Monochrome My Madness

by Ashleigh Giannoccaro

  I sink to the floor and allow myself to cry, I cry because no one else will cry when he kills me. I know he will kill me slowly a little every day until I cannot fight his cruel torture and I give up. I know the monster I married.

  I LEAVE SHANNON LOCKED in my apartment, I am not ready to face what we are. We were always going to be our own destruction.

  I drive down the beach front soaking in the feeling of being home, I can’t get rid of the hurt I feel. I hurt for Lauri, for Rowan and I hurt because I wanted her to love me enough not to kill me. I fucking love her. I wanted that back just once in my miserable life.

  This pain is not worth the small amount of love I felt from her, and now I question those feelings. She is a master manipulator and she has fooled me into believing in the unattainable illusion of love and family. I was always broken never whole, but this has obliterated me. Nothing can fix me now, nothing can stop me from wanting revenge either. I have a deep burning desire to make her suffer the horrors of hell.

  I let the anger fester in me as I blare my radio all the way back to Rowan’s home. It makes me remember his melancholy music choices and Lauri dancing to them in the kitchen while she cooked for us. She was part of my life for such a short time yet she ignited hope in me that never existed before. Shannon has murdered that hope. We don’t get to hope, we take hope and we kill it.

  The sun is setting by the time I get to the winding dirt road that leads to the house. I wonder what the evenings are like for him with a little girl in the house, am I intruding on their dinner? I park my car in what was always my spot and knock on the door. I wait for an answer, I wait longer… I knock again. The door swings open giving me a fright and I am greeted by those monstrously mismatched eyes and sweet smile. I instantly want to grab her and take her away from here, away from all the darkness surrounding this place. I feel the need to save her, protect her and teach her. She stands there in her hello kitty pj’s when Morgan comes charging behind her, “You cannot just open the door Avery, it’s not safe.”

  She looks flustered and blushes when her eyes meet mine, she is also in her pj’s a clingy pink tank top and short shorts. Who the hell is this woman and why is she here? And why can’t I take my eyes off of her?

  “It is too safe, look it’s uncle Callum.” Her little voice argues back and she takes hold of my hand in her tiny one. I step into the house, behind this little person. I have never had anything much to do with children, I am not sure I ever wanted to before right now. Avery’s dark hair is braided neatly and she smells sweetly of strawberries. Not real fruits, she smells like cartoon strawberries or strawberry cool-aid. Morgan waits for me to pass and walks behind us.

  “Dad, Dad, Dad, Daaaaad! Uncle Callum came back, he came back.” Avery yells her shrill voice could pierce an eardrum and she bounces enthusiastically at my return. She turns around and gives me a scowl before she asks “Where’s the beautiful lady? Did you kill her also?” I laugh if only she knew how much I wanted to. “No, she is resting we travelled very far to get here.” I pat her on the shoulder as Rowan emerges from his office, his eyes are circled by the darkness of sleepless nights and a broken heart. His handsome features are fading. We are getting old.

  Rowan smiles at his little girl’s genuine concern for Shannon before he looks around for Morgan.

  “Morg’s. Callum and I will be in my office if you need me. Missy over here needs to get ready for bed, please.” He speaks to her like she is family, like she belongs. No one has felt more foreign and out of place to me than her.

  “Daaaaaaaad that’s not fair. I want to visit too.” Avery lets out a whiny sigh and eyes me with help me written all over her sweet face. I want to melt, to cave in and give her anything she wants, but Rowans scowl tell me I dare not get involved.

  “I will visit tomorrow again, while the sun is up. I promise. Go on to bed with Morgan I need to talk to your dad.” I bend down so I am talking at her level.

  “Okay. Night dad.” She huffs a little upset but follows her nanny reluctantly down the hallway.

  Rowan walks to the kitchen and fills two glasses with scotch, some things don’t change. The amber liquid fills the heavy lead crystal glasses that I know Lauri bought for him. The kitchen is clean and empty as if no one has used it. The way it was before Lauri, stagnant and unused.

  He slides the glass to my side of the island and walks towards his office door, I follow him. The tall, proud man, I left, has been replaced by his hunched shoulders and defeated walk. I wonder if he even kills anymore. Did losing her kill all the parts of him that mattered?

  His office like everything else is the same, I sit in the chair opposite his desk where I sat so many times. Where I sat and omitted the truth of what was going on after I made him sink that container sealing my father’s fate. When I knew I was leaving them all behind. I feel like I have betrayed him more than can be forgiven, I watch him for ticks to indicate he plans to kill me. He doesn’t reach for his drawer where I know there is a gun, he doesn’t take out a weapon at all. He slides back in his chair and puts his feet up on his desk taking a long slow sip of scotch. “So a wife Callum, that’s what you left us for?” A playful smile creeps over his face. “She was in serious pain, does she enjoy it like you do? It didn’t look as if she did.” God he is good at reading body language – too good.

  “I left you to kill my family, every last fucking one of them. She was a glitch in my plan. I didn’t plan on loving her, I just did.” I take a drink and the liquid burns down my throat relaxing some of the tension building in me.

  “Bullshit.” His voice is harder and I can tell he doesn’t want to believe me. “You don’t love her, you loved her sister and she was a way of having the one who got away.” He might as well have kicked me in the balls. Where was he when I needed him? Before she killed me, before I made this mistake. I left him behind to save myself.

  I swallow another mouthful of the liquid courage I need to have this talk with him. “She is a serial killer,” I say the words deadpan as if they mean nothing at all. The truth of them hurts my heart all over again. “She is killing me. I hurt her and now she is killing me. You see Rowan nothing good can come from loving a monster. I think we have both learned a deadly lesson in love.”

  I see it the minute I look up the unmistakable rage, the trigger has been pulled and Rowan the killer looks back at me from those blue pits of hell. “Something good came of it Callum, her name is Avery and I can’t love her because losing her mother killed me. Loving Lauri was the most dangerous thing I have ever done. It killed me. Let her kill you it will hurt less than fucking love.”

  He lets out a laugh that doesn’t match the anger that just showed itself. Shaking his head, he smiles at me. “You killed your whole family? You really did that?” I nod drinking the last sip out of my glass and I instantly want more.

  “I did, they fucking deserved it. Then Sahib the fucker put me in a coma, I slept like a baby for nearly two years. While I slept Shannon slowly, gave me a death sentence. Fucking bitch. I loved her, I did, but now all, I can imagine, are the ways to make her suffer for what she has done.” The way, we speak, is as if I never left, we are just the same as before only a lot more broken. There is no need for lengthy explanations and feelings; we are free to be the criminals we truly are with each other.

  “That they did my friend, they certainly did. Does she love you?” He takes his feet off the desk and reaches for a whiskey bottle on the side table. Thank God. Does she love me? She is so gifted at manipulating people that I don’t know the truth to answer that question. I think she believes she does, but I don’t think a sociopath like her has the capacity to love.

  “I don’t know if she loves me. I think she thinks she does. But her twisted idea of what love is… I am not sure. I am such a fucking idiot.”

  I stand and walk over to the desk to fill my glass, pictures on the wall catch my eye and I look at each one of Avery’s childish drawing as I continue to speak my mind.

  �
�Loving her was explosive, destructive and always dangerous. She was always a death sentence wrapped up in a soft sexy package and tied with a noose. Killing her will be so much easier than loving her ever was. The worst part of love is falling out of it. I feel a numbness that is worse than the hurt of love ever was.” I feel my eyes sting with the need to cry, but I hold my tears back.

  “If she loves you let her watch you die it will kill her slowly and hurt more than anything on earth. If she doesn’t love you, make her suffer until you are ready and I will kill her. I will always be your brother Callum, the bond we have comes before love or anything else. I will fucking kill her for taking you from me.” He hisses the words out. He is angry and I know he means what he says. The question is – does Shannon really love me?

  “She has given me cancer Rowan, I don’t have it yet but I will get it and I will die from it. She made fucking sure of it. In her defence, I beat her more times than I can count, I tied her up and I pretty sure I raped her on countless occasions too. You know me, you know that I cannot control it. Fuck me I tried. For the first time in my life, I didn’t want to do it, I felt shame when I saw what I had done to her.” I look into his eyes and let him see, I let him see how much I loved her. How this is killing me quicker than any cancer ever will.

  He doesn’t say anything for a while we just sit there, two broken men, with broken hearts and enough hurt to kill almost anyone. The thick air in the room makes it hard to breathe, I loosen my tie and sit again. I came home for a happily ever after. I just wanted happy, just once in my life.

  The thing is the bad guy is never really happy, our world doesn’t have a place for happy in it.

  I have to lighten the mood before we both drink ourselves into a coma, and I know from experience now how little fun that is.

  “So, the pretty nanny?” I lift a brow questioning the beautiful woman prancing around his house half dressed.

  “I needed a nanny, she needed someone dead and we made a trade.” There is no way that fresh-faced pretty innocent little thing is one of us. “You didn’t think I could honestly have a complete outsider in my home did you?”

  Well for a minute I did.

  “I need her Callum, she is all that keeps everything from falling apart. Stay the fuck away from her. Morgan is off limits, in fact, in my home, Morgan is your boss. She runs the house. Avery is being raised in our world, the real world where bad shit happens and people die and we kill them. She will be the next you and me. Only she will be better because she has so much of her mother in her.”

  My heart is heavy at his words I planned to come here and make her mine. Like a house of cards tumbling down, my world is collapsing in slow motion around me. I don’t need to take her, she is ours because Rowan and I are a family. I loved her, and him. And it doesn’t hurt. I realize now that real love shouldn’t hurt.

  Rowan stands now, he comes around the desk and sits next to me. “It takes a village to raise a child Callum, growing up our village was each other we had no one else. We are her family and as long as you are here you are part of this family. Part of our fucked up village, but your wife the murderer is not welcome in my home or my child’s life. I don’t trust her, I knew the second I saw her she was dangerous.”

  I laugh, “That is exactly what I thought the minute I laid eyes on her, but I did it anyway.” I always knew she would be the worst kind of trouble.

  I smile and I feel it, the feeling I came home to find. Happiness. I have lost everything I thought would make me happy but gained a little girl that will never make me sad. The glue that holds my happiness together was never love, it was always the madness.

  TRAPPED IN THE GLASS tower high above the world below me, I stare out at the place that was meant to be our happily ever after. Every minute, since our plane landed here, has felt like one closer to my last. I know that Callum is angry at me, I know he knows the ugly truth. I want to go back in time and stop myself, but I can’t. I want him to love me past this, but he won’t. Even if he did, watching the love of your life die a slow agonizing death is more torture than any heart could bear. Knowing that you caused that suffering and pain is enough to crush your soul. I think I would rather die than watch him dying by my hand.

  He doesn’t know how to look at me, so he doesn’t. I swing the diamond rings on my finger round and round until my skin hurts from the rubbing. I pace up and down waiting for him to return the minutes pass by painfully slowly. The sun has gone down and I can see lights on the ships dotting the horizon. I still don’t stop hoping the door will open and he will return. My heart wants to admit that he is gone and that the illusion, I created of love, was just that an illusion. I ask myself if I ever really loved him or if he was simply the next life raft to save me from the sharks waiting to kill me in the water? I leave the big windows and find the kitchen, open a bottle of red wine, the label matches the sign I saw at the gates of Rowan’s home. I fill a glass with the smooth Cabernet and drink it slowly as I wander through his home. My bags are in the master suite and I decide it is time for a bath.

  With my wine bottle and glass, I sink into the hot water and let the bath bubble envelop me. The smell of roses and the taste of wine drown the grey that has not let go since he hurt me last night. It won’t go away, I know it will stay until I kill someone until he watches me as I let them suffer. I close my eyes and a montage of the faces of my victims as they perish flashes in my mind’s eye. I must be tired because the warm water on my aching body and the wine lull me into a light doze. The faces flash faster and faster and the grey becomes thicker and thicker. The last face I see before I am startled awake and drop my glass into the water is not his this time; it is always Callum’s face last. This time it is – mine. I can end this never ending circle of madness and I finally know how.

  I wake up to my wine in the water my heart racing and tears stinging my face and I know what has to happen tonight, before he returns and I see his face again. There is only one way to stop the grey to take away the madness that we have we created together.

  I get up out of the water, the wine has made it seem bloody. I dry my long hair and put my makeup on before I go and get dressed in my favourite clothes. It is a bit hot here for stockings, but I put them on regardless. I slip on my signature black heels and inspect myself in the mirror. I can see the toll that this relationship has taken on me, it is etched in the lines making their way onto my face.

  When I am happy with the way, I look I return to the living area of the apartment. It is after eleven and Callum is still not back. I slide open the large sliding doors to the balcony that looks out over the dark water of the bay. Only a few white wave crests and the ship lights in the distance break the blackness of the night. A gust of cool fresh ocean air blows through the doors and inside. I slip my diamonds off and lay them on the patio table blood diamond filthy and vile just like me. I slide out of my shoes and put them next to the rings. I place the small vial of strychnine that I took out of my bag with them on the table. I look at three things that have defined this moment, defined me and climb on the railing. I am so sorry I killed him. I regret that I killed them all. My heart thunders in my ears and breaks for the love, I’ll never get to feel. I am what happens when you break a little girl, I will not stand and watch as we break another. I feel the lead of my heart, I don’t love Callum. I am not capable of love. I care enough to set him free of me and my poison so that he can find love. The little girl in the graveyard reminded me of a little Shannon playing in the cemetery and the boy who helped make her into a killer. Avery’s monstrous eyes and sweet smile lift my spirits as the air swishes past me. My heart stops before I hit the ground I don’t feel it but I watch it.

  I look just like Cassie I have the same bloody halo, but I deserved mine. I deserved to die for killing him.

  My own death is the high that I have sought for so long. I feel so alive in my own death it is beautifully sad. The tragedy of my life is leaving me and I am free.

  The security guard
finds my shattered body in a pool of crimson blood. I hear him phone Callum to come. When the police arrive I leave, I don’t want to see Callum when he comes. I walk away and into the arms of the man who made me this way. He would never take more from me because he never really wanted me at all. Neil has come to take me to hell.

  When I sat down to write this story I had no idea where these two would take me. This story was hard! I tried so hard to redeem these two – I promise. It just was not meant to be. I am a serial killer show junkie and after Dexter ended I was left wondering “What would that relationship have been like? The killer and the poisoner?” It was in imagining that disaster that Shannon and Callum came to life. How would two sociopaths work together? When I spoke to a therapist about this the answer was simple – “It would be the most destructive relationship ever, and would not end well for either of them.”

  When I finished writing it I seriously considered just hiding it away because it was to quote a friend “perverse”, but I needed to tell this story before I can tell Avery’s.

  This series is set in a world where the characters are simply not good people, they are never going to be. The story will go on in My Black Hole Heart and I do swear that there will be some happy in the end.

  Thank you for diving into this dark little spot of my mind with me. I hope you enjoyed it.

  Ashleigh lives in South Africa with her husband, two girls and a zoo of pets. She is slightly obsessed with serial killer shows on TV and loathes purple sweets with a passion.

  She likes to write the darker side of love and her characters are not very often the “nice guys” we expect in romance.

  When not in her cave writing the next twisted story she can be found travelling her beautiful country and wrangling her two young girls.