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But it doesn't matter—whether this is life or death, whether this is a memory or a happening. None of it matters anymore, because finally obsoletion takes hold.
***
I’ve been scared of the dark for as long as I can remember. Even before Eric Giante started to sneak into my bed, I always felt that bad things happened when the lights went out. In the cover of quiet and night, monsters can find their prey. And even if the monsters were kept at bay, I had the nightmares to contend with.
The nightmares haunted me long before I decided to stain my soul, before I understood the cruelty mankind was capable of. My first memory is a nightmare… being stuffed into a closet, watching through the slats as figures move around in the relative dark of a bedroom. I don’t know who the figures are, or who the screams belong to, but I guess maybe they’re mine, since I usually wake up screaming. The first time it happened, I lived with the Oterra’s, who weren’t bad, but were woefully unprepared to deal with a child like me. Mrs. Oterra held me for a while, trying to rock me back to sleep even though I had to have been about five years old. Mr. Oterra made me a peanut butter sandwich and a glass of chocolate milk, like that would fix whatever was wrong with me. I don't think I was ever able to tell them what the nightmare was about. They did their best to soothe me, bought me a cool ballerina nightlight and a new stuffed animal to take to bed to ‘protect me’. But none of that kept the nightmares from coming back, night after night. None of that kept me from waking up, screaming, gasping for air, my pillow wet with tears.
I still know, all these years later, that is the reason that they never adopted me. After three years of sleepless nights for a child who wasn’t their own, they’d had enough, and so it was on to the next family.
Those nightmares stopped for a while, but they came back with a vengeance, and they stuck around for the better part of my teenage years. When I met Rhea and convinced myself that I had healed from my past, they stopped for the most part. Every so often, a bad dream would break through, but overall, I had put them behind me.
But the things that swirl through my head as I lay on the bathroom floor, pressing my face against the tile to try and cool off, are a fusion of every unpleasant thought I've ever had.
This must be hell. I’m a murderer, and now my soul is damned. I’ll live forever in a loop of despair, fear, desperation, pain… so much pain.
The devil knows my name. He has seen what I've done, and now I am his prisoner. I have no one to blame but myself. I hear him calling to me from the darkest corners of wherever I am, and I can't run from him. I'm too weak to sit up, let alone stand. There's nowhere to hide.
So, I simply lay there, waiting for him to come.
His footsteps get closer, but I never see him. Instead, I feel his presence and the weight of the darkness threatening to pull me under, further into the depths of my purgatory. I’m so emotionally and physically worn out that I don't have anything left in me besides the pain. As everything else fades, the agony only grows, multiplying until I only feel relief when he finally appears.
His face is cast in shadows… or maybe he is made of shadows. I try to get a look at him, but he is darkness incarnate. As he lifts me into his arms, my head falls to the side, and I lose track of which way is up and which is down.
Chapter seven
Remy
“Wes?” Rhea’s confusion clouds the chapel the minute she walks in and looks up to see our guest sandwiched on a hard wooden bench between Dimitri and Michael. The bruise under his eye is already yellowing and the fucker’s wearing one of my suits. I’d have had him come in the blood-stained clothes he was wearing when I took him hostage, if only to prove a point, but I can’t have Rhea asking questions any more than she already will. There’s no sense in stoking a fire that’s dangerously close to burning out of control.
“You’ll have to tell her eventually.” Wes had teased me, delighting in the fact that he could spill the whole unfortunate truth to Rhea with just a few words. Of course, I’d warned him that was ill-advised, but there’s no telling what he will say or do. That’s why Dimitri and Michael aren’t going to let him out of arm’s reach.
Wes turns, his eyes brightening as they lock on my sister. He rises to greet her, and Michael stands with him, slipping a hand in his jacket pocket where it surely wraps over the gun there. Michael has no intention of shooting him in a church full of our distant family, friends, and business partners, but he is good at his job. I have no doubt that if Wes puts so much as a toe out of line, he’ll be dealt with discreetly and efficiently.
“Rhea!” He braces his hands on her shoulders and fixes her with a quick once-over that’s a bit too appreciative given that we all share a mother. “You look incredible.”
Despite her confusion, Rhea’s light is rarely dampened. She smiles brightly and sweeps him into a hug, as if they’re old friends. Over her shoulder, Wes’ gaze catches mine, his eyes glittering at his own private joke—our little secret. “Where’s Claire?” His smirk deepens, stretching his cut lip so that a trickle of blood shows as he says her name, anticipating a response from me.
I give him nothing, so he pulls away to look at Rhea again. “Claire isn’t feeling well.” She explains, shaking her head. “How… why are you here?”
“Me?” Wes laughs. “Oh, I was sent on behalf of my father. They’re business partners. Old friends, really.”
“Oh.” That surprises her. “Who’s your father?”
Michael shifts, a gentle reminder to Wes that we are still in control. “Alexandre Davos.”
Realization dawns on Rhea’s face, her lips forming into an ‘O’. “You’re Ryan’s cousin?”
“Didn’t he mention it?” Wes grins, his hands wrapping around her forearms so that he can command her attention. “Tristan wasn’t able to make it on such short notice, but he sends his regards, of course.”
Rhea nods, suddenly seeming to remember where we are. She looks up at the altar with a sigh, her eyes lingering on the shiny coffin. “You don’t have to go up there.” I tell her, just in case she’s thinking of sitting down instead of climbing the three stairs in her heels.
“Of course, I’m going up there.” She chides. And then she sighs, her eyes turning on me. “Will you come with me, Rem?”
No part of me has any desire to see that man’s face ever again, but I can’t just abandon my sister to face her grief alone. I nod and she nods back like she’s trying to prepare herself.
Wes is the least of my problems as I follow Rhea up the steps, fighting the urge to turn back.
It’s part of the ruse, I tell myself. This is a business move.
