12 | Sage
Sage
Ipace around the nursery, trying to come up with a plan that doesn’t include killing a woman carrying an innocent soul. Maybe I can talk to Silas. Maybe he will understand. He lost that baby too. It was his, too. My brother isn’t a monster. He surely will spare Chloe.
Loud screaming fills the house, coming from upstairs, and I notice how Chloe curls on the rocking chair, holding her stomach. I am pretty sure that’s Kyle. Who am I kidding? My brother is a monster, and the only way Chloe survives is if he doesn’t.
I take a deep breath. I try to reason with myself. I need to choose between saving someone innocent and killing the man who stood by me through everything. My other half. A part of my own soul.
“Fuck,” I say a little too loud, and Chloe comes running. She pulls me toward her, forcing me to turn to look at her.
“What’s wrong? Did he hurt you? Is any of this blood yours?
” She is looking for a wound that she hasn’t noticed.
But she won’t find any because I was never actually a victim tonight.
I consider telling her that. Then I realize telling her that she is locked in a room with someone who murdered two people tonight won’t go well.
“I am fine,” I say, and step backward, putting some space between us. “We need to move.” I take her hand in mine and walk toward the door. She doesn’t move. She stares at me even when I pull on her hand to encourage her to fucking move.
“Listen. We can either stay here and you will probably end up dead, or we can move.” The word ‘dead’ seems to be a good motivation for her.
She follows me out of the room, and I check the living room quickly as we move toward the front door.
I try to open it, but it’s locked. How the hell did Silas arrange this?
I try the window while Chloe stands there almost in the middle of the room, watching me fail.
“Fuck. Why is everything locked?” I take a moment to think. There must be a way out. Somehow. There should be a way out.
Footsteps come from the top of the stairs, forcing my attention to Silas, who walks down the staircase holding a knife, bathed in blood, with the most devilish smile I have ever seen on my brother.
“Sage.” Chloe’s voice brings me back to reality. I need to save her, and I am sitting here thinking how hot my brother is. “Sage!” She speaks louder, and that brings me completely back to reality.
“Fuck. Run. To the kitchen. The door is open,” I say before I realize that going that way means she will find Diana.
Maybe I can convince her that it was Silas who killed her, too.
Even if he couldn’t be in two places at the same time.
A problem for another time. I run after her, but as I do, a hand grabs me.
“Where the hell are you going, sister?” Silas’s eyes fire lasers.
He looks like I betrayed him, and he is not wrong.
I did. Or I am about to. “Playtime is over. Time to kill the bitch,” he tells me, and he pulls the pink knife from his pocket, handing it back to me.
The one I left in the room when I went after Chloe.
My fingers curl around the knife handle.
I study the blood-stained pink blade for a moment.
Then my eyes find Chloe, who’s standing next to the kitchen door, visible from the hallway between the living room and the kitchen.
She motions for me to come. She is waiting for me to follow.
It’s almost as if she cares if I survive or not.
What she can’t see is that Silas stands in front of me, hidden from her view by the way the kitchen is designed. You can only see part of the hallway.
I take a deep breath and offer him the knife back, but he doesn’t take it from me. He looks straight into my eyes. “What the hell, Sage?” he questions.
“We can’t kill her, Silas,” I say quietly, but with the corner of my eye, I watch Chloe as she exits the house.
I don’t know if she’ll run away, hide, or call the police.
I don’t know what’s happening outside because I am too busy looking at my brother’s dark blue eyes looking back at me, full of disappointment.
“Yes, we can. She deserves it,” Silas presses.
“She is pregnant, Silas,” I tell him, as if this will save her.
“I don’t care. She and her fucking boyfriend took everything away from us with their rumors.
If you’re not going to do it, I will.” He takes the knife from me and heads down the hallway toward the kitchen.
“Chloe, come here, love. I just want to show you something pink,” he teases as he approaches the door.
I look around for anything I can grab. Because in this moment, my decision is made for me. He won’t back out. He won’t allow me to save her, and I can’t let an innocent unborn baby die. I simply can’t. I grab a kitchen knife and run toward him.
“Silas, I can’t let you!” I yell as I raise the knife in the air, realizing immediately that this was a bad idea. Silas turns and grabs my hand, forcing me to let go of the knife. It falls to the ground, and his hand moves around my throat.
“Really, Sage?” His voice is now dark. He is not the Silas who loves me.
He is the one I avoid provoking. He is the one I was scared to tell that I didn’t want to do this earlier in the night.
And even though I did eventually enjoy a good part of the killings, I realize that, in reality, I was always one of the victims. Maybe not tonight.
Maybe in a few years, but eventually he would kill me like he did all of these people tonight.
Because when he says leaving him is not an option, it’s not a declaration of love; it’s a warning.
One that I never took seriously, but right now, with his hand on my throat, depriving me of the luxury to breathe, I realize this obsession between us is toxic.
It’s wrong. It’s a sin. Tears fall down my cheeks, and I close my eyes, preparing myself for my death.
“I did everything for you.” He spits the words as if they hurt. “I saved you.” He did. “I killed for you.” I didn’t ask him to. “I...” The next words never leave his mouth. Instead, blood fills it, and I open my eyes only to see a knife sticking out of his neck.
Chloe stands behind him, and one of the kitchen knives—the one I noticed missing when I grabbed one myself—is now shoved in my brother’s neck. His hand leaves my neck and finds his instead. He presses around the wound, trying to speak, but only a river of blood falls out of his mouth.
I reach for the knife in his other hand, and before he can react, I take it away from him.
I take a deep breath as I push it into his heart; he falls into my arms, the blood he is quickly losing already making him weak.
“I am sorry,” I whisper as my fingers curl on the knife handle—the one that sticks out from his neck.
I move it slowly, slicing his throat like I did to Diana.
But this time I don’t enjoy it. This time isn’t fun or exciting.
This time I feel like my own throat is sliced open.
I can’t breathe. I can’t move. I can’t speak.
Not until I hear the distant sound of sirens do I realize I need to run. I let him fall to the ground unconscious. I am not sure if he is dead or dying. I don’t have time to stay and think. I have to run. I have to survive. Chloe is still standing at the door, watching me in disbelief.
“You killed Diana,” she whispers.
“I did,” I admit.
“But you saved me,” she whispers back.
“I did,” I admit again.
“You didn’t deserve any of this. You are a victim, too,” she tells me, with tears filling her eyes.
“I am,” I whisper—my confession. Because that’s my reality. Even when I thought I wasn’t one, I was still a victim.
“Run. I will tell them it was only him,” she instructs me, but I don’t understand.
She can’t mean it. “Run.” She takes a set of car keys out of her pocket and hands them to me, whispering again.
“They're for Diana’s car. She gave them to me when we arrived because she knew I wouldn’t drink,” she explains, then adds, “Run, Sage. Save yourself. Start new. Live.”
I nod. She is giving me an out. She is not apologizing for everything she did to me, but this is all the apology I need.
I take the keys from her hand; my eyes fall on Silas.
I kneel down, turning his body so his back is on the floor until his lifeless blue eyes stare at me. I place a soft kiss on his lips.
“Goodbye, brother,” I whisper to him before I stand again and walk out of the house.
I can hear the police breaking down the front door as I walk fast toward Diana’s car.
No one notices me. They are too busy trying to get into the house.
They don’t expect one of the killers to just walk away, passing right in front of them.
And that’s the poetry of this situation.
Monsters blend through crowds not because they are hiding, but because no one expects them to exist in the light.
We have convinced ourselves that if you want to catch them, you need to hunt them.
And we completely ignore the ones passing by.
I get inside the car and put the key in the ignition.
I turn it, and the car comes to life. I start driving, watching through the mirror as the house grows smaller and the lights fade.
With one hand on the steering wheel, I use the other one to reach the back of my neck and find the small chain sitting around it.
I unhook it, and it falls onto my lap. I pick it up, bringing it in front of me.
My eyes take in the small letters on it. “Sinner,” I say out loud, the word heavy. “Not anymore.” I open the window and extend my hand out of it. I open my palm, and the necklace escapes my hand. I leave it behind with the life of sin I lived my whole life.
Time for a new one.