The Dark of You by S.M. Shade
Chapter Nineteen
Without my writing, I don’t know how I would’ve made it through the last two weeks. There’s a hollow space inside of me that grows every day with Reeve’s absence. I don’t know how I can be so empty, yet feel too much all at once. Regret is thick. Why did I push him when he made his boundaries clear?
I’ve barely eaten or showered. There’s no desire to take care of myself. As soon as I’m awake and the realization hits me again that I’ve lost him, I bury myself in writing to hide from the horrible ache. It’s kept me going until today. This is the first time I’ve sat in front of the laptop and nothing has come out.
It’s a familiar feeling. Not writer’s block, but burnout. I’ve hit a wall and need a little break before I can come back to it. Fear fills me at the prospect. How will I make it through the day?
There’s not much of the day left, I notice, when I wander into the sunroom. My sleeping schedule has been nonexistent. I write, I sleep, I write again, with no concern for the clock or the cycle of night and day.
Staying awake all night with nothing but my thoughts will be even worse. For the first time since I fled their house in the early hours of the morning, I wonder about the two little girls. How are they doing? They’re still stuck in the same horrible situation. Anger at Reeve wars with the pain of missing him because I’m not the only one left miserable at his failure to follow through. We were supposed to save them.
Why should they continue to suffer?
Reeve did one thing for me, despite the state I’m left in. He showed me who I am. He freed me.
I’m going to free them.
The supplies are still in my trunk, but that plan isn’t something I can do alone. I’m not strong enough to kidnap him, or to hide the body, even if I had a place in mind. No, I’ll have to kill him where he lies, while he’s asleep. There’s nothing linking me to this man, and I can’t imagine I’ll be a suspect as long as I don’t leave any evidence behind.
Just a few months ago, these thoughts would have terrified me, but not anymore. I’m going to be the person I would’ve loved to have on my side when I was in their position.
As soon as midnight arrives, I park my car where it isn’t likely to be seen, then make my way through the woods with a taser attached to my waistband, and a hunting knife tucked into my pocket. The fear I felt last time I peeked through their windows isn’t present this time. Only determination and hate.
Hate for the man who’s about to die. Hate for the people who hurt me and failed me over the years. Hate for the one I love so much it twists my insides just to think of him. He should be here. How dare he do this to me? Change everything and then run away.
Never mind him. He isn’t here, I am, and I have a job to do. Like last time, the girls are sleeping in their room. Once I see the man is asleep in the living room, I creep around to the back. I don’t have a plan to get in, but the other two times I was here, there was at least one window open. It shouldn’t be hard.
It turns out I don’t need to worry. The doorknob to the back door turns easily in my gloved hand. The foul smell of old food and dirty dishwater strikes me when I step inside. It’s a strange feeling, standing in someone’s home in the middle of the night when they aren’t aware. Scary, but somehow powerful. Is this how Reeve felt when he showed up in my sunroom the first time?
Fuck, everything leads back to him. I’m never going to get him out of my head.
My footsteps sound too loud on the crumbling tile no matter how softly I tread. The only other noise in the house comes from the TV, where some action movie plays. From the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, I can see the light it casts flashing onto the living room wall. For a long minute, I’m stuck there, listening, making sure I haven’t been heard.
Ten careful steps bring me to the living room doorway, and my heart begins to race at the sight of him. Sprawled out on the sofa, he’s asleep with one leg hanging over the side and his foot on the ground. He doesn’t stir when I draw closer.
The weight of the knife in my hand feels right. It’s supposed to be there. Like I’m supposed to be here. A fast food wrapper lies balled up beside him. I wonder if the girls got to eat too? Chances are he only bought for himself. Well, it’s the last time he’ll neglect them. The thought of the girls just down the hall sets an alarm off in my head. This man, he deserves to die, but what about them? The plan Reeve and I devised would have had them wake up alone, but not in a murder scene.
Standing over him, my hand twitches with the urge to drive the knife down into his heart. Or drag it across his throat. It’s a difficult compulsion to resist. Isn’t that why I came here? Why resist?
Because they’ll find him.
Those two little girls who have been through so much will wake to find their father slaughtered in their home. They’ll see the pale, dead body, the glazed empty eyes that I saw at their age. They’ll see the blood.
It’ll turn their world red.
This was stupid. A stupid, impulsive act. I can’t do this. My hand shakes as I put the knife away.
One step backward is all I get before bloodshot eyes pop open and stare into mine. If I expect anything, it’s a shout. What else would you do coming out of a dead sleep to see a stranger in your house? I’m not sure what’s more terrifying, the speed with which he gets to his feet, or the way that he does it in silence without the least sign of shock or surprise. Maybe he wasn’t asleep, heard me come in, and waited. I don’t know.
Instinct alone drives me backward right before he can grab me. There’s no time to get the knife back out. All I want is to put some space between us. He’s right on my heels as I dart through the house and out of the back door.
“Get back here, you fucking bitch. Think you’re going to rob me.”
He has no idea of my real intention. It doesn’t matter now. Thankfully, I got just enough of a head start to stay ahead of him, though the woods slow us both down when I run to them for cover. He never gets far enough behind for comfort, and I don’t know what to do. Running to my car isn’t an option. Even if he doesn’t catch me, he’ll have seen too much. I’ll go to jail.
This got out of hand so quickly. About halfway through the woods, I feel his hand grab the back of my jacket, and the sound of the material tearing echoes through the trees. My back slams into the ground hard enough to jar my bones and knock the wind out of me.
He straddles me, and putrid breath is laughed into my face. “Ha, look at you now. Came to take my shit, didn’t you? That’s what you bitches do. Let a man work hard, then come and take it all.” He starts unfastening his pants. “Only one thing you’re getting from me, whore, and I’m going to make sure you don’t like it.”
Anger overcomes my panic. No. He’s not fucking me. I won’t let that happen. He laughs when I wriggle under him. In his drunken attempt to get his jeans and underwear down, he doesn’t notice my hand delve into my pocket. It isn’t until he tries to unfasten my pants that I make the move. With him sitting on me, he’s an easy target and never sees the knife coming.
For the second time in my life, I drive a blade into a man. This time, I’m careful not to let my hand slip down. Even in the middle of all this, I realize I can’t leave any of my blood behind. The blade slides into his soft belly, just under his ribs, and he lets out a sound like the bleat of a sheep. His eyes widen, and he stares down in disbelief.
It isn’t good enough. It’ll take too long for him to bleed out. Before he can react, I withdraw it and shove it into his chest as hard as I can. Blood seeps out of the first wound, dotting my shirt, and I shove him over while rolling in the opposite direction. I’m free of him just in time for his body to collapse in the dirt.
My feet scramble against the ground, pushing me back away from him. Oh god. This wasn’t how this was supposed to go. I never should’ve come here. My body shakes too much to stand up, but I scoot back a good distance until my back touches a tree. My eyes never leave the body lying on its side in the dirt, a knife still jutting out of the chest.
Is he dead? He must be. That was right in the heart, it had to be. He’s not breathing. A snap of a branch in the distance makes my head whip around, but there’s no one there. “Reeve,” I sob. “Please be watching. Please help me. I need you.”
Desperation makes me call for him when I know he isn’t there, but part of me still hopes to see him step out of the woods. The silence which answers back breaks my heart all over again. After only a minute or two, I do my best to pull myself together. There are things that have to be done if I have a prayer of getting away with this.
Some things still work in my favor. There’s no connection between me and this man. I’m not hurt or bleeding. There’s always the possibility that I left a hair or something behind, but not a fingerprint. The gloves made sure of that. My worry was that the girls would find him, but that’s not as likely now that we’re a quarter mile away from his house. He’ll be found, no doubt, these aren’t thick woods and they back up to a few different neighborhoods.
The knife. A shudder runs through me when I realize I can’t leave it. Fingerprints or not, I can’t risk leaving the murder weapon. You can do this, I whisper to myself. Just do it fast, then you can go. Just do it fast.
Terror injects ice into my bones when I approach him. My mind fills with images of him suddenly leaping to life, the way he did when I thought he was asleep. Every step toward him is harder than the last. With a deep breath, I count in my head. One, two, three. The knife is harder to pull out than I expect, but two hard jerks later, it’s finally in my hand.
I take a moment to look around and make sure there’s no evidence of me present. My jacket ripped when he grabbed me, but only on a seam. No scraps are missing. It’s still scary to turn my back on him, and multiple times on my hike through the dark woods, I look back to make sure I’m alone.
Luck is with me tonight. Not a soul is in sight on my walk to my car, and I don’t pass another vehicle on the drive home. I’m exhausted, but my night isn’t over yet. Once I’m home, I wash the blood off the knife, then put it in a bucket of bleach and soap to soak away any microscopic bits caught in the handle. My clothes are set aside to burn. It’s the second outfit I’ve lost to blood. What has happened to my life?
After a hot shower, I stand naked in front of the mirror, examining my body. There’s not a scratch on me. As much as I want to drag myself to bed, I head out to the firepit to burn the clothes I was wearing. When I return, I dump out the bucket of bleach, rinse the knife, and tuck it in the space behind the bathroom cabinet until I can dispose of it.
What I’m counting on more than anything is that there’s no reason for me to be suspected. As far as anyone knows, I don’t know that man, never had a run-in with him. He’s a poor alcoholic who lives on the rough side of town. I’m a wealthy author who lives in a beautiful house miles away in the forest. No connection whatsoever.
If we can get away with the senator, I can get away with this. For the first time since Reeve left me, I crawl into bed and sleep eight straight hours.
My body aches when I wake in the mid-afternoon. I guess a run through the woods and fight to the death will do that. My legs are sore, and my shoulder screams at me when I move it. My mind feels blissfully blank while I crawl out of bed to hunt down a couple of painkillers. After washing them down with a drink of coffee, I wrap a throw blanket around me and settle down in front of the TV with my mug.
Rain pours outside the windows while I flip channels until I find the local afternoon news program. There’s no mention of a body found, or a man missing. He’s probably still lying out there in the woods, rotting in the rain. My thoughts have turned to the story I’ve been writing and how I can incorporate the sensations and feelings from last night. It’s not like I’m going to write a word for word confession—I’m not stupid—but regardless of how any writer might try, a bit of our own lives always seeps into the work.
The entertainment section of the news has become a drone of background noise until my pen name is mentioned. I sit up and turn up the volume just in time to hear the woman say, “We’ll be back with that story in our Movie Minute Report after the break.”
They must be announcing the Midnight Terror movie. It’s no secret it was coming, but most of the details weren’t leaked. The studio wasted no time moving forward with it, and last I heard, they plan to release next year. The ads seem to take forever, but finally a man yelling about a sale on used cars is replaced by the graphic of a projector and the forced excitement of the anchor’s voice.
“Thatcher Studios announced yesterday they’ll be bringing the bestselling thriller Midnight Terror to the screen next year. Based on a true story of a family annihilator who went on a killing spree in the late eighties, this terrifying tale is set for a Halloween release. If that doesn’t pique your interest, we have another intriguing discovery revealed only a few hours ago by SLY Media. The author of Midnight Terror, who has written many bestsellers under the pen name D.S. Shrike, is actually Darcy Sharpe, the only surviving victim of another family annihilator called The Babysitter. Ms. Sharpe was only five years old when…”
The anchor’s voice is overtaken by the buzzing in my ears. My entire adulthood has been spent burying that person. From the moment I got my first publishing deal, that was a condition written into every contract. Every person who needed to know my real information has had to sign a non-disclosure agreement. My writing, my stories are what made my career, and that’s how I wanted it. I’ve never wanted to be known as a victim turned author. Just an author.
That’s gone. If this has reached far enough to be mentioned on our little local news, it must be all over the internet by now. Who would’ve done this? Who told?
As afraid as I am to see what’s being said online, I pick up my phone and Google my pen name. A headline and still frame of a video pops up first, and my heart drops to the floor. Even on the tiny, out of focus frame, I recognize my only friend sitting across from the host.
Thea.
My finger trembles as I click on the video. Angry tears burn my eyes while I watch the only person I trusted tear apart my life. She answers every question the host asks, feeds him every detail she’s ever been privy to about my life and career. Once she happily reveals the name of the town where I’m living, I hit stop and drop the phone.
I can’t right now. No more. It’s all too much.
We’ve been friends for over fifteen years. We lived together as roommates, I helped her pay for cosmetology school to become a makeup artist once I got my first publishing deal. I know I haven’t treated her well lately. I haven’t even called back since she hung up on me, but I didn’t expect this. Feeling like a sleepwalker in the middle of some endless nightmare, I shuffle back to my bed and crawl under the covers.
I’ve never known such betrayal.