Deeper into Darkness

by Maria Ann Green

  It’s bullshit. This is bullshit.

  I’ve been there. I’ve seen him do it. I liked it. Doesn’t he know how much I liked it? I hunted him while he hunted other women. I picked him. I watched him kill and I picked him because I kill too.

  So what the hell?

  The rage within my stomach threatens to crawl up my throat, toward my tongue with spindly legs reaching for the air outside my body.

  But then I’m not sure.

  He keeps watching my eyes, but my brain won’t stop moving, spinning from one idea to another. Because, have I taken him along with me? No, my brain whispers back. And the quiet word, just two tiny letters, slithers down my spine in shame. No, I haven’t. Maybe I should offer.

  “I’m sorry I felt that way. I didn’t intend to,” Aidan says into my lap, his head on my knees now, having given up the stare down. I run my fingers through his soft hair, and I don’t respond. “It was automatic.”

  “Instinct,” I say, quiet again afterward.

  He nods and my heart pumps faster, angry again, an instinct of my own. What’s changed? What’s so scary, so repulsive about a partner? Is it the sex thing—I wonder. Taking time to breathe slowly, in and out, in and out, through the small holes of my nose, keeping my mouth shut. Keeping my lips clamped tight, no room for nasty words I’ll regret later to slip out.

  Maybe it’s the sex.

  I’ve seen him with the women he plays with afterward, his playmates, their playdates. I thought I’d care, thought I’d be blinded by jealousy. But I wasn’t.

  It turned me on.

  It still does.

  Besides, I get to do the same. It’s all a part of the experience, the memories made and held onto. Neither of us, there’s no doubt in my mind, would stray outside of a playdate, of a rendezvous. Those moments, the seconds between picking a victim and walking away from their broken remains, they don’t count. And they shouldn’t. I’m secure, we both are, in the trust we’ve placed in each other.

  But maybe that’s it anyway.

  Maybe that’s why I haven’t asked him to join me. And why he hasn’t offered the reverse.

  He trusts me. He must. I see red just thinking that he might not, but wiping it away quickly, like steam from a bathroom mirror, I know he does. If he didn’t, I wouldn’t be sitting here, with his hair slipping between my fingers, his heart beating in time with mine. Something’s holding him back. Something.

  Something…something bad.

  Am I not good enough?

  “It’s fine. Forget I asked.” The words come out calm, smooth. They aren’t clipped; they aren’t terse. I’m amazed at my own juxtaposition, my own manipulation of myself. It’s fine—on the outside, I’m totally fine.

  He’ll come around. I know he will.

  And it’s worth it, the lie, because Aidan visibly relaxes. I feel the relief radiate off him and into my lap. It’s not worth the agony, the argument, if just asking causes this much tension. He looks up at me and smiles. It’s all teeth and sparkles; he looks like a full moon in a cloudless sky.

  “So, anything planned with Jason soon, maybe a guys weekend?” I ask, standing to head to the kitchen. Aidan sits back, moving for me to stand, shaking his head in answer. I need a snack. “Want anything?”

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  I mutter once out of earshot, “Ice cream. And donuts. And maybe some chips.” With a side of feelings.

  Then maybe some therapy, the bloody kind.

  Okay, so I didn’t go on a rampage. And I didn’t grab every calorie in the kitchen, but I do come back to the bedroom with a pint of red velvet ice cream, and two spoons. A compromise.

  I come back to see Aidan rolling his eyes, and honestly looking like a teenage girl while doing it.

  “Something I said?” I ask.

  “Not you,” he says cryptically. I wait. He stares, and I still wait. Climbing into bed, I hand him a spoon, but I eat from the carton first. And I still wait. I’m better at this game than he is, and I’ll always win it. Plus, I’m not doing him any favors tonight. “He just gets to see you more that he should be allowed to.” I laugh, but Aidan turns his head and looks at me from the side. “He does. He gets to see you more than I do.”

  “Bull.” But I smile.

  He’s jealous of Jason, and it’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen in my whole life.

  I don’t call him out on it, though. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am. And either way, that’d be a bigger mistake than asking to go on a playdate. That could ruin the whole night, maybe a couple days.

  “I know he has absolutely nothing to do half the time without his girls, and I know I’m not making enough time for him anymore, but he’s always asking you to work out.” This time Aidan sighs before taking a bite of the ice cream I offer between my own heaping spoonfuls. “All. The. Time,” he adds.

  “Do you want to go with me sometimes?” I ask, hoping for the compromise to work. Aidan nods his head, but it’s a vague gesture. He isn’t listening anymore, not really. He’s off in another place, wherever he goes inside his own mind. “Okayyyyy.” I draw out the word, hoping to bring him back.

  But I get nothing.

  Biting my lower lip, I try not to smile as a thought occurs. I take my spoon, the tip of my finger on its tip, and I flick a piece of ice cream right at Aidan. With a little, wet thwack, it hits him right in the cheek.

  I can’t stop myself from laughing as Aidan turns to me, eyes wide, and back in the present.

  “Pay attention,” I say.

  “Oh, I’ll pay attention, all right. I’ll pay attention while I punish you for that.” But he has no malice in his face as he pushes me back onto the pillows and moves on top of me, going slow enough to let me put the food onto the nightstand first. With my wrists pinned down and the ice cream melting in the carton, Aidan kisses me. He kisses me like he’s telling the world I’m his.

  And I kiss him right back, shouting the same into the ether. Our collective statements leave no question.

  When he pulls away, a laugh escapes my throat.

  “Something funny?” he asks, a little taken aback, almost hurt.

  “I have a proposition for you.”

  Aidan squints as he rolls over to lie next to me, and he props his head up on one arm. “You do, do you? Will I like it?”

  “You should,” I say. The calm that had just started to reblanket the room lifts a little. I hate that he’s wary, and I hate that it’s my fault for asking to join him when he obviously isn’t ready yet. “I want to make a bet,” I add.

  “About what?” His smile stiffens a hair more, but I don’t back down. I think this could help us, make it fun again. Take away some of the stress we’ve been letting calcify and corrode, adding to the weight already resting on our collective shoulders.

  “Let’s see who can go the longest without killing anyone. And whoever lasts longer,” Aidan’s eyebrows shoot up, but so does one of the corners of his mouth, so I continue, “gets to go along with, to watch or whatever, with the loser for their next kill after everything settles down.”

  Aidan groans. I can hear the defensiveness, the bristling. But I push on anyway.

  “No, no. Hear me out,” I plead. “This is fun. It’s a friendly competition. And the winner can decide if it’s just to watch, or to help. But just going along for backup, out of sight even, at the very least.”

  He opens his mouth but I cut him off.

  “It’s honestly to your benefit, anyway,” I say, and he lifts his eyebrows. “Really. You want me to take a break, to let the suspicions around Eva die away. And I get that, I do.” I get it even more now. “You want me to be careful, want us to be careful, so we don’t get caught. Believe me, I don’t want to get caught, either. Waiting is hard for me, though. But if we do it this way…well, then I agree. I agree, if we do it in a fun way, as a bet.”

  When I finish, I look away, and the rest of the air stored in my lungs rushes out, or evaporates, I’m not sure. I c
an feel the tension building around me, so I stare at a spot on the wall. There’s nothing special about the spot; it isn’t dirty or cracked. There isn’t a painting hanging there, but I keep looking anyway.

  It feels safer.

  I shouldn’t have said it. I shouldn’t have kept pushing. I should learn by now when to keep my big mouth shut and go with the flow. Pushing has gotten me nowhere, with Aidan specifically, other than disappointed or angry, or both. There are other times to push, and that’s in the dark, in the shadows, during a rendezvous. Not here, not with Aidan. Maybe I am the stupid one.

  The anxiety in my chest multiples and spreads. I shouldn’t have brought up Eva, or getting caught. My thoughts move to horrible scenarios that set my flight response alight. But I swallow, trying to push it down as I push that horrible, dead, woman and all the trouble she’s caused—continues to cause—from my thoughts.

  Then, just when I’m sure the whole night is doomed, Aidan laughs. Though I hadn’t wanted to look at him yet, worried I’d messed everything up, I do because his laugh surprises me.

  When I see his eyes, I catch the tiniest spark of annoyance before it’s covered up. I watch as his muscles forcibly relax, as he lets go of whatever he felt at first. It’s amazing how he can just decide to do something, to feel something, and make it happen. I’ve never liked the saying “mind over matter,” but I can’t think of anything that better describes how Aidan does it. His mind just makes the decision and puts it to action.

  “Before you answer, roll over,” I tell him. Without hesitation, he complies. I trail my hands across the smooth skin of Aidan’s back, raising goosebumps along the way. Leaning in, I kiss his shoulder blade, moving my fingers higher to caress his shoulders. Then I kneed the muscles, eliciting moans from him as I rub. I may not always know the right thing to say, but I can win most any argument with a good massage. And he knows it.

  “Fine,” Aidan sighs the word.

  “I though I was going to have to plead a little more. Make my case.”

  “Would you rather?” There’s a wink in his voice, a little mischief.

  I let my hands move from his shoulder to his cheek, playing with the stubble there. I love his scruff, when he grows it out. The texture sends chills down my spine, and it gives him a bit of a rough look. It’s rare, but so satisfying.

  When he starts nuzzling my palm, I move my hand lower, with a specific destination in mind.

  Before I know what’s happening, Aidan is turned to face me, my hands suddenly no longer occupied. Then in another movement he has me flipped onto my back, his knees on either side of my hips. Again I’m pinned down, and again I’m smiling about it.

  “Fine,” he says again. “I’ll play along for your little bet. But don’t get too mad when you lose your own competition.” He leans down to kiss me when he’s finished bragging, but I don’t give him the satisfaction.

  Instead I’m wiggling out from beneath him, his eyes trailing me as I go, and I hop out of bed with a look of triumph on my face—pretending that I don’t know he let me escape. Because if Aidan wanted me to stay put, I’d have no other choice.

  I run from the room, looking back over my shoulder to see him amused. Maybe it was a decent idea, something to break up the funk we’ve been sinking down into. When I get back to the room he’s puzzled, swiveling his gaze from my hand to my face the confusion doesn’t ease.

  “Hold on,” I say. And holding a dry-erase marker, I walk up to the framed painting on the wall opposite the window, near his closet. I scribble a few letters on the glass in the frame and wave my hand for Aidan to come over. With one eyebrow still raised, he obeys, and I can’t stop the lift and twist moving my lips. But I do bite down on it, just a little.

  “You’re on,” Aidan says in my ear, his breath hot and inviting and sending a rush through me, as we both look at the underlined names written on the glass.

  Days without release

  Aidan: 0

  Bee: 0

  I can’t catch my breath, and every time I try I somehow feel even more lightheaded.

  This was a mistake.

  My hands tingle, the skin prickling, stretched around my coffee cup, it’s so hot. The pads of my fingers actually burn, but I don’t, can’t, move them. I’m stuck in every sense of the word. My mind isn’t turning, and I’m frozen to the spot, too terrified to move, to think.

  I can’t look out the window, can’t focus on the door. This is too much. All I see is the steam escaping the lid.

  While staring at my hands I succumb to the need to fidget, my fingers drumming on the hot cup. My nails, no longer purple, but now a deep navy, bounce in time to the quick beats of my heart, jittery.

  Maybe I should go, escape like the warm air I can’t stop watching.

  But as I flex my thighs, prep my muscles to stand, the little tinkling of a bell rings out from across the room as someone enters the shop. Heavy boots move across the tile floor, and my heart leaps from my chest into my throat before promptly taking a nosedive into the floor. I think I may throw up.

  “Beatrice?”

  The deep voice of Detective Harwell seems so loud I’d swear I could feel the rumble of his words in my own chest, rattling my bones and chattering my teeth. I think everyone in the shop heard, everyone in the world, and though I don’t look around, I imagine everyone sneaking a glance.

  I can feel my cheeks reddening.

  I’m not sure why he didn’t address me more formally, and my fixation on such a stupid detail makes my blush crawl down from my cheeks to my neck as well, until it feels like I’ll explode from the heat soon.

  “Y—yes,” I answer and finally turn to look at him.

  What I see surprises me a little. I thought he’d be older, be an ugly combination of tired and hardened by the things he’s witnessed humans doing to one another. But he’s neither. Harwell looks…well, normal is the only word I can conjure up for this plain-looking man hovering above me. His curly black hair seriously needs a cut, but it’s one of the only disheveled things about him. That and his scruffy face, which I’d put money on a bet that his five o’clock shadow is perpetual.

  His eyes match that thick hair too, so dark they’re almost black, the pupil indistinguishable. And I feel dwarfed, which to be fair anyone would sitting down, but I can tell I will when I stand as well, as he’s a few inches over six feet at least. His suit is well-tailored, and expensive. He looks intimidating, but somehow also relatable, and it’s an odd mix.

  “It’s Bee. You can call me Bee, Detective Harwell.” I add as I stand, after staring at him, silent, for too long. He waves his hand for me to sit again.

  He nods once we’re both on our chairs, and I expect him to offer me his first name, but he doesn’t, and again I’m left feeling off-kilter. I’d guarantee that was his intention, but it still irks me. I’ve never been so glad in my life to have left Aidan in the dark. Asking for forgiveness, rather than permission, seems much safer at this junction.

  “Coffee?” I ask him to break the growing silence. Despite knowing that he’s likely using it on purpose as a weapon, as a tactic in his favor, like I do all too often, I can’t stop myself. Knowing it doesn’t make the unease any more bearable. “I would have gotten you something, but…” and I trail off. How in the hell would I know what to get this man, this intimidating stranger, this cop with the ability to take away my freedom—my life if he were privy to the reality of my predilections.

  He shakes his head, still refraining from speaking aloud. And suddenly I hate him.

  Thank god I set our meeting here. I can’t imagine how I’d feel, how it would go if he’d insisted on something more formal, more serious. I’d have wet myself if we were at the police station right now.

  As my nerves crank up a notch, as I just stew in my own anxiety, Harwell finally starts. “What do you now about Eva Westfall?”

  No easing into it, or background questions or any preamble, like what I do—oh, I’m a writer; also, I kill people.
/>   And I’m not sure if I respect or loathe the tactic.

  Well, detective, I know she was a crazy bitch.

  “Not much,” I start, as Harwell takes a notebook from his pocket. I almost laugh; it seems so clichéd—and thinking it’s cliché feels cliché, but whatever. I stop myself in time and take a sip from my coffee, giving reason to my pause.

  Not much, other than the fact that she’s never coming back.

  Not much, other than who killed her.

  Not much, other than where her body is buried.

  You know, not much at all.

  “Anything you do know could be helpful. As I’m sure you’re aware, she’s still missing.” His words almost sound like growls, like commands from the mouth of a giant.

  Dead. Not missing.

  Still dead, and good riddance.

  “Well.” I take another sip.

  Stop it. Knowing I can’t put this off forever, that the more I put this off the worse I look, I sit up straighter, faking confidence.

  “Well, she was my fiancé’s boss.” I stress our relationship in my tone and with a sickly sweet curve of my lips; I’m no one’s girlfriend anymore. “Until she was fired. And then she disappeared. I never officially met her. She stalked him shortly after we started dating, then she backed off and we never heard from her again. Sorry, I don’t see how much help I’ll be.”

  If the word help is used very loosely, though. Same for the word sorry.

  Harwell writes a few things down, but for all I know he’s putting dirty words and drawings on there because it only takes a moment, and he looks back up at me before finishing his scribbling.

  “You never saw her?” Harwell asks.

  Yes. When I killed her.

  “No. Not directly. Only through the windows of her car as she followed Aidan, and even then only for the briefest of moments. I couldn’t tell you much of what she looked like.”

  I sound confident, sure.

  Not guilty, not guilty, not guilty.

  Most things I’ve said are the truth, too—well, sort of. Most of them are mostly true. But it’s definitely not the whole truth. I could tell him what she looked like, I did get a pretty good look when I pounced on her and killed her to protect Aidan. The exact shade of her eyes is burned into a special spot of my mind. The sound she made when she took her last breath, I hear it when I sigh. The warmth draining from her body is forever etched into the memory of my fingertips.