Silencing Sapphire

by Mia Thompson

  Richard smiled. The girl had just realized he’d called her bluff. The power shifted back to him.

  “Ever since that night I’ve done nothing but think about you standing over me in that…that pit,” he spat in resentment, “with that look on your face and that laugh.”

  “Let him go.” Her nostrils flared in distress.

  “When I finally found you, boy was I surprised to see where you came from. I understood everything better than you can because I’ve already been there.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “That night, I saw it. You looked down at me so smug. You thought you were better than me. But you’re not. You’re in denial. I saw the darkness, the black hole you’re trying to fill. It reached through your eyes. After months of analyzing you, I finally understood it. You’re just like me.”

  “I’m nothing like you.” Her face reddened. “I’m not a killer.”

  “Maybe not yet, but you will be. Just like me, you feel alive, as if you can finally breathe when you hunt, when you track. It’s only then that your life has purpose.”

  “I’m not like you,” she said, but her eyes told him different. “Let him go.”

  “You feel it right now, don’t you?” Richard urged. “I see it in your eyes, the sickness rising within you, urging you to kill me, telling you how good it would feel.”

  She looked guilty.

  “The day you evolve, you’ll understand that you’re supposed to give in,” Richard continued. “You were born to do it.”

  “I know right from wrong. I’ll never be like you.”

  “We’ll see.” Richard kept his eyes on her and smiled.

  He drove the knife into the old man’s chest and a muffled cry escaped him. With pleasure, Richard watched her heart shatter as he twisted the knife.

  He let go and the old man fell face first to the floor, gasping in pain.

  Richard let the knife remain in the chest just like he’d planned. He backed off, waiting for the next piece to fall into place. He felt no fear.

  The time had come. Finally, he would silence Sapphire Dubois.

  * * * * *

  Sapphire screamed as Charles’s body hit the floor. Blood was gushing out of the slash in his chest and every muscle in his face spasmed from pain.

  After that, everything happened fast, but to Sapphire, every second was an eternity.

  She ran to him and removed the gag. She put the skirt of her dress on the wound to apply pressure around the knife. The blood was spitting out.

  “I’m sorry,” she cried.

  Charles gasped for air and placed a red hand on her cheek. His eyes were filled with regret and panic. His thoughts were clear. He just started living again and wasn’t ready to die. He wanted to stay, to hold onto life.

  “I need you,” Sapphire whispered, her voice breaking.

  Charles’s eyes welled with tears and his lip quivered as Sapphire held his gaze. His face drained of color and the pool of blood underneath him grew.

  His hand fell to the floor. His strained breath ceased. His eyes remained open, but Charles’s soul was gone.

  Sapphire cried out as a thick pain tore through her chest. The grief ripped through her, leaving agony in its trail. She screamed to release the sorrow from her body, but like a parasite, it had found its new host.

  She heard a laugh.

  It was the laugh of the man who killed Charles.

  Sapphire’s grief was swallowed by a more powerful emotion. A hot anger grew stronger, feeding on the sorrow. It took over and Sapphire fell under its command. She wrapped her fingers around the knife’s handle.

  Somewhere in her shattered mind, Sapphire heard a door open, but it didn’t register. All that mattered was Richard Martin’s laugh.

  Sapphire pulled the knife out of Charles’s chest and rose to her feet.

  “You killed him,” she said in a strange deep voice she didn’t recognize.

  “No,” Richard Martin said, “you killed him.”

  Sapphire launched at him. She grabbed him by the neck and drove the knife into his gut.

  For a while there wasn’t a sound. Not even their breathing. The room stood still. Even the dust particles froze in alarm over the event that had taken place.

  When their eyes met, Sapphire understood what he had done. Even though he’d soon be dead, Richard Martin looked fulfilled, satisfied to his very core.

  This was his plan all along. He made her into one of them.

  The knife turned to shame and burned her hand. Sapphire threw it to the floor and backed up in shock. She felt like she’d left her body and now returned to find it covered in blood.

  Richard fell to his knees and then to the floor. He remained still.

  Sapphire turned to see Vivienne and Petunia standing by the side entrance in shock.

  “Dear God, Sapphire,” Vivienne gasped in denial. “You’ve completely ruined your Vera Wang!”

  Sapphire couldn’t get a word out. She remembered the sound of the door. Petunia and Vivienne entered at the exact moment when Sapphire pulled the knife out of Charles. To them, it looked like she killed them both.

  “Sapphire,” Vivienne said with a traumatized hollowness, “I think I need to go back to rehab…Raul!”

  She left and Sapphire’s eyes shot to her cousin. Petunia’s expression drained of shock and filled with glee.

  An evil, satisfied version of glee. She turned her heel and ran out. Sapphire knew exactly what her cousin was going to do.

  “What the fuck!”

  He had replaced Petunia in the doorway, the man Sapphire so badly wanted to be with, a witness to what she had done.

  “Aston?” Sapphire whispered. There was no way she could explain it all.

  Her world had changed forever in a few short moments. There was only one familiar thought that made sense.

  Run!

  * * * * *

  Before Sapphire made the move he saw it in her eyes. He’d seen this look on so many guilty criminals before they ran.

  The floor flooded with blood and she was covered in it. She had been involved in whatever went down.

  “Don’t—” Aston started.

  Sapphire turned, opened the doors, and ran.

  “Shit.” He took off after her.

  Aston chased her through the hallway where the guests had gathered to take back their wedding gifts.

  “Move!” he yelled. The crowd stood frozen and watched the bride bolt past them in a blood-soaked dress.

  Some people screamed, others fainted. Aston pushed through the crowd trying to get to her. “Sapphire!”

  Her wedding dress slowed her down and Aston caught up. He was just about to tackle her when someone grabbed him.

  “No. No. No. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way!” Officer Moore’s fingers dug into his arms.

  “Move! I don’t have time for this!”

  “How are we supposed to get married if you keep acting like this?!”

  “Marri—What!?”

  Moore pointed to her hand. The missing piece of Aston’s Dodgers shirt had been tied around her finger to look like a ring. Officer Fatso’s words echoed in his mind.

  “Ridder, congrats, I just heard!”

  Laura, the receptionist, had told him he’d said. Moore’s friend.

  Aston saw Sapphire shove the doors open. He tore Officer Moore off him and ran.

  “Aston!” Officer Moore yelled as he reached the doors.

  Aston wasn’t sure what made him turn. It could have been instinct or the sound of a Smith and Wesson being cocked.

  “What are you doing?” Aston asked, staring at the gun in Moore’s hand.

  “I warned you.” Moore’s eye twitched. Her face burned with hatred and her body shook with jealousy. “I told you to be careful with her, so you wouldn’t get hurt.”

  “Moore…” Aston tried to calm her.

  “Angelica,” she corrected and pulled the trigger.

  Chapter 25

 
; Sapphire was going 100 miles an hour down the 405.

  Her eyes strayed to the mirror again, expecting to see Aston’s car, and his tag-along cops. The only people chasing her were angry drivers trying to catch up to give her the finger for cutting them off.

  When she burst out of the country club she’d spotted the limo meant to take her and John to the airport and their honeymoon. The windows were down, the keys in the ignition, and Sapphire didn’t think twice before she took it. She sped away from Beverly Hills without direction.

  Sapphire grabbed her phone again.

  “Call Father O’Riley!” He was the only one not connected to her Beverly Hills life. Maybe she could hide there.

  “Father O’Riley is out of the coverage area.”

  “He’s not! Search yellow pages, match, and call Father O’Riley home.”

  “The number has been disconnected.”

  Sapphire yelled and tossed her phone to the spacious back seat.

  It didn’t matter, she realized. She needed to get out of California all together. She needed to get as far away from Beverly Hills as possible.

  A gap opened up ahead and she floored it, trying to see through the side mirror. She’d ridden in plenty of limos but had never driven one. The rearview mirror was useless and hard to navigate.

  She pulled to change the lane. A car came out of nowhere, crashing into her side, taking her side mirror. Sapphire swerved too hard for her speed, and the steering wheel spun on its own, sending her into a loop. A truck smashed into the rear, pushing her to the shoulder.

  Sapphire held onto the wheel as the limo came to a stop. Shock took over and she stayed motionless. She couldn’t move. Her hands were fused to the wheel.

  She was breaking. She could feel the tears coming. She tried to breathe, to keep it together, but no air reached her lungs, all she managed were short gasps. She let her head fall down to the wheel as the light headedness grew.

  “Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God.” The negative mantra spilled out of her. She had never felt more alone.

  The man she wanted to be with was probably about to put her in jail for murder. Charles was dead and the sorrow of never seeing him again was excruciating. She’s trade anything for a chance to see him one more time. She wanted to hold him tightly and beg for his forgiveness.

  Because of Petunia, everybody would think Sapphire killed him, even her own mother. In a sense, Sapphire had killed him. She hadn’t held the knife, but it was her actions that drove somebody else to do it.

  Sapphire cried, her lungs wheezing. She had nobody. No money. No answers.

  The wall she’d built to keep Beverly Hills and the serial killers separated had collapsed. There wasn’t a way to put it back together. She couldn’t return home, and she had nowhere else to go. This was Sapphire’s apocalypse.

  She raised her tear-filled eyes to the rearview mirror, looking at the destroyed figure in the reflection. Her eyes drew to the champagne bottle in the back. It had been meant for her and John to celebrate with.

  Her eyes refocused and saw it.

  The message was so clear that it seemed as though it was surrounded by a divine aura.

  Her way out.

  * * * * *

  Aston knew he was bleeding to death on an operating table in the E.R. He also knew he was under anesthesia but he could hear everything. He even heard them drop the bullet into the metal bowl, a bullet that Aston had coming. It was karma for all his women over the years. He’d always figured something like this would happen one day.

  “Blood pressure’s dropping,” a stressed female voice announced.

  His mind was present where his body was located, but some part of him traveled back to the wedding, the moment Sapphire stood on top of the staircase and smiled down at him.

  “If I could be with Aston, I would.” Her voice sang through the speakers.

  At that moment, she hadn’t been the Serial Catcher. None of the baggage that kept them apart existed. It felt like they would walk out of there together, not worried about the obstacles that would come.

  “We’re losing him,” the female said, this time with urgency. A dragged-out beep from a machine followed.

  Losing him? He wasn’t going anywhere. Aston had shit to do. The important kind.

  When Sapphire headed out those doors, he knew she wasn’t just running to escape the heat of the moment. It was…it was…

  “Clear!” a male voice yelled.

  Yes, it was clear, she would keep running.

  “He’s gone,” the female voice said. “Doctor, let him go. He’s dead.”

  Dead? Fuck that.

  Aston didn’t have time to be dead. He had to wake up, walk out of that hospital, and find her. He didn’t care what he had to do or where he had to go. He would search the whole freaking planet if he had to, and he wouldn’t stop until he reached the World’s End.

  “Clear!” The male voice was defiant.

  If Aston did reach the World’s End, Sapphire would be standing there, waiting for him with a mischievous smile.

  “What took you so long?” she’d say.

  He’d swear at her for making him walk all the way to the World’s End. Then he’d take her and never let go.

  Aston Ridder had never followed orders, and he wasn’t about start now. He simply refused to be dead.

  The machine’s sound changed again.“Doctor, we’ve got a pulse.”

  * * * * *

  Sapphire pushed past the crowd scrambling to get to baggage claim. She’d stolen a sundress from someone’s outside clothing line and washed up in a restroom at a gas station. The people hustling by her would never have guessed that less than twelve hours ago she’d looked like a cross between Carrie and Miss Havisham.

  When she saw her and John’s pre-prepped passports and honeymoon tickets next to the champagne bucket, she knew it wasn’t only the right choice, but her only option.

  The long plane ride had been horrible. There was nothing to do but think. It was like squeezing months of mourning into just one night. She felt sick from it now and her body had gone numb to filter the pain.

  Sapphire headed for the exit as she turned her phone back on. She slowed up until the cart transferring luggage to Dubai was close enough, then slipped it into someone’s duffle bag.

  “Good riddance,” she mumbled. In case Aston figured out a way to trace her phone, it would lead him to the Middle East.

  She was in no rush, yet she hurried out through the revolving doors and up to the railing across the airport.

  The alien city spread out in front of her, blanketed in early morning darkness. Sapphire closed her eyes feeling the heavy sorrow rip her apart again. She could never change what had happened, no matter how much she wished; Charles would never come back. He, along with the only life she’d ever known, lay in destruction behind her, a wasteland after an atomic bomb.

  The thought of never seeing Aston again cut through her chest like a razor.

  Aside from losing Charles and the other bad thing that happened in that room, it was hard for her to take that Aston had witnessed Sapphire at the worst moment of her life.

  She clutched the railing. This dark unfamiliar place below her, where she knew nothing and no one, was now her life. When she woke up the next morning it wouldn’t be to Julia’s phone call, Vivienne’s voice, Chrissy’s friendship, Aston’s piercing blue eyes, or—worst of all—Charles’s lopsided smile. She had to accept it, no matter how much it hurt.

  “Um, Ex-cew-say…” an older man with his back to her asked a cab driver. His hat, Hawaiian shirt and shorts, made his American nationality obvious.

  The cab driver took off, ignoring the man.

  “Aw, come on,” the old man said, turning.

  “Oh my God…” Sapphire gasped. She blinked, unable to believe her eyes. It was really him. She had never been so happy to see anyone in her life.

  “Sapphire?”

  She lunged at Father O’Riley and hugged him. She held on as she lau
ghed in relief. Then all the panic, fear, and regret surfaced.

  “Wait, are you laughing or crying?” he asked, patting her back.

  “Both.” Sapphire let go to wipe her tears. “HOW are you even here?!”

  “Because of you,” Father O’Riley said. “Remember when you said, I wasn’t happy where I was and I should leave?”

  “That was sarcasm.”

  “I know, but it made sense. I’d been struggling with my faith ever since the…you know…”

  “Boning,” Sapphire nodded.

  He gave her his look of disapproval. It felt nice, familiar.

  “Anyway, I sent a request to Vatican City, thinking, what better place to reaffirm my faith than the Catholic capital?” His eyes sparkled.

  “You’re going to Rome? Then what are you doing here?”

  “I haven’t been in this part of the world since I was a kid so I’ve been traveling for a bit. I just came from Berlin. This is my last stop. I wanted to have some fun before I lock myself up with the monsignors. They’re not the most chipper bunch, you know.”

  Sapphire’s phone had been right. Father O’Riley had been out of the calling area. Way out.

  “Why didn’t you say goodbye?”

  “If it makes you feel better, I just took off, didn’t even bother telling my brother.” He studied her. “What are you doing here?”

  As Sapphire told him everything—the good, the bad, the ugly—they watched the city below starting to rouse.

  “So that’s it,” she finished, feeling a lump clog her throat. “My life is gone. It’s…dead.”

  Father O’Riley rubbed his chin, eyes on the rising sun. “Sure, that’s one way of looking at it.”

  “Are you kidding? What other way would there possibly be of looking at it?”

  He got that look. He was going preachy on her.

  “You see, Sapphire, when the Blessed Virgin Mary went to—”

  “No.”

  “When God said—”

  “No.”

  He sighed. “I’m trying to tell you about rebirth.”

  Father O’Riley’s wise eyes beamed with calmness. “Ever since I’ve known you, you’ve lived two lives. The life you were born into and the life you chose. Despite the terrible circumstances, it was the life you never wanted that you lost.”