by Winters, W.
“I grabbed the chair and I didn’t stop hitting him with it. The other guys there never got up when Dave went after me, but they did come for me. Not at first. Not the first time I struck him with the metal legs. The ring of the metal bashing into his head was louder than the basketball game playing on the one TV in the corner of the bar.” Aria remains silent, and I continue.
“They didn’t even get up when he fell to the floor. I didn’t stop cracking his head in with the chair. I couldn’t.” A lot like Aria tonight. I hadn’t made the connection until the thought hit me.
I remember how I didn’t even think I was breathing. I didn’t think it was real. I didn’t want it to be.
“I didn’t kill him that night,” I tell her and then kiss her hair. My grip on her shoulder tightens and I pull her back into my chest. “The other assholes there dragged me away from him, but the minute I was free, they let me go. I got my father after leaving Dave on the floor bloodied up and moaning.”
I can see each of their faces now, full of fear and disbelief that a scrawny boy had nearly killed the man on the floor. My chest heaved but the adrenaline took over.
I killed him a week later after my mother had died and we’d buried her. He came to get money to cover the hospital bills for his broken nose. Money we didn’t have, but he expected we would from the life insurance that didn’t exist.
No one else was home and I wasn’t supposed to be home either, but the guilt of leaving my mom that night kept me from going anywhere for days.
My mother died while I was gone, and I know if I had to put the blame somewhere, it should be on my father.
I know that Dave wasn’t the reason that my mother died. But as he stood in the doorway of our home, telling me that the life insurance money from my mother’s death was going to him, I lost it. I already knew there was no life insurance. There was no money. There was no helping my father, a man who didn’t want to be helped. There was no bringing my mother back.
I knew all of that. I also knew that the man in front of me didn’t care.
He didn’t care about any of that. And so, I let him into our home, grabbing the pistol my father kept by the door as I closed it. I walked Dave into the kitchen where my mother died on the hospital bed under the pretense of retrieving the check sitting on the counter. I shot him in the back. Just once, with shaking hands. But once was enough.
I didn’t stop shaking, not even hours after Sebastian had helped me throw Dave’s body into the river. He was the only friend I had and the only person I could turn to. He was older than me, stronger than me and he was there for me when I had no one. He didn’t stay for long though. He had his own demons to run from, and plenty of them.
I couldn’t stop shaking. If it wasn’t for my brothers, I don’t think I could have continued living. In a way, it was our first act together that led to this empire. Nothing can bring you closer to someone than death can.
I remember how I didn’t want to bury Dave like Sebastian suggested because I couldn’t stand to see upturned dirt after watching my mother being lowered into the ground only days before. I threw up as Sebastian dug a hole. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t deal with what I’d done and what I was capable of.
And so, we tossed the body in the bed of the truck instead after covering the partially dug shallow grave, and Sebastian disposed of the body in the river. All while I uselessly rocked myself in the passenger seat of the truck, loathing myself and what I’d done.
“When did you kill him?” Aria asks me, breaking up my thoughts and bringing me back to her. I blink away the memories and the heavy sadness in the pit of my chest.
It takes me a minute to realize I hadn’t voiced the last bit of my story. She thinks I just lost it at the bar. She doesn’t know that I did it days later and that I led him into the house knowing I wanted to see the man die.
“Does it matter when he died?” I ask her, wanting to keep the truth from her and thinking that it makes it better if it was just heat of the moment. But nothing makes being a murderer better.
She doesn’t answer me, she only lowers her cheek to my chest and I continue holding her, remembering how I shook that night after ditching Dave’s dead body into the river. “The shaking will stop,” I whisper.
Time passes slowly, neither of us speaking until I finally feel the weight of the day and tell Aria to sleep.
“I don’t want to sleep,” she tells me wearily and then forces herself to swallow. “I’m afraid I’ll see him. He’ll be there waiting for me.”
“Shh,” I hush her again, cupping her chin in both of my hands and gently placing a kiss on her forehead. I notice then how calm her body is.
It’s amazing what a distraction can do to a person. It can make you forget about everything.
“He’s gone,” I remind her, although her prolonged fear worries me.
Killing him was supposed to set her free.
It will, the voice hisses and calms the worry creeping up on me. Nodding as if in agreement with the voice, I kiss her once more, pressing my lips to her smooth skin and then pull back, waiting for her to look at me.
“I told you. All you have to fear is me.”
Aria’s hazel eyes are deep with emotion, swirling with an intensity that pulls me in and pins me down until her lips part and my gaze drifts to them.
The yearning to press my lips to hers nearly wins, but instead, I remember yet another aspect of tonight that I’d planned and forgotten about.
“Wait here,” I command her, and disappointment causes her gaze to lower, but she releases me for the first time since I’d crawled into bed to be beside her.
As I walk to the dresser, I strip off my shirt and pants before grabbing the case with a syringe in it and a bottle of oil from the drawer. I haven’t needed it for so long, but she needs it tonight. It will let her sleep if nothing else.
Standing next to the bed, I motion for her to come to me before telling her to turn around and get on all fours. I’ve come to expect a lot of things from Aria. Her sass and her mouth, her questions, and defiance.
But tonight, all she does is obey, and that stirs up something inside of me. Both the pure and the depraved desires. She doesn’t even ask why.
My hand gentles on the curve of her ass then moves up to her waist and back down before I give her the shot, making her jump slightly before she steadies herself and then I can push down the plunger of the syringe.
“Birth control,” I tell her and then smirk at the thought as I add, “it’s better late than never.”
Aria only murmurs a response, placing both her hands flat on the sheets and her cheek follows as she turns her head.
“I have this for you too,” I tell her after setting the empty syringe down on the nightstand and pushing on her hip. “Sit up,” I command her, and she obeys easily, wincing slightly as her ass presses against the comforter.
“It should help you sleep,” I explain as I pull the liquid into the bulb syringe. The oil is clear, a pure drug that will hit her hard the first night. “Have you ever heard of Sweet Lullabies?” I ask her, and she tilts her head with a crease in her forehead indicating her confusion.
“Lullabies? I know a few-”
“No, the drug.”
I don’t expect her to. We’ve only just started selling the adapted version that’s marketable. She shakes her head, proving me right although the confusion in her expression stays in place.
I lift the syringe to her lips and she obediently opens her mouth, tilting her head back slightly for me. I admire how the moonlight reflects off her slender neck and plays with the shadows down her body as the liquid hits her tongue.
“Suck it down.” The command I give her makes my dick stir, but she’ll be out soon. Within minutes, I would bet.
“What is it?” she asks me, and I debate on telling her how it came to be and how it’s responsible for so many of the reasons I am who I am, but she yawns, cutting me off before I begin.
“Just lie down,” I
tell her gently, and pull back the covers for her to nestle in beside me. I’ve had her in my bed a number of nights now, but she’s never readily slept this close to me.
With the rustling of the sheets silenced, I let my hand rest on her hip and rub soothing circles there. I breathe in the scent of her hair and leave a small kiss there as I listen to her steady breathing and know that sleep has taken her before I could even begin to admit what this drug really is.
Chapter 5
Aria
I used to dream of things I’d bet all girls dream about.
I would dance so beautifully, my hair swinging in the air as I landed a perfect pirouette. In my dreams, I could be and do anything. I’d dance in a ballet center stage, and amidst a crowd of thousands, I’d perform beautifully.
I’d climb the mountains and find a magical field of flowers where they came to life like the story of Alice in Wonderland. I could talk to the animals and drink tiny cups of tea that would make me small enough to follow the rabbits down the rabbit holes.
I could be anyone I wanted to in my dreams. But those visions were from long ago. It’s funny how they come back tonight.
Each of the scenes flashes through my head as if on fast forward. I see myself as a young girl performing the arts I wanted to before I realized my insecurities would keep me from even trying. I watch as I remember a dream I had of kissing a boy in my class. I imagined my leg would kick up behind me as he deepened it.
But even as the memory of my dreams from long ago comes to life before me, I’m aware that they’re only dreams. I never kissed Paulie. I never had the courage to and if I had, I know it wouldn’t have happened the way I pictured it.
For a moment, I question if I’m dreaming or awake. Everything is so vivid. So real.
But the scenes keep going. They don’t stop for me.
The hairs at the back of my neck prick as I know what’s coming. They’re all in order, like a timeline of my hopes as I watch the scenes play out. I know I’m getting older. I know what’s to come, and I want it to stop.
My head shakes. Make it stop.
But they don’t.
I watch as I dream about my mother and me in the park. She’s there with her friend like she always is. And I’m there drawing instead of playing with the other girls. I dreamed of drawing something that day, but when I look down at the paper it’s blank. I can’t remember what it was. But it doesn’t matter. All I can focus on is her face. This is the dream that turned into a nightmare. The first dream of so many I had over and over again.
Make them stop. My throat closes, and I want to scream. It’s too real, too vivid. And I can’t stop it.
I can feel my nails digging into the sheets. I’m awake, but I can’t open my eyes. I can barely move, and I can’t stop the images.
My heart races as I see myself in the closet.
Please stop, I whisper in my dreams, but my throat doesn’t feel the words. Not like my chest feels the pounding of my blood.
There she is standing with her back to me, facing the door. My mother’s standing there and I’m terrified. Why did she tell me not to leave? Not to scream. Not to move except to hide.
Terror races through my veins.
I wish I could move and go to her. To help her.
Please make it stop. I don’t want to see it again.
I don’t want to see him push the door open and force her down on the ground. She barely fought him and now I know why.
I can feel the tears leaking down my cheeks and I try to scream, but my words are voiceless.
Stephan looks so young. So much younger than he did when I stabbed him. When I murdered him and put an end to the sick smile on his face.
I can’t watch, but I can’t close my eyes. I can’t turn it off. There’s nowhere to run in your dreams.
Please, I don’t want to see this. I don’t want to remember.
The pain grows in my chest and it paralyzes me. The shaking overwhelms me as he pulls out the knife. It’s only a small knife, one like Daddy has for fishing.
Run! I try to scream to myself. Save her! I will my limbs to move, but I’m victim to my dreams.
She’s still on the ground with her back to him. She’s crying so hard but trying not to. She’s pinned beneath him as I cover my screams with my hands over my mouth in the closet.
Please, Mom, run, I want to say, but my plea is only a whimper. I know she won’t. I have no control here and I’ve seen this nightmare so many times. The memory haunts me in my waking hours just as much as it does in my sleep.
I didn’t know what he was doing to her. Not when he held her down and pushed himself inside of her and not when he pulled out the knife. I didn’t know it was over until he sliced her neck open. I knew what death meant and when I saw the bright red blood leaking from her and the way she covered it with her hands as she tried to keep it from flowing, I knew what was happening.
But what he did to her before, I didn’t know. It wasn’t until a month later when I told my cousin Brett that he explained it to me with a pained expression I’ll never forget. I told him everything, but he didn’t want to hear. He said Talverys don’t cry, we get revenge. He was wrong about both of those things.
Nikolai would listen to me though. He let me cry and didn’t make me feel ashamed of that fact.
Even the thoughts of Nikolai don’t stop the visions before me. Of my mother with her hair pulled back by Stephan as he slit her throat, of her looking toward the closet where I hid when the life left her.
Her lips are moving.
I can’t hear what she’s saying.
She’s saying something. A chill flows down my arms. This isn’t what happens. This isn’t what I’ve dreamed before.
Is this real?
The hairs on my body stand on end. My breath is caught in my throat. I don’t watch Stephan like I have before. I know the look of triumph on his face as he wipes off the knife on her bare back. I know what he does next. But my mother is still alive as her face falls to the floor. The blood pools around her cheek like it always does. But this time she blinks slowly and looks at me.
“Mom,” I whisper, wanting to move but not able to. Move, I will myself hopelessly.
My mom blinks again and she speaks. I know she does. “I can’t hear you, Mom. Please. Please don’t die,” I beg her.
Is this real?
Am I breathing? I can’t tell anymore.
I watch her lips, the right side of them covered in her own blood.
But the movement from the man standing behind her steals the attention from her.
Stephan stole what used to be and I can never have it back. Him dying doesn’t mean anything.
No, I whisper and shake my head as my small fingers of the child I was, reach out and grab the closet door. I can feel it. I can feel exactly what the edge of the closet door felt like.
My shoulders shake violently; this isn’t what happens in my dream. The chill leaves and I feel hot, too hot. “Wake up!” I hear Carter’s voice and it begs me to open my eyes, but before they obey, I hear my mother’s voice say, “You can’t forget me.”
I suck in air as my eyes shoot open and I stare at the ceiling of Carter’s bedroom through a haze of tears. The lights are bright, so bright it hurts, and I close them just as quickly.
With both of my hands covering my eyes, I feel the wetness and try to rub it all away.
My chaotic breaths are matched with Carter’s as I slowly come back to reality. Back to Carter’s bed. Back to the safety of this moment and not the nightmare of the past.
It was so real. Again, those goosebumps flood every inch of me as I reach Carter’s gaze. His eyes are dark as he stares back at me.
His lips part, but he doesn’t say anything for a long moment.
“I was screaming?” I ask him, although I know it’s true. My throat feels raw and my words are hoarse.
“For almost half an hour,” he tells me with nothing but concern and then visibly swallows as my blood ch
ills. “You wouldn’t wake up.”
It’s been years since I’ve slept through the entire nightmare. Or even since each second played out as if it were an eternity.
Years have passed, but I know the terror was never like that before.
“I don’t know what you need,” Carter intimates to me, sealing me from my thoughts like he’s confessing a sin. I watch his throat as he swallows again. Pulling his arms around my chest I try to lie back down as if this is normal. As if this is okay.
“Hold me,” I tell him although I stare at the ceiling, seeing the vision of my mother looking at me in the haunted memory. Her still alive on the floor even though I know she was dead.
“Please, just hold me,” I plead with him and turn my head, so I can look at him.
Confusion mars his face, but he doesn’t say anything. He only climbs closer to me on the bed and pulls me tighter to him.
I need him to hold me more than I’ve ever needed anything. Other than my mother to come back to me.
Chapter 6
Carter
Today is the first day I see Aria as stronger when she’s with me. And I can’t shake that thought as I enter the den.
I’ve only left her for a few minutes here and there. Staying quiet behind her and watching her every move. But she knows I’m there and each time she’s started to break down, she comes to me.
Of her own free will, she comes to me, asking me to hold her as if my touch could take her pain away.
My poor songbird hasn’t realized my touch only brings pain, and I hope she never does.
The drawing pad shows a clean page. Not a mark lays against the stark white.
With a pen in her hand, she lies on her belly on the rug in front of the fire and stares at the blank sheet as if it’ll speak to her.
I would stay there longer, standing behind the sofa, listening to the crackling of the burning wood, and waiting for her fingers to move across the page, but with a shift in my stance, the floor creaks beneath me and breaks her focus.
