Sanctity

by S. M. Bowles

  “No, it won’t.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “As far as they know, you were there but you left with someone else.”

  “That’s impossible.” I said shaking my head in disbelief.

  He looked at me; his gaze was viciously intense, “Is it?” My mind was flooded with the image of me as I sat at the table just before we left. Victor was handing me my glass of wine and I snatched it from his hand and tossed its contents into his face. As I stormed towards the front door, I seized Charlie by the elbow and dragged him along with me.

  “Oh, now that wasn’t very nice of you, now was it?”

  “How did you do that? It’s not possible,” my voice was trembling with the terror.

  “Hmmm,” was the only reply I received.

  “Where are you taking me?”

  He smiled, “Why, I’m taking you home, of course. I’m taking you home Lily.”

  Chapter 20

  I started relentlessly casting for ideas as to how to get out of the situation. I instinctively knew that there was something more to Victor than I was capable of dealing with and quickly discarded every momentary option I considered. I decided it was better not to take any chances until it was absolutely necessary since I had no idea how dangerous Victor’s intentions truly were.

  After a short time had passed I found that the area we were driving in was familiar to me. I felt like Victor was driving me to Aunt Margaret’s.

  “Humph,” Victor snorted, “Aunt Margaret’s. She is no aunt of yours.”

  I turned my head to face him, “Please Victor, she is old and helpless and I’m sure she has never done anything to hurt you. Please leave her out of this!” My eyes stung with unshed tears as I worried over Victor’s plans.

  “You’d be surprised how cruel she can be.”

  “No, she’s never done anything unkind, not to anyone, I know it!” I was tempted to reach out and grab the steering wheel and deliberately cause us to crash.

  Before I could act though Victor struck me with a ferocious backhand, “None of that,” he said. I could taste the blood as it flooded my mouth and trickled from the corner of my lips. Victor took a finger and crudely wiped it as it dribbled towards my chin, “Mmm,” he sighed as he wrapped his mouth around his bloody finger, “now I can taste why Michael loves you so much. I’m tempted to take you now but I’ve waited a long time for this moment and it will be so much better once we’re all together.”

  “Michael?” I thought to myself. “I don’t know anyone named Michael,” I blurted out loud.

  “Of course you do, it’s right there,” he violently poked his finger between my eyes. “In fact, he’s everywhere on you, I can practically smell him in your hair, on your skin, in your breath. How much did he give you? What did he do to you and how is it that you are still alive and so distinctly his?

  I was not completely clear as to what Victor was saying but I felt the need to defend myself for the lie he seemed to believe of me. “You’re wrong. I’ve only known one man; there is only one man that I have ever loved.”

  This declaration brought on a fit of laughter when Victor heard it, “Michael will be very disappointed to know that. I’m sure he has been beside himself with grief sharing you with Charlie all these years. Now to find out that you never really loved him. I couldn’t have placed the cherry more artfully on top.”

  I could no longer hold back the tears that were swimming in my eyes, “Charlie, Margaret, oh, please don’t let him hurt them,” I whispered the prayer in my head.

  “God, stop sniveling; it’s disgusting, so human, so weak. You’re all pathetic you know that!” I shrunk back as he hollered at me afraid he would hit me again.

  I tried to quiet my tears and turned myself away from looking at him. We were pulling into Margaret’s driveway before too long. As he brought the car to a stop I bolted from the passenger’s seat and raced toward the front door screaming for Margaret to lock us out. Victor reached the porch before I did and grabbed hold of me by the throat as I stumbled up the stairs. Before he could recompose himself the front door swung wide and Kaley lunged for him knocking Victor off balance. As he stumbled he released his grip on me and was forced to deal with the brutal attack Kaley was unleashing on him.

  I ushered Margaret inside and as I bolted the door behind us I heard Kaley give a hideous yelp and I knew that she had died in her effort to defend me from Victor. I broke for the kitchen and clumsily gathered up the phone. I tried to punch 911 into the dial pad but my hands were shaking so badly that I kept pushing the wrong buttons.

  The front door exploded off its hinges and I was frozen with a newfound fear. The phone slipped from my fingers and clattered to the floor. Victor gave Margaret a cursory shove as he brushed by her and lunged for me.

  “Call him,” he growled through his tightly clenched jaw.

  “Victor,” Margaret found her voice, “please let her go, she doesn’t know who you mean. I can assure you, there is nothing there, no one for her to call. Michael left her years ago. She doesn’t know who he is any more.”

  I was looking at Margaret with an amazed expression. My mind was racing trying to determine who they could mean, who I was supposed to call. I stooped to pick up the phone, “Tell me who you want me to call, or dial the number, I’ll talk to whoever you want me to, tell them whatever you want,” my words came out in a series of stutters.

  Victor looked from me to Margaret and back again. “I think I have made myself abundantly clear,” he swiped the phone from my hand, “call him, call him now or by God, I will kill her slowly,” he looked at Margaret, “while you watch,” he growled at me.

  I didn’t know what I was supposed to do, I started screaming and clawing at Victor, “No, no, don’t hurt Margaret, I won’t let you! I won’t let you!”

  He shoved me to the floor and as I landed I skidded several feet from where he was standing. I was near the island and Victor was looking toward Margaret as she tried to convince him that what he asked was no longer possible. While Victor focused on what Margaret was telling him I reached into one of the drawers and fastened my hand around one of the large kitchen knives that Margaret stored there. I rushed at Victor determined to kill him before he could hurt Margaret or myself any further.

  He was momentarily caught off-guard and as I swung the blade it sliced a huge gash in his cheek. He raised his left hand to it and caught my next attack with his right, “I see you have some fight it you! Well so have I!”

  Victor wrestled the blade from my hand. He grasped it between his thumb and forefinger and tossed it toward Margaret. It took her in her left shoulder and she collapsed to the floor. He snatched me around my waist and forced me close; my back to his chest, his lips against my ear, “Another move like that and I will put your hand on that blade and have you draw it across her throat, do you understand me?!”

  I nodded my head and let go of all the fight that had possessed me.

  “Good. Now call Michael.”

  “I swear to you, I don’t know anyone named Michael and I don’t know how to call him,” I was grief-stricken as I watched the blood pooling on Margaret’s clothes. “Please let me help her,” I made a move toward Margaret.

  “She’ll be fine,” he wrapped a hand around my hair and yanked me back. “Sit,” he pushed me down onto one of the kitchen stools. “Well, what do you say Mother, dear, dear Mother, shall we tell your little ward who Michael is?”

  “Mother,” I thought to myself, “Margaret is Victor’s mother.”

  Margaret’s lips were trembling as she searched for her voice.

  “Well get up already and join us!” Victor kicked another stool toward her. “There, there, calm yourself. No, don’t take the blade out, it will only make it worse.”

  She stumbled toward the stool, “Michael is Victor’s brother,” Margaret began.

  “Ah,” Victor sighed and took a seat himself. He released me and placed his hands on the table while using his foot to urge my stoo
l closer.

  “Michael is my son…”

  “I’m you’re fucking son!”

  Margaret recoiled at his outburst but quickly recovered herself, “Victor and Michael are my sons,” she corrected. Michael, he brought you to me when you were a little girl, when you were twelve years old. It was after Victor killed your parents and Michael was determined to have you stay here with me; you were very special to him and he couldn’t let you go. He loved you;” she paused, “Michael loves you. He begged me to take care of you insisted I give you a good life and make up for what Victor had done to your parents.”

  “Oh, how touching! It makes me despise you even more knowing you would rather raise Michael’s hapless wretch of an orphan than your own son!! You always did love him better! Anything for Michael but nothing for me!” Victor exclaimed.

  I was looking from one to the other in wonderment, “My parents died in a car crash, I was with them.”

  Victor raised his eyebrows, “Were you? Is that what they told you? Is that the tragic picture Michael put in your head?”

  “Margaret is my aunt, my only living relative; I had nowhere else to go.”

  “Margaret is no more your aunt than I am human,” Victor tossed his head back and laughed at his own remark.

  “Not human,” the words echoed in my mind.

  “Yes, and neither is your precious Michael! I saw to that myself,” he puffed on his nails and mockingly polished them on his lapel.

  I looked to Victor hoping for further understanding but no information was forthcoming. I turned my gaze to Margaret and she began speaking again.

  “I don’t know what happened. As boys they seemed very close. Victor was nearly two years older than Michael and Michael looked up to him and admired him all their young lives. They did everything together and for the longest time got along quite well.”

  “Is that what you think? I never cared about Michael. Michael was a fucking usurper! That little bastard took everything from me. Starting with you and the day he was born.”

  “What are you saying Victor? You know that’s not true. Michael loved you; he would never have done anything to hurt you.”

  “Huh, is that so?”

  “Were you,” Margaret was looking Victor over wondering what he could have meant, “jealous of Michael? Is that what this is all about?”

  Victor clenched his jaw but waved the statement away as unimportant.

  “Do you remember when I was 10 years old and Father gave me a pocket knife for my birthday?”

  “Yes, of course I do, I always hated that gift. A harmless toy, your father insisted.”

  “Do you know what my first thought was when I touched it?” Victor chuckled as he watched the revulsion in Margaret’s face. “A harmless toy; maybe it was, at first anyway. But over time it came to be so much more to me. I took so many little lives with that knife and every one of them I imagined was Michael’s. So many lives, so many; and after a while it wasn’t enough to kill something I needed to hurt it too.”

  I looked to Victor and saw a malevolent gleam flickering in his eyes.

  “I don’t understand Victor, why would you want to hurt your brother?”

  Victor refused to answer. “None of you ever knew. I was careful not to get caught but Michael suspected something. He knew I snuck away from time to time and he was determined to find out why. So I let him. I suppose it was just a matter of time anyway. Michael was 11 or 12 years old by then and his best friend was a girl who lived just a few blocks away from us. Her name was Lily.”

  “Oh,” I gasped.

  “That’s right, you weren’t the first Lily,” Victor caustically stated.

  “My name is not Lily?” I posed the question to Margaret.

  “It’s Elayna.”

  “I know that name; I’ve heard it before, just this morning in fact. I thought I heard Charlie call me that name as my alarm was going off. We got into a fight because I thought he had called me by another woman’s name.”

  This was cause for some more laughter from Victor.

  “Charlie doesn’t know, or at least I’ve never told him,” Margaret gave a little cough which renewed the alarm I felt for her and I realized how vast the blood stain on her shoulder had grown.

  I phrased a new plea to Victor, “She needs a doctor. She is too old to suffer like this.”

  “Ha,” he snorted back at me, “I know what it’s like to suffer and that is nowhere near close enough to cause me concern,” he shook his head, “Now where was I? Ah, yes, Lily. Lily had a new puppy then that she loved more than anything in the world. I found that little puppy alone in her yard one day and, well, you can just imagine what I did to it. Michael saw it all. I was sure he would tell you even though I made him promise not to. He swore he never would.”

  “He didn’t not at first anyway,” Margaret hung her head.

  Victor shrugged, “He never told Lily, either. Perhaps he should have. Maybe we wouldn’t all be here right now.”

  I was shaking my head in disbelief, “It could have been different then, it might not have been too late then.”

  “That’s right! See you do remember.”

  “No, it’s your memory, not mine,” I said frowning but I could see it, somehow I could see it.

  Victor took my chin and searched my eyes. My stomach did a little flip, “Interesting,” he released me. “Well, Lily, she was a very pretty girl and even more so as she got older. By the time she was 14 she was the most beautiful girl I had ever seen. She was Michael’s friend, though. I hated her for loving Michael and tried to push her away but no matter how abrasive or badly I treated her, she was always nice to me. She was always nice to me,” he sighed. “I knew she did it for Michael. I knew what I was; I knew she could never love me and no matter how hard I tried not to, I loved her anyway.”

  “I told Michael, I asked him to let her go, to give me a chance. What did it matter? Everything came so easy for him, why not, he would find someone else. Of course he refused. There was only one thing left to do; I had to tell her. I had to tell her how I felt and hope that she would realize that she felt the same. I called her. I pretended I was Michael. I asked her to meet me. I had something to tell her.”

  Victor closed his eyes.

  Margaret started speaking, ever so softly, “I remember the look on Michael’s face when we heard what had happened to Lily. Michael was devastated. I took him to see her in the hospital but it was too late. She was never able to tell anyone what had happened to her or who was responsible. His heart was broken and when we got home Michael confided everything he knew about you, Victor; everything he witnessed and everything he suspected.”

  I looked from one to the other and wondered how someone so good could be the mother of someone so sinister.

  “You’re such a fool! Do you believe everything Michael tells you? He may have suspected but there was never any proof that I was responsible for Lily, was there? You and Father and Michael, you went to the police. Did you ever think for a moment that it might not have been me? You never even bothered to ask, you just accepted Michael’s word and turned your own son in for a crime you had not one iota of proof that he committed.”

  “But you did do it, didn’t you Victor?” Margaret asked.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you I didn’t; and what does it matter now, anyway?”

  Margaret sighed, “When we came home, Victor had already been there. His things were gone and we never heard from him again. Michael was grief-stricken; he felt responsible and insisted we find you, get you help. He thought that you could be saved Victor. We tried to look for you, though your father was completely against it, “It is better this way,” he said and never spoke of you again. Michael and I tried, I swear we tried to find you and bring you home.”

  Victor screamed, “If it wasn’t for Michael none of this would have happened!! He was so busy being the good son that he forgot to be a good brother! He knew, he knew! Long before any of you - he should ha
ve helped me before it was too late!” He seemed embarrassed by his outburst and abruptly stood up. He brushed the folds from his coat and quickly regained his composure, “It doesn’t matter. This is where we are, now right Lily, Elayna, whatever the hell you call yourself? I’m sure you can imagine the rest. It was your typical downward spiral; drugs, crime, loss of life. Well, not quite that last bit,” Victor grinned. “Before I met Gavin I lived 9 years of friendless, family-less misery but I always knew there was a place in this world for someone like me. I thank him every day for giving me this great gift! Ever in your wildest dreams did you think something like this was possible?” He snatched my wrist and before I realized what he was doing he sunk into my arm and took a deep pull from my veins.

  My eyes widened in shock but I was unable to react, it was as though he had me locked in some strange mental paralysis. As he loosened his hold and stepped away he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. I watched in fascinated horror as the cut on his cheek shimmered and healed leaving behind a flawless layer of skin where the gash had been.

  “Oh, God,” I sunk from the stool to my knees.

  “There is no God, trust me,” he snickered.

  I looked up as he loomed over me, “Call him; call Michael.”

  “I can’t.”

  He struck me, rattling my teeth, “Call him!”

  “I don’t know how.”

  “I have waited long enough - bring him to me!”

  I looked to Margaret for some understanding of what I was supposed to do. She shook her head regretfully.

  Victor wrapped my hair in his fist and hauled me to my feet, he was about to hit me again but as he raised his arm a voice commanded from the hallway, “Let her go or I will drain you to within a drop of your life and tear you limb from limb.”