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Another aura pulses from the center of the room next to Nic’s and I head that way. “Nic?”
“Izabella! What the fuck are you doing down here? Go back upstairs!” He sounds strange, like he’s trying to be angry, but something else is stronger. I tune into him further, trying to tell what it is.
“Nic…” My tone is soft, hesitant in a way that I can’t describe.
“You…you don’t want to see this,mi vida. Please, just go upstairs.” His voice cracks and I don’t listen, continuing further into the one place in my childhood home that I’ve never actually seen.
A feminine groan reaches my ears at the same time the sound of distant sirens start to pick up and grow closer. My hands shake as I reach out, intending to do…something, but I have no real idea what. Ice encases me, numbing everything but my need tosee, my need to find out what exactly happened to my mother.
Gizmo and Snitch’s frantic squeaks sound as I grow closer to where I know she is, but they barely register through the rushing of blood in my ears. Time seems to slow, taking with it everything but my hands that continue to reach out, and the drive to continue forward.
“Izabella, no!” Nic yells as my fingertips make contact with my mother’s skin. I only just register the warmth and wetness beneath my touch when my mind is whisked away completely.
“Stop! No!” My mother’s voice is strangled as her vision blurs momentarily before focusing once more. “Why are you doing this? I’ve done nothing wrong!”
“Wicked the selfish, the cruel, and the bitter. Wicked the negligent mother, the quitter.” The sound of a sharp knife grazing over metal is ominous amidst the blurry darkness of my mother’s eyesight. “Wicked the addict, lacking morals or guilt. Wicked the cunt who isn’t worth the blood spilt.”
The stalker sounds far angrier than I’ve heard thus far, his robotic and distorted voice wavering beneath the weight of his fury. Sharp pain slices through the haze for a moment and my mother glances down to see our last name now forever etched into her skin, her screams bouncing off the concrete of the basement walls. Even the letters show the overwhelming rage of my mother’s captor, each letter is sharp and angry in its application, like the stalker is barely able to hold back.
What makes this one different?
“You know…normally I wouldn’t bother speaking to my victims. I give them my message so they know why they were chosen, and that’s that. But for you? I just can’t help myself.” The stalker, for once, continues speaking. “As a parent, you’re charged with the most important job in the entire world. You’re given the greatest of gifts, and you are meant to keep them safe, love them, and give them every opportunity you can. But you didn’t, did you?”
My mother’s vision tilts as her head falls to the side, but it’s quickly snapped back up, accompanied by a burning sensation as the stalker uses her hair to hold her head steady.
“Now, now, don’t give up yet. I’m not finished talking.” A sharp stinging blazes across her cheek as the stalker runs his blade over her skin, the sobs she elicits shaking her entire body. “As I was saying, being a parent is the most important job in the world. Sure, it doesn’t pay anything. You rarely even see the gratitude you’re entitled to as they grow up and abandon you to enter the real world. But, nonetheless, you take pride in the fact that you did that. You made that person into everything they are and more. At least, you should. You didn’t, did you? Wicked wasn’t raised by a loving mother, was she? Don’t worry, you don’t have to answer me, it’s a rhetorical question. I already know all the answers.”
The robotic voice pauses for a moment as his heavy shuffling steps move further away. My mother tries to raise her head and track him with her eyes, but shadows encroach on the edges of her vision and her head drops back to the table behind her listlessly.
“The answer is no. Wicked wasn’t raised by a loving mother. She lost her father, she went blind, and you completely abandoned her, letting your own mother raise her instead. I mean, sure, she was better off. Even when you had a hand in her life, it was a cruel one, wasn’t it? There wasn’t a day that passed where you didn’t tear her down with words or fists, was there?” My mother’s chest heaves as she tries to form words, her entire body in agony. “Don’t bother trying to defend yourself or tell a lie. I know the truth. How do I know? Well, that’s a story for another day, another person, another time. All you need to know is I’ve been watching and biding my time. Waiting for the time to come for me to rise up from the ashes and tear down those who have burnt us.”
His steps grow closer once more, his presence pressing in on my mother’s form and her body convulses from the force of her sobs and the fear fueling them.
“You might recognize this.” His distorted voice rumbles beneath the robotic overtone as he grabs my mother’s chin and lifts her head, bringing it forward. “Open your eyes. I know you’re not that far gone yet.”
Her eyes open, though the blurred haze that settles over her sight is barely distinguishable from the darkness beneath her eyelids. Something large and sharp is hovering in front of her face and she tries to focus on it. The stalker spins it in his gloved hand, revealing the yellow on the other side of the object, and a strangled gasp tears through my mother’s throat.
“Ah, yes. I knew you would.” The stalker moves the object away and darkness returns as my mother slumps against the table she’s bound to once more, her head falling limply to her chest. “I like to think it’s a little bit like poetic justice in a way. To use a piece of the car that took Iz-...Wicked’s eyesight to take everyone else’s eyesight. I thought that part was rather ingenious, wouldn’t you say? No? Well, it doesn’t matter what you think, you’re going to be dead soon.”
A fresh wave of sobs wrack my mother’s body, but she doesn’t bother trying to cry out or struggle against her binds, she just lays there like she’s lost all desire to live. The stalker grabs her hair once more, pulling her head up and holding her in place.
“I’m happy to say, this is going to hurt like a bitch. And you’ll deserve every second of it.” The stalker hums a tune just as excruciating agony lights up on my mother’s face. She starts screaming and jerking as the metal digs into her eye socket, gouging and slashing with no mercy. First one, then the other. Consciousness ebbs away as the pain reaches its crescendo, the waves of oppressive, yet welcoming, nothingness edging in through the darkness of my mother’s new world.
One I am personally familiar with.
“Well, it seems we’ve come to our final goodbye. I’ll see you in hell.” My mother waits for the final blow that will take away this torture, she even arches towards the stalker as if begging for him to end it.
But it never comes.
Darkness descends and I’m thrown from the vision.
Awareness of my surroundings returns followed quickly by the realization that Nic is holding me tightly to his body amidst a flurry of activity. Rushed conversations flow as paramedics and police officers press in around us, seeing to my mom. Nic sweeps me into his arms and, based on the pounding of his feet on creaky wood, I know he’s taking me back upstairs.
I try to push away from him, wanting to at least see if my mother is going to be alright, but he refuses to let me go. The familiar auras of Kai and Ezra meet us at the top and I hear them questioning what’s wrong with me, but Nic just walks me straight out the front door. Not stopping for anyone or anything.
“Wicked? What’s wrong with you?” Alan’s voice surfaces from the mass of noises and auras once we’re outside and I turn my head in his direction.
“I’m fine,” I clip out, far shakier than I would have liked before it turns sharp. “Where were you? I thought you were going to follow us.”
