, ruin me and change me forever and I am not ready to change.

  I drive the long commute to her as fast as I can, not wanting the haze of my hangover to dissipate and allow me to think clearly. I don’t have the code to get in the residential gates so I park at the farm entrance and walk through the vineyard past the cemetery and up the hill to house. I can feel the sweat of last night’s drinking and the sun beating down on me as it coats my skin and makes my clothing stick to me. I’m not dressed for hiking in the heat of the mid-morning sun and I shove my sleeves up as high as the will go. Jameson finds me half way up the hill his wagging tail as he runs in circles around me whips against my legs and I try to pet him but he is moving too fast. “Come on boy. Calm down I want to get up there.” I talk to the silly dog in an attempt to get him from under my feet.

  As I reach the threshold where I was assaulted by her betrayal yesterday, I’m again met with an image I cannot ever wipe from my mind. I watch, frozen as she cuts him up, ripping his flesh apart with a knife. Her naked body painted in blood red murder, I knew he had to die. God I have killed people, but this is savage. My eyes won’t look away, the angel I love is replaced by a monster that I never dreamed exist
ed in her. I must be a fool, I knew there were over eighty men missing, dead and disposed of by her hand. I was cocky enough to believe that I was different, that I could tame the beast inside her. A part of me is dying with him, the hope I had clung to all my life is being brutally slaughtered with every stab of her blade into his flesh. Avery was without a doubt born to be a killer, she murders him with grace and carnal beauty and takes me right along with him. I can almost feel the physical pain of every puncture and slice as it carves through the flesh of my love for her. I don’t love this savage villain that I see now. Who could love that?

  My affections are turned to stone and dust as she stands behind the glass and our eyes meet, those viciously contrasted eyes bore into my soul and pull my heart out. I want to hold her and heal this gaping wound in me but I know that this is not an illusion this is her truth. I cannot save her because she isn’t real. The calm part of me wants to walk away and not glance back instead the anger makes me go inside. I need the closure of seeing all of her up close, stripped bare and right in front of my eyes, my blindness needs to be cured. I had wanted to kill him, my way would have had the same end result but it would have been clinical, detached and peaceful. I see death as an end to suffering, she made him suffer, pulled the pain from his body with each slash. Dragging his torture out so that she could feast on his agony. She was enjoying it, I have seen that look in her eyes. The same pleasure she expressed as I made love to her. I was fucking a monster all this time only now I see her clearly.