by Sabre, Mason
There was a painting at the front. Her heart skipped a beat as she reached out a trembling hand to pick it up. “This is Eric’s,” she said incredulously. It looked as if it had been painted only yesterday. There was no dust on it. No signs that it had been there for years. “This just isn’t possible.”
“Tell me what this place is, Tara,” Devan urged again from behind her. She wanted to turn around and yell at him. She wanted to ask him what he was doing, but she was mesmerised by the painting. It captivated her the same way it had years ago. Her fingers clung to it as if she had just found the best prize in the world. It was one he had painted before she knew him. The first day they had met actually. The day she had dared to join the art class in the evenings. The painting had been as beautiful as he had. He’d sat there on a stool, one foot resting on the bar and the other on the floor. He’d been wearing jeans that hugged his long legs. A soft, denim shirt hung off his shoulders, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. It had gaped open, revealing a white t-shirt underneath. His hair reached past his collar, like Devan’s in length, but darker. Dark curls fell onto his forehead, accentuating his handsome features. Glasses sat on the top of his head rather than on his nose.
She caught herself smiling at the memory; so vivid. If she closed her eyes, maybe she could touch him. Maybe she could feel him. Longing built up inside her chest for what she would never have again - and it was all her fault. Maybe if she hadn’t met him, he would still be alive. She hid her face behind the painting and swallowed back her tears.
“Why are you doing this? Is this punishment for killing him?” she sobbed. “Is this you?” she asked again when he didn’t answer. “Why did you bring me here?”
“What is this place, Tara?”
“You won’t answer me?” Frustration built up inside, under her skin. She wanted to yell at Devan. She wanted him to answer her, but his reply was always that same question. “Why? Why are you doing this?” she demanded. “Is this some sick joke to you?”
“I need you to tell me,” Devan said. She clutched at the painting. Anger and rage welled up inside her. What he was doing was cruel and he knew it. She was a fool for trusting him. She would have been better with those dark men. “Tell me, Tara.”
“Why?”
“Because I need you to. I need you to show me.”
“I can't.”
“You can.”
“No, I can't. I can't think about this. It hurts too much. Don’t you understand?”
He gently removed the painting from her clenched fingers. He glanced over it then looked back to her. She covered her face with her hands. She didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to remember this place. It was where it had all started. If she hadn’t come here, Eric would still be alive. Devan set the painting back down and fixed his eyes on her.. “Tell me, Tara.” She shook her head with vehemence.
In a move so sudden it left her gasping for breath, he grabbed her and spun her around, bringing her back against a hard wall of muscle. One arm encircled her chest while the other slid around her waist, immobilising her. Shock kept her frozen and she didn’t think to fight him.
“Tell me what you see,” he whispered against her ear.
She looked out into the hall; it was no longer empty. Her eyes widened and tears welled up, threatening to spill once more. “He’s right there,” she breathed, reaching out her hand. She tried to walk forwards, but Devan’s grip on her tightened.
“I need to go to him.”
“Stay here,” he whispered. “What do you see?”
“He’s right there. He’s painting. He looks happy.” She watched as Eric sat in front of a canvas, unaware of her presence. He tilted his head to the side to get a better view of what he was painting. Stretching out his arm with his paint brush, he used it as a gage for size, closing one eye so that he could get a better idea. She shoved and yanked at Devan’s arms until he let go. She ran across the room and came to an abrupt halt when she reached Eric. He seemed to look right through her. Unable to stop herself, she reached out, desperate to touch him once more. But Eric’s face was no longer his own. It was Devan’s. She gasped and snatched her hand back.
“Leave me alone,” she yelled, spinning away from him. He grabbed for her, but she moved too fast. She saw the door swing shut - the barricade that Devan had created gone. Her heart leapt with the thought Eric’s gone this way.
All logical thought escaped her. She didn’t stop as Devan called her name. She had to get to Eric. He was there. She raced out into the darkness after him, calling his name. “Please, come back.” There was nothing. She ran down the path to the gate. “Eric,” she yelled. Only it wasn’t Eric who was standing there. It was Devan.
Chapter Fourteen
The skies cracked and lit up like a truckload of fireworks all launched at the same time. A flash lit up the street for a second before letting darkness slip back in. Thunder rumbled and lighting slammed down unremittingly from the skies; clouds - thick, heavy and laden with promised rain - raced overhead. It didn’t take long for the drops to fall. Rain plummeted down on Devan’s back, plastering his hair to his head and soaking through his clothes. The silence of the night before was suddenly overpowered by the hammering of raindrops thundering onto the ground like a marching army.
He bent to scoop Tara up from where she had dropped to her knees, but she pushed him away with her hands. Deep sobs tore from her throat, her small frame shaking from the force. Each howl of agony pierced through him like a thousand knives. He was helpless to ease her anguish. His eyes probed the darkness, pausing at every shadow large enough to be a threat until he was satisfied it was nothing more than the gloomy outline where the light failed to reach. Her cries were bound to have them swooping in at any minute. He was powerless against them if they were discovered. He kept every shadow in sight, checking and rechecking for any hint of movement. He reassured himself that he couldn’t feel any close by - they might not be watching, but they would be here soon. He wanted to be hidden before that happened.
He crouched down next to her, resting his knee against the wet ground and placing his hand on her back in a comforting gesture. He peered into her face, head bent close to hers. “We have to get back inside.” “He is here. I saw him,” she cried, and the sound of pain in her voice clenched around Devan’s heart and sent guilt coursing through his veins. He regretted that she had to go through this, but there was no other way, and right now, there was no time. He slid his arm further around her back and the other under her knees, and picked her up in one fluid motion. She was light in his arms. He held her to him, and she huddled in his arms. Rain splashed down on them both, but Tara didn’t seem to care about that as he carried her back inside the building and kicked the door shut behind them. He set her gently over on the stage at the far end before going back to secure the door.
He had pushed her too far and too fast, but there was no time. Soon, the number of shadows would multiply. They’d be bigger, stronger and more powerful. All Tara had was Devan, and he couldn’t fight them all. They couldn’t run forever either. There wasn’t anywhere to hide. They would always find them in the end. He pulled the chairs back against the door, securing the broom through the handles once more. It baffled him as to how Tara had had enough a strong enough will to move the chairs before; it shouldn’t have been possible. He had underestimated her - either that or her will had been fuelled by grief, filling her with inconceivable power. He could only hope that she wouldn’t clear the barricade away again.
Tara hadn’t moved except to roll onto her side, wrap her arms around herself and huddle up into a ball. Her unfocused eyes were staring, not at him, but at the memories that floated around in her mind. He couldn’t tell if her face was wet from the downpour or her tears, or maybe even both. Rain pelted down on the tin roof above them, and he swore it made Tara shiver even harder. If the racket got any stronger, it would be deafening.
Devan snuck away to the back of the stage to where the mats and blankets for
the mother and toddler groups were stored. He tugged an armful of them out.
“Can you sit up?” he asked Tara as he knelt down beside her. He slipped a hand under her neck and tried to pull her up, but she wasn’t for moving. “Please, Tara. Help me.”
“He was right there,” she muttered numbly. “I could see him and he was real.”
“I know he was,” Devan breathed softly, his heart breaking. He gently touched her face and smoothed away the damp hair that clung to her skin. She was so beautiful, so perfect to him. His only wish was that he could ease what she was going through right at that moment; but it needed time. He threaded his fingers in her hair, so tempted to lean down and kiss her. That was what his mind really wanted. But he resisted. He tamped that urge deep down inside and reminded himself why it had to be this way.
“Did you do all of this?” she whispered.
He shook his head. “It wasn’t me,” he said softly.
“It was those things?”
He tossed around in his mind what to say. She wanted explanations and rightly so. He would give them to her soon, but her mind wasn’t ready yet. “Can I get you dry? Then we can talk?” It was a feeble effort to buy himself more time until he could figure out what he was going to say.
Slowly, she nodded and sat up for him. He wrapped one of the blankets around her shoulders and draped another across her legs. What he really wanted to do was to hold her and take her away from everything. She shivered against him and he rubbed her arms to try to get some warmth into them. As she huddled herself up, he noticed a smear of blood on the blanket from his hand.
“Your hand is bleeding again,” she said when she caught him looking at it.
“It’ll stop in a minute.”
She seemed to shiver harder, her teeth chattering violently. Devan sat down in front of her, sprawling his legs out so that she sat between them. He slid her closer and shuffled so that he could wrap both arms around her, trying to warm her with his own body heat, but he was just as cold and wet as she was.
“Will those things come again?” she whispered against him. “Will they find us here?”
“We should be okay until it’s light, but then we have to move.”
She was still quivering but she leant back so that she could look him in the eye. “What are they? They look like ghosts.”
He didn’t really know what to say to her. She was pretty close to the truth already and didn’t know it. “They are people,” he said. “Or at least they were once.” It was what he was set to become if he stayed where he was, but he omitted that part. “They are the darkness who steal away souls too broken to exist.”
“Am I too broken to exist? Is that why they came for me?” He had to choose his words wisely or it would be too much for her. As he lifted his hand to her face, he reaffirmed his silent promise to her that she would never become like them, or him. He wouldn’t allow it. Her skin was soft and smooth under his thumb, and she had a tiny smattering of freckles across her nose. Even now, he loved to look at them.
“I don’t know why they came.”
“It’s because of Eric? Because I killed him?”
It killed him inside every time she uttered those words or even thought them. It was the barrier that held her prisoner. “No. You didn’t kill him.”
“But it’s because of Eric, right? I saw him. They made me see him? I saw the first day we met.” She stared at Devan with such intensity that he could feel her inside. “Was it real?”
“Did it feel real?”
She nodded and that pleased Devan. It reassured him that she wasn’t too far lost. “It felt like that first day I saw him. It was here. It was a few years ago. I joined some evening art classes for something to do. I’ve always liked to draw, and I saw the ad for it and thought why not? It was a free class. There was nothing to lose. The only thing they asked for was a donation to a charity for the homeless. He was there as I saw him that first day.” Her face lit up a little as she spoke, but there was a sadness behind her smile. “He was sitting on a stool. I went over to ask him about the class and how I could join, but I couldn’t get my words out. He just kept on staring at me the entire time I was talking. I wanted to shake him to make him stop. It was so infuriating. I couldn’t keep my face straight.”
Devan couldn’t contain his own smile as he listened to her talk about Eric and their first meeting - the way he had talked and looked, the way he had acted and how it had all made her feel. She relayed everything, bringing it to life in his mind as much as it clearly was in hers. She spoke with such tenderness that for the first time in a long time, he found himself overcome with emotion. “He loved you from that very first day,” Devan said with all the sincerity he had. “He knew you were the one from the very start.”
Her smile changed to a grin, but her cheeks rose up and forced the tears to spill from her eyes. She laughed when she cried, and tried to look away to hide it, but Devan didn’t let her. “I’m sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes. “I just miss him so much. It’s like one minute I'm okay, and then the next, I think about him, and then my stomach lurches because for a second, as I tell you about him, it feels like he’s here. Then I remember he isn’t. It feels so big inside.”
Devan battled his own sadness inside for her loss. He was helpless as Tara fought not to cry again. She bit down on her bottom lip to keep it from trembling, but the tears continued to fall.
“You knew him, didn’t you?” she asked. “He helped you?”
It was Devan’s turn to look away. “I did,” he said simply.
“He helped you? You were homeless when you met him?”
“Kind of.”
It was Tara’s turn to bring Devan’s face back to hers. Her fingers were cold against his face. “He loved everyone he helped. It gave him purpose. You gave him purpose,” she said.
“I was just some bloke off the streets.”
“Eric was some bloke off the streets too. Did you know that? He wouldn’t ever tell me about it, though. I tried, but he would change the topic every time.”
“Some things are best left in the past,” said Devan, because they were. Some things were too terrible to share and too ugly to bring out into the world.
“Eric always said that too. How can you let someone in if you don’t show them what’s inside?”
Devan shrugged. “Have you ever done something, or had something so bad happen that even just thinking about it makes you ashamed of yourself?”
“I’d have never thought badly about him.”
“Maybe he was just afraid.”
“Why are you homeless?” she asked after a moment’s pause. The ‘you’ made him flinch inside.
He could see it all in his mind, like a mini movie on replay. He could see his sister’s face as it came to the forefront of his memory and shame scorched through him. He flushed; the disgrace more than he could bear.
“You’re not going to tell me either, are you?” She shuffled backwards, away from Devan but he grabbed her hand and stopped her. He was half inclined to let her go so that he could escape talking about things, but if he did, that would be it. She might never listen to him again. Trust was the only thing he had on his side.
“I was adopted,” he said hastily before he could change his mind. As he spoke those words aloud, each letter clawed at the flesh in his throat. Tara froze and stared at him. She said nothing, just waited for him to continue. He forced himself to go on. “I was six, just about to be seven. My sister, Sam, she was just a baby. She was one.”
“You were adopted together?”
“We had to be, but I don’t think they wanted me. I was older. They wanted a baby, but they had to have both.” It wasn’t meant to be that way, though. He thought back to the day he was informed some people were coming to see him and his sister. “The supervisor of the home we lived in came for us. She dragged me to the bathroom one day with no warning. I didn’t even know what I had done wrong. She scrubbed my face until it was raw. Made me put on
these stupid clothes and then told me that Sam and I had visitors and I better not fuck it up or she’d make my life hell.” He imitated her in a mock voice. He could hear it in his mind as clear as if it had been yesterday. Even the memory of her fingers digging into his arms was vivid enough to make his skin crawl. He could even smell the stench of stale sweat and cigarette smoke that constantly surrounded her. She’d had long nails. Perfect nails. He’d dreamt so many times of snapping them off. Sometimes the anger from her alone consumed him.
“There was this couple, Gary and Suzie, who were interested in adopting us. It must have been a month or two that passed before they started to get sick of me.”
He paused for a moment, and Tara gave his hand an encouraging squeeze. “Then what happened?” she prompted.
”I did stupid things. Petty things. Stealing biscuits or chocolate bars. Daring to grab myself some of the coke they kept in the fridge. Not going to bed when I was told. Not bringing my dirty clothes down. Normal children things. Nothing serious in real terms, but to Gary and Suzie, it was like the end of the world. One day, I got so sick of Sam getting everything that I opened the front gate so she could wander out. I wanted her to leave, to get lost and never come back. I thought that if she was gone, they would like me and not her.”
“Did she get out?”
He shook his head. “She didn’t get very far. Gary found her. She was maybe a few yards down, that was all; but that was enough for them. They took me back to the home. Told the manager there that they wanted to give me back. They wanted to un-adopt me.”
“People can do that?”
Devan almost laughed at the look of shock and horror on Tara’s face. She had no idea what people could really do. “No, they were told to keep me. That it was just normal adjustment behaviour because I was older. They still didn’t want me, though. They gave me this bedroom in the attic. I just spent all my time there. I didn’t want them either. I figured I’d do well in school, get a job and leave them all.”
