Vicious (23 page)

He gave a brisk nod, before turning away and starting to walk back the way we came. I watched him as he became a
small figure who disappeared into the dark of the night. I collapsed down onto the sand and held my head in my hands. I had just told him how I felt and been rejected. How could I have been so stupid?

There was a full moon
, and I could feel her glow on me. But instead of the usual warmth that she brought, I felt only cold. I’d just fucked up our relationship. Stupid me, why hadn’t I just kept my mouth shut? In the distance, I saw the lights of a fishing boat and wondered who was on it. I wondered if they had ever made complete fools of themselves. The night wore on, and it got colder. Reluctantly, I got to my feet and started to head back. I raised my head up to take in the moon, it was full and bright. In fact, it seemed to glow more than normally. Perhaps that was the sacrifice of my broken heart. My mother was wrong; the moon wasn’t a protector; she was a bloodthirsty mistress always demanding too much.

“Bitch,” I said to her. “You fucking bitch.”

A heavy weight landed on the back of my head and sent me staggering. A groan escaped me as I tried to keep my balance. Was she attacking me? Another weight hit me, and I gave a cry as I collapsed to my knees. The third attack had me facedown in the sand, and I struggled to breathe as darkness overcame me.

It took a
long time for me to open my eyes. I was aware of movement and noise, but my eyelids felt like they were stuck down and heavy. When I finally managed to peel them open, I was facing a metal ceiling. I heard metal as well when I tried to move my arms and legs; it was a jangle of chain that limited my movement. My head was pounding, and that did not cease even in my panic.

“Good eveni
ng,” I jumped at the calm voice and twisted my head in that direction. I was in a van with blacked out windows.  In front of those windows sat a fair-haired man who watched me with blue eyes that looked so familiar.

“Leon?” I croaked. He looked much the same, still slim, just older and tired.

“How have you been, Violet?” His voice was deeper now, and there was none of that shy friendliness that I had been used to when I lived with him and his family.

I yanked at my hands which were pinned above my head, there was no give. “Leon, what’s going on?” My head still felt thick
, and everything was just a little bit fuzzy. My mind was clear enough though to know that whatever was going on wasn’t good.

“I just wanted to talk,” he said, his face still impassive. “I knew that you wouldn’t want to because you could never look me in the eye after what you did.”

I stopped trying to struggle because it was futile. “So talk,” I said guardedly.

His lips curved up slightly but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. They were bleak despite their vividness. “Actually, you’re the one who I want to do the talking.” He reached over
, and I steeled myself not to flinch from his touch, but he was gentle. His hand stroked at my forehead. “I want to know what you’re thinking, what you
were
thinking, back then.” His voice was soothing almost, and it made me think back to when I was soothing him. I tried not to think too much of that time.

I looked away from him, swallowing.  There was still sand in my mouth
, and it made me feel raw and gritty.              I didn’t respond to him because there would be no right answer.

He waited a few moments. “Not talking now?” he mocked. “I remember when you used to love talking. I remember all the things you used to say to me, how special you used to make me feel, all the
lies
you used to tell.” There was an edge to his voice now; it sounded as irritated as my mouth now.

“What do you want me to say?” I asked finally. “I can’t undo what I’ve done.”

A hand came up to cup my jaw and forced my face to turn toward him. “No, but you could atone for it.” His fingers were cutting into my face painfully. I remembered that he used to play the piano with those fingers. Slender and long, those fingers worked magic on the piano with a grace that he lacked in every other aspect of his life. His bleak eyes were alive now, and they had that ounce of crazy that I knew so well from my mother’s times of being unmedicated. He bent down so I could feel his hot breath on my cheek.

“Tell me a story, S
cheherazade,” he said in a raspy whisper. “It might save your life.”

A little sound escaped me. He straig
htened and smiled at that as if my fear fed his pleasure.

“What do you want me to say?” I repeated. This time though, my words were said more of defeat than defiance. I expected him to ask why I seduced his Dad, how I could do that to him, to his mother. Those answers were easy. Those answers I could handle. But that wasn’t the question that he asked.

“Why did you seduce me? What could you possibly gain from that?”

His words echoed around the metal space of the van, and I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment, hoping that when I reopened them that he would be gone; but of course, he wasn’t.

“Leon…” I trailed off because I didn’t know what to say.

“Answer me!”

I jumped, and my chains rattled as my mind searched for an answer. “I just…just because I could,” I said lamely.

He stared hard at me for a second. “Because you could?” he said softly. “Did you think it was a big, fucking joke to seduce that geeky kid, to make him think that you felt something for him?”

“It wasn’t a joke.” I met his eyes and took a shaky breath. “You have to believe that.”

“I don’t have to believe anything you say. I think you’re a fucking liar. I think that you tell so many lies that you don’t know what the truth is.” He gave a slight laugh. “What lies did you tell this latest guy you’re w
ith? He seems well off; you’re doing well, Violet. How did you manage that? When I first started hunting for you, I had hoped that I would find you down on your luck and that you’d be a junkie hooker. Then, maybe, I could have forgiven you. ” His lips thinned. “But instead, you’re living the high life. So once again, what lies did you tell him?”

“I didn’t tell him any lies. He does his home
work, and he knows every bad thing about me.”
He isn’t stupid
, I said silently,
he isn’t naïve like your father was
.

“Really?
Does he know what a conniving, scheming bitch you are? Does he know that you’re a murderer? Does he know that you drove my Dad to suicide? How you humiliated us?” he spat. He was losing control. “Did you tell him how you seduced both father and son?
Why did you do it?”

His teeth were bared
, and he was panting with pain and hatred. He looked like he might either cry or strike me. I didn’t think that I could bear him doing either one.

“Because I thought you were nice,” I rushed out. “I just wanted to see what it would be like, and you liked it, I know you did.”
I swallowed, trying to steady my voice. “And your Dad, I wanted him to like me so I wouldn’t have to move again.”

“Did you feel anything for him?” His eyes were boring into me as if he could see i
nto my soul. I should have lied; I knew that it would be the right thing to do. It may have been the only thing that could save me. But he knew that it would be a lie.

I met his
eyes, hoping to see that young, innocent boy somewhere in there. But there was nothing, just hatred and despair lurking there and ready to boil over into something terrible at any moment.

“No,” I whispered.

His head dropped down as his body shuddered with deep breaths. He seemed to fold up within himself as if he was giving up. When he finally raised his head again, his eyes were wet with tears. The beautiful blue of those eyes should have been charming girls and sparkling with wit. In another life, he would have got over his shyness and become comfortable in his own skin; he would have gone to college and had every, happy, middle-class experience that a kid like him deserved. There would have been ups and downs, but he would have had his family supporting him throughout everything. This was not the life that he should have. And it was all because of me. I descended on his family like the plague, selfishly sucking away any happiness that should have been theirs.

“I’m sorry,” I told him as my voice cracked, and I meant it.

“He cared about you; he really did,” Leon said, wiping at his eyes. “He told my Mom that he wanted to leave her and be with you. He really thought that he was in love with you. She just laughed when he told her that, she told him that he was a fool and that you were screwing me as well, and that said everything about what kind of person you were.” He was trying to get his breathing under control. “He cried. Did you know that? I had never in my life seen my father cry, but he cried for you. You completely broke him. You broke my family, Violet.” He wiped at the last tear, before standing and reaching for something that lay beside him.

My breath caught as he pulled it from its sheath. “It’s a fish fille
ting knife. It’s nice and sharp; that’s what my Dad taught me, always keep it sharp as possible or you butcher the fish.” He held it up, admiring the blade in the dim light. “Dad taught me to fish, he was a good fisherman. He always told me to kill the fish quickly. Otherwise, it’s just cruel.” The blade came down to rest gently on the side of my cheek. I stayed still, not even daring to breathe. “But sometimes, cruelty is justified, don’t you think?”

I tried to control my shaking, terrified that I would nick my skin on the edge of the sharp blade.

“I like art, do you remember that?” The blade was moving; the dull edge was tracing something on my face. “I’m going to make a beautiful flower just here, a violet perhaps, and then I’m going to trace the stem all the way down the length of your body. There will be shoots and leaves, and I am going to make you a work of art. If I really wanted to be cruel, I would make you as ugly on the outside as you are on the inside, but I won’t. I’ll make you beautiful, and hopefully some of the bad in you will seep out in the blood and maybe you’ll end up being a good person. Or, maybe,” his lips quirked up, “you’ll just die. Who knows?”

“Leon,” I breathed.  “Please…”

“No, you can’t talk!” he snapped. “Your time is over.” He grabbed a cloth he had waiting beside him and jammed it down my throat. I coughed and gagged against it, panic at the fear of not being able to breathe overcoming my fear of what would happen next.

But then he made the first cut in my face
, and I screamed into the gag. The pain made me convulse as he sliced deep, and he kept cutting while I kept screaming. My blood was warm, and it should have been cold. This was it, this was the final unravelling. This was the fates hidden in Leon’s shell cutting my final thread. I kept passing out, then regaining consciousness and having that terrible pain inflicted on me. The last thing I remembered were the van doors opening and the sound of the ocean. Then suddenly, we were on the beach, and I was being carried into the water. Gentle waves lapped at me as Leon’s arms released me, then I saw him walking away as I began to sink down. Above me, the moon shone brightly, still vivid as water washed over my face, and everything turned red. The moon was red, and she was waiting for me to come home.

But I did not die. Bandages covered half of my body down one side when I woke up,
and later it was explained that blood transfusions had saved me. Lisa sat beside me; Vogue was open on her lap, and she chatted away about mindless things she had read.

“What happened?” It felt creepy to speak, knowing that the mangled flesh on my cheek would move each time I spoke.

“You’re not supposed to talk, remember?” Lisa told me off furiously. “Write.” She shoved the pen and paper at me.

I impatiently scrawled
TELL ME!

She huffed. “There’s not much to tell. They found you
on the beach, bloody and dying; you got to the hospital just in time.” Then she looked around us to make sure no one was listening, and she leaned in close, her perfume overpowering the sterility of the hospital. “They got him,” she whispered. “Brody made him pay. Don’t worry about him. He won’t hurt you again.”

If I should have been h
appy at that, I wasn’t. It just compounded my guilt even more.

I reached for the paper.
WHERE IS HE?

Lisa thought I meant Brody.
“He came when you first got here, of course, his men found you after all. But he’s a busy man.” She sighed and looked around us once more.

TELL HIM TO COME SEE ME
I scrawled.

She gave me a sad smile. “I’ll see what I can do.” But he never came, and I tried to hassle Lisa but then I remembered my bandages and that I was probably a monster underneath. My purpose, I realized, was served.

When I was well enough to leave, Lawson appeared at my bedside with papers for me to sign. I was being given an apartment at a fancy address, and there was also an amount of money with a lot of zeroes.

“Guilt money?
” I asked him, since I was getting used to talking again. “Or not, knowing Brody. He’s probably just paying me for being his whore.” I scrawled my signature carelessly. Lawson’s face was impassive.