8. Brontë
The Abyss - The Weeknd featuring Lana del Rey
T he day Jael Hendrix was released from Brighter Days Psychiatric Hospital was the worst day of my life.
It was the realization that the only thing that kept me going was being taken away. Over the years, I had spent every waking moment thinking about her. I tracked her every move and learned everything I could about her.
Without her, I am nothing. A fragment of a shadow. A flicker of darkness in the corner of the room. Some creature that lost its humanity a long time ago.
She grounds me, even when she doesn’t notice I’m there.
Deep down, she must know. She has to sense the connection. It’s why she’s fixated on the idea of me. She needs to know she’s not alone.
I watched from the basement window as Jael carried her things to the car picking her up. She struggled with her box and bags, stopping at the curb for a glance around. She was checking for me.
If I was watching.
She knew I was. I always would be.
The car drove off and I eventually emerged from the dank pit I hide away in during daylight hours. I stepped onto the curb outside and decided that I would track her down. I would go where she went, regardless of what my father wanted.
It would take him days to notice I was missing. I wasn’t even sure he would care.
But I would need my pain meds one way or another.
Jael went to Easton. She got out of the car after thanking the driver and smiled up at the brick building that was once a warehouse.
It escaped me why she had shown up here until I realized it was the apartment building where her sister once lived.
Lyra.
The patients at the hospital are often kept in the dark on current events, especially if the staff deem them too upsetting. Jael had no idea that her sister’s life had been taken by the serial killer the Cleaver.
I knew about her sister because I had spent countless hours learning about her. I once broke into my father’s office late at night and found her file. Every important detail about her life was documented in there, from the names of her family to some of the deep-rooted issues she suffered from.
Lyra was mentioned often. Jael was obsessed with her sister, inconsolably upset by the prospect of being separated from her. Once the fires happened and her problems could no longer be handled by her grandmother, she was given up.
Admitted to numerous juvenile facilities and later this psychiatric hospital to get the help she needed—or so they claimed.
My father rarely helped anyone. The majority of his patients wound up worse off once he was through with them.
Strange comfort considering his parenting was the same way.
I watched from across the street as Jael rummaged through her sister’s bedroom. She found a laptop that belonged to her and hugged it to her chest like it was her sister. They were reunited again.
Jael’s euphoria was cut short a few seconds later when the man her sister shared an apartment with showed up. He was angry and confrontational, demanding to know why she was there.
Jael didn’t seem to grasp his anger. She was dissociating again, out of tune with the things she had done to gain access to her sister’s apartment, like breaking the lock off.
Startled by the man’s temper, she fled. The laptop went with her.
For days, I stayed by her side. I watched closely like a silent guardian, making sure she kept out of trouble—or as much of it as possible—as she found a home in an apartment that was temporarily empty. The family was away on vacation and Jael made her way inside.
All hours of the day, she poured over the few belongings she had of her sister. She slept with the laptop like it were a lifeline she couldn’t begin to let go of.
The screen lit up her face with its pale blue glow as she logged on and scrolled through her sister’s accounts and messages. Her longing was palpable, almost pitiful.
She’d do anything to become her sister.
So it was no surprise when she went onto a site called Cyber Fans and answered a message like she was Lyra.
Instant rage seared through me. I could barely restrain myself watching as her fingers hovered over the keys and she typed up responses to some man named Winston Cooper. Some editor at the Easton Times that seemed to make a habit of coming onto women with the promise of employment.
They agreed to meet for drinks at a place called the Velvet Piano.
She dressed up for him.
My pulse pounded in my neck as I hid in plain sight, witnessing how she slipped on a sparkling ruby dress that hugged her body like a second skin. It was expensive, from one of the department stores in the city, but she’d ripped off the tag and stuffed it into her bag, making it out undetected.
That was the thing about Jael.
Sometimes she didn’t understand right vs. wrong. She didn’t grasp when she was breaking rules or doing something bad. So long as it was justified in her head, it was fine. If she was caught, she’d put on the sweet sympathetic frown that pulled at the heart beating in my chest.
Almost as if on some level, she did realize what she was doing. She was manipulating the situation in her favor.
I grew hard watching the slinky fabric slide over her skin. Her figure was slim-waisted and tall but there were plenty of curves to enjoy. Breasts and ass that were shaped like fruit. A peach of an ass that was perfect and melons my hands ached to fondle.
But through the arousal burned the rage and jealousy. The thought that she was doing this for some man she had never even met before.
She applied lipstick and fluffed her thick cloud of hair and then she was out. I trailed after her every step of the way, the dark shadow she’d never be able to shake.
The Velvet Piano was crowded when she arrived. Winston stood outside waiting for her, sucking on a cigarette. He undressed her with his eyes and the rage inside me reached a new boiling point. His hand found the small of her back and he guided her inside.
I needed to find my way in too.
But I was huge. Disfigured. Unsightly with my scars and even more unnerving with my mask.
I went around the back of the bar and found a side door with a lock I could pick and muscle open. I cut into a storage room where there happened to be security monitors flickering, each one a different angle of the premises.
It wasn’t perfect. I couldn’t hear what was being said. The only thing I could hear were the indistinct notes of piano music and buzzing chatter from the barroom floor.
What I could see made up for what I couldn’t hear. Winston had reserved them a table, where he proceeded to lean into her space and grin cockily at her.
Jael was uncomfortable. She pulled back. Her brows connected, discomfort written all over her face.
I clenched my fists, the edges of the room blurring. My rage threatened to consume me. I could blackout like I’ve done in the past and come to, realizing the extent of my destruction. It wouldn’t be the first time it happened, even where Jael was concerned…
Eventually, Winston grew bored of his one-sided flirting and stood up to go outside for a smoke. He weaved through the crowd, eyeballing the other women he found attractive.
I followed him.
The alley behind the bar was narrow and dimly lit. The air reeked of garbage and stale beer. He leaned against the wall, a lit cigarette between his lips. He blew smoke out in ringlets like it made him appear more impressive.
I was only a few feet away, steeped in deep shadows.
I stood there watching him. Muscles clenched, body coiled like a spring, I was a predator on the hunt.
My head filled with images of my hands wrapped around his throat. The life would drain from his face and he’d go limp in my hold. Those images weren’t enough to satisfy my bloodlust, morphing into a more vivid imagining of his skull bashed against brick.
His blood spraying everywhere.
His screams of agony echoing into the crisp night air.
I would crush him like nothing. Take his life with my bare hands.
It would be deserved. It was necessary when defending what was mine. And Jael Hendrix was mine in every way, no matter how hard she resisted and how far away she ran.