by T. L Smith
And Syler, I don’t even know what to do about him. He has my heart and I love him. This I’m sure of, but he can no longer have it. I don’t want him to have it anymore. I want it back, and everything along with it.
“Jaya.”
Pulling a sweater over my head, I walk out to the kitchen to see my father tapping away on his cell. He looks up when I enter. “I have to go in to work today.”
I nod my head.
“You should come.”
Now I shake my head.
“Can you just drop me at the shopping center?”
He stares at me like he’s trying to work out if I’m serious.
“Please... I have some things I need to do.”
“Is it safe?” he asks me.
“I’ll be around hundreds of people. They wouldn’t try anything with that many people around as witnesses.” He nods, picking up his keys from the counter and walking to the door. I follow behind him, and notice Betty out in her garden. I hurry to the car so as to not hear what she has to say today, but like always she has something.
“Jaya, Jaya. He’ll see you.”
Ducking into the car, I wave to her. My father shakes his head at her words, never commenting on her craziness. He doesn’t speak much as he heads to the mall, just asks me if I have enough money. I do, because I don’t pay rent at my father’s house, so most of my money I’ve saved. Syler paid for everything else.
My father touches my hand as he comes to a stop and turns to look at me. “Are you sure you’re okay to do this by yourself?”
He doesn’t know what happened. I’ll never tell him any of the details, but my father isn’t a dumb man. No. He’s very fucking smart, and he knows something happened, just not what exactly.
“I’ll be fine.” Turning, I open the car door and get out. He watches me and waits until I start walking into the shopping mall. Turning back as the shop’s sliding doors close, I watch him drive away. Breathing a loud sigh, I turn around. My eyes scan the crowd, making sure I don’t see anyone I know. My heartrate picks up when I notice a man dressed in all black with dark hair, but when he turns around my heart rate slows down. It isn’t him.
Would he follow me here, though?
Syler doesn’t like to go anywhere. His idea of a perfect night was us in his bed. Which I happen to agree with, if he wasn’t on his sidekick’s crazy train right now and wanting to kill me.
Running my sweaty hands down the front of my jeans, I start walking, stopping at a local hunting store. I step inside, searching for all the things I need. That’s when the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, as my hand touches a hunting knife. Turning quickly, I look behind me, but I don’t notice anyone, so I leave the knife and continue searching. Camo gear, water bottles, ammo, ropes, knives—it’s all in here. So much to choose from.
Then a buzz takes over the room, and I turn fast.
Toska’s eyes are on me, watching me.
Standing not far back from her is Syler, his eyes downcast to the floor.
Telling myself or wishing he’s here to protect me, is the stupidest thing I can do. He’s not here for me at all, he never was. It’s always been for her.
Stepping out of sight of Toska, I hit a large body. My breath quickens, and my heart beats hard. I’ve seen this man before, but where?
“Jaya.” His voice is hard to forget, even if it was a year ago. He stands tall and dominance radiates from him.
“Taj,” I say in a quick breath.
He smiles but behind that smile is anything but niceties. He scares me more than Toska. But for some strange reason, I don’t move away. He turns his head slightly, looking in the direction I was, then his eyes fall back to me.
Haunted, that’s what his eyes tell me. Not in the same way Syler or even Toska is. No. His are black and tormented. It’s as if you can feel it seep from his pores and straight into you. Taj is not someone I’d ever want to go to war with.
“You remember.”
I nod my head at his words. Checking back, I don’t see Toska, but Syler remains there.
Wiping my hands again on my jeans, I look back to Taj, and he’s watching me like he can see my thoughts.
“You stopped playing with them?”
Them? I don’t question how he knows who they are, he had to of known from his house that night.
“Yes.”
He checks me over, his eyes stripping me bare. Taj’s hand touches his chin where there’s a bit of scruff. His hand falls away, and he leans down to me, while my breathing deepens. “Do you need me to get you out of here, Jaya? Or do you want to see what she’ll do to you?”
I step back. How did he know it was Toska I was most afraid of?
“I see, you plan to kill her,” he says ‘kill’ as if it’s an everyday word, and that killing someone is an ordinary thing. Maybe it is for him, who knows.
“What do you know?” I ask him. She’s back now, but Syler is gone. Her hands play with a hunting knife as she steps closer, but not too close that she can hear what we are saying.
“A killer is never born, Jaya, they’re made. Do you want to be made into one?”
Looking up at him, I’m unsure of how to answer that question.
His name is called by the lady behind the counter. She’s cute, and I study her as her eyes roam him without so much of an apology for doing so. He pulls me by the arm to the counter as the girl places a very sharp knife down.
“From ear to ear, Jaya... ear to ear.” He taps his throat then picks up the knife. He glances at it, then looks to me. Handing it to me, I shake my head. I don’t want to take it from him, but he pushes it my way anyway. “Take it, you’ll need it.”
Toska says my name now, and she’s right behind me. He pushes the knife into my hands then turns to face her. Her eyes go wide as she stares at him, then her eyes do the weirdest thing. They skim to the floor.
Toska never looks down, for anyone, she’s always superior.
“Taj, I didn’t recognize you,” she states, her eyes moving back up.
“I noticed, and I also haven’t forgotten, Toska.”
She nods her head then she turns and walks away, but doesn’t go far as I can still see her.
“How do you know—”
“I know everyone, Jaya. It’s my job,” he interrupts with a smirk.
Taj pays the shop assistant for the knife that I currently have grasped firmly in my hand.
“I can’t take it.”
He nods his head. “You can, and you will.” His hand clasps mine in his. His fingers mold to mine, then he starts walking straight out of the store, pulling me along with him. My eyes fall to Toska, her green ones lit up like the green of a tree as she watches. Then we pass Syler. He’s holding a cigarette in his hand out in front of the mall. He does two takes as he looks, then goes to take a step forward. I don’t have time to say anything because Taj keeps on moving with me, his hand pulling me with each step.
They don’t come near us. They don’t even say a word.
Taj’s hand drops as he opens the passenger door of a BMW for me to get in. I gaze back to Syler, his eyes are hooded while he watches me slide in. Taj laughs and shuts the door then comes around to the driver’s side, starting the car and driving away.
While not saying a word, I sit with the knife in my hand as he drives. He takes all the right turns to go to mine, somehow finding my house easily.
How does he know where I live?
Shaking my head, I manage to chalk up enough courage to ask him. “You know where I live?”
He nods his head. “I told you, I know just about everyone here, it is a small town after all, Jaya.”
“Should I be worried?” I ask.
Taj laughs, and it’s more of an amused laugh. “Unless you fly on my radar, then no. Stay off my radar, Jaya. Do what you have to do, then leave, and never come back to this town.”
I nod my head in understanding about what he means. He comes to a stop in front of my house, and Betty’s sitt
ing on her front porch chair watching. “Go to your neighbor, don’t go back in there without your dad.”
“Why?”
Taj turns. “You know why, Jaya. You pissed him off. It’s not just her you have to look out for, he’s just as bad.” His words send chills through my body.
Stepping out, he places the hunting knife into a carry bag and passes it back to me.
Reaching down, I thank him, and he smiles.
“I hope to never see you again, Jaya.” I could take that as an insult, but it wasn’t meant that way. “Remember what I said... leave here, Jaya.”
I nod as I close the car door, and he drives off, leaving me on my footpath watching his car kick up dirt and stones as he speeds off down the road.
“Jaya, Jaya,” Betty calls out.
Turning, I bypass my driveway and head straight for hers. She waves and taps at the swing seat next to her for me to sit in.
“Taj is a bad man, Jaya.”
Nodding my head, I swing on her chair with the bag in my lap that contains the hunting knife.
“Do you know him?”
She shakes her head. “He’s my nephew.”
Her words shock me. As far as I knew, Betty didn’t have any family. I never saw anyone visiting her. Ever.
“He owns half this town, it’s just that no one knows it.”
Glancing back out to the road, I grab my cell from my pocket to message my dad to let him know I’m home, but I have a message waiting from an unknown number.
Unknown: You better hope no one is touching what’s mine, Mouse.
Then it clicks as to how they know where I am. Standing, I walk out to Betty’s front garden where she has a large fish pond in the middle of her lawn. I grin widely as I drop my cell into the water. I’ve worked it out, he’s been tracking me, and now he can no longer do that. Now it’s time to play my own game with my own set of rules.
Chapter 13
Move On
I quit work, and that was a big step for me. But I know I shouldn’t go back to that place. It was where all my troubles began.
Where I met Toska.
Where I should have walked away from her to begin with.
It was the place where I first laid eyes on Syler, as well.
My hands lay on my bare stomach, touching the bruising that covers it. My arm is still healing from the track marks of whatever poison she pumped into me. Or perhaps it was him—though I believe it was most likely all her. It usually is. It’s just the type of person she is.
Grabbing my new cell phone that my father insisted I purchase, I pocket it in my jeans. I made sure to buy one that was not traceable, and I’m using only pre-purchased credit on it, rather than having anything traceable associated with it.
“Jaya.” My father knocks on my open door and offers me a small smile. All of this has changed us, and I never would have seen it coming. “I’m going to sell this house.”
Words don’t leave me as my mouth opens. This is my mother’s house. She picked this house out for them, and all her things are still everywhere.
“I need to move on, and you need to leave.”
My hand runs up and down my arm, his eyes catch on and look at the track marks, but he doesn’t say anything as his eyes come back to me.
“I need to leave,” I say, reiterating it, seeing how it tastes on my lips.
My father’s head nods in agreement. “You do.”
“I’ve always wanted to leave. Did you know that?” He shakes his head. “I guess I was hanging on to everything,” I say more to myself.
“Did you love him, Jaya?”
His words shock me. I haven’t heard him say that word since I was a kid. Even now I’ve forgotten what it sounds like from his lips. I miss the man he once was.
“What is love?” I shrug my shoulders.
I thought I knew the meaning of love once. No. I fucking did and I still fucking do. It’s my curse to bear.
“You did,” he says, knowing my real answer.
Turning to avert my eyes, I pick up my purse to avoid eye contact.
“I have a few thousand put away for you... more when the house sells.”
“You want me to leave now?” I ask in disbelief.
“Yes. I want you to go this second. I know you’ve quit your job. So why hang around?”
I want to hang around because I want them to feel the pain that I felt. I want them to know what it feels like to have your life ripped out from underneath you and be left for dead like you’re not worthy.
“In a week... I’ll leave in a week.”
He nods his head. “One week.” He turns walking away, leaving me standing there watching him.
A week is all I have to get at them.
A week is hopefully all I need.
Grabbing the keys to my car, I manage to miss Betty and drive out without her calling out to me. My first stop is the pet store, one that doesn’t just hold your average garden variety cats and dogs. No. It holds something much more fun than that.
Knowing Toska the way I do is also knowing her weakness. Syler, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to have any. Maybe his only downfall is his sister, his loyalty to her, which I have no idea how to crack.
So, for now, she’s what I will play with.
TOSKA’S HOME, BUT ASLEEP. She worked late last night, and when she does that she comes home to get high then passes out in her living room. I’m watching her through the back window, passed out, half on the couch and half on the floor.
Observing his room, Syler’s door is shut, which means he’s most likely asleep as well. He works all night and tends to sleep during the day. Being in his bed so often taught me his sleeping patterns as well. Opening the back door which is never locked, my heart pumps hard, my hands sweat, as I make my way to his bedroom door. The door opens outwards, so I place a chair under the handle to stop him from being able to open it, and I let down the cage that’s in my hands.
Toska doesn’t squirm or even move at the sound of me in her house. I could kill her right now, and she wouldn’t even know it was me or be able to stop me. But, she’s a sinner, and a sinner needs to be punished. Death would be too nice for her, too easy for someone like her.
No, I want to watch her squirm first.
Stomping my feet on the tiles, my boots make a loud noise forcing her to fall off the couch completely and onto the floor. Her eyes open one at a time and then she realizes it’s me. A smile touches her lips, but there’s one already on mine as I lift the cage, opening the door. Twenty rats crawl out of the cage and onto the carpet. I stand back and throw rotting food in her direction, and they all run to her. Her screams fill the apartment. She’s loud and very noisy as she jumps up and down on the floor.
Syler’s door rattles and I know he’s up and trying to get to her. He wants to help her, he always does. Maybe he needs to stop that because it’s not good for either of us anymore.
“You bitch!” she yells with venom. Tears are now running down her cheeks. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen her cry.
“Mouse.” The door stops rattling, and his voice comes through. Turning, I see his door is still shut, but he isn’t trying to escape. Walking to the door, I place my hand on it. Toska has crawled into a ball, screeching and crying. She won’t move for hours now, not until she knows every rat has gone. That’s what happens when you spend three long years with someone. You end up knowing all their quirks and fears, and it makes me more than happy to have known this one.
“Wolf,” I say to the door.
The door rattles again and the chair wiggles, but it doesn’t budge.
“Don’t force my hand, Mouse. Don’t you do it!”
Turning around, I stare at a terrified Toska, then I smile, wide.
“You forced mine! Did you think of that?” I laugh, stepping away and taking my fucked-up heart with me. The hunter’s knife in my hand, I step next to her, bending down. She doesn’t even move, just stays in the same position she’s stuck in, with fear c
rippling her very soul.
“Someone like you shouldn’t be able to breathe, Toska. You’re evil, to your very fucking core.”
Her breathing is heavy, and as I raise the knife in my hand next to me, the door starts to break. Syler is smashing it with the sheer force of his hands. The blade comes to her face, I slide it down her cheek as her forehead rests on her knees. She screams again, but doesn’t move, knowing it will only cut deeper.
“You think you can drug me, Toska, throw me out like the trash?”
“Mouse,” he shouts my name as an ear piercing screech leaves her mouth. Pulling the knife away, she covers her cheek with her hands to try and stop the bleeding, and the rats that are still on the floor from tasting her. Picking one up, I place it in the container then cover it with a plastic lid.
I’m standing now, staring down at her.
“Do you know what a rat does when it's trapped, Toska?”
She raises her eyes up to me which I’m sure are blurry from all the tears she’s shedding. It’s amazing the effect the rats have on her. Terror, fear, horror, dismay, panic—they’re all displayed on her face as she stares through blank eyes. Her brain has shut down, and there’s a glistening of cold sweat on her brow. Toska’s eyes tell the story, they’re wide and waiting for me to claim the fatal blow. She’s living in her own nightmare, one she shares only with herself and the rats she’s so desperately afraid of, while her brain plays on her grave fear. Toska is trapped in her own psychosis, and she’s dressed in nothing more than a pair of shorts and a bra.
“Mouse...” My name leaves his lips again. His voice becoming darker and rationality is becoming a monster for him to bear. He’s so angry, his voice is distorted, and I’m sure I am providing the fuse to the bomb that’s going to detonate with a massive explosion shortly.
Opening the container, I let the rat go and decide today is not the day. I should have knocked Syler out, or come when he wasn’t here.
Syler’s door is almost broken. He’s gaining so much strength minute by minute with the adrenaline that’s coursing through his body right now. I can see his black clothes through the hole he’s punching through the door. He’s still hooded in the shadows, but I can hear the tension mixed with terror in his voice. He’s strung tight like a cello’s strings, one pluck and it will snap and ricochet right into me. Soon he’ll be able to put his arm through that door and push the chair away, and I surely don’t want to be around when that happens.
