Chapter 56 Kane
KANE
“You don’t have to show off.” She rolls her eyes as she cuts her snacks.
“Have you got all of your snacks, crazy pants?” I ask, watching her bloody fingerprints stain the white cabinets as she occupies herself with the push-release mechanism in the kitchen.
I stand with the forearm in my hand as my phone buzzes.
It’s my reward for the job, another puzzle piece about where my wife is, so I forget about my little assistant as she examines different areas of the kitchen.
But as I take my phone from my pocket, there’s no image on my screen.
Instead, it’s another auto-deleting message.
Time until 1373 – 1378: 84hrs 53mins
Location: to follow
Travel time: 1hrs 4mins
Decibels: 0
Team drop: 64hrs 19mins
Fuck.
The quiet ones are the hardest since Sasha likes making them scream. I’ll have to drug them before allowing her to claim their life. Hopefully, the secluded villa has expelled some of her need to scare them so she’ll be amenable to a quiet kill.
We have sixty-four hours until we need to leave, so I leave her in the kitchen and walk through the open-plan lounge, overlooking the scenery many would kill to witness.
Bali’s rainforest. The trees are so close, their refreshing scent floats through the open patio as I reach the staircase.
I don’t know why I pause, but I do. I look out at the densely packed trees.
Somewhere on the other side, Delilah is existing without me.
I lie to myself, the same lie as always: she’s safe, happy, protected.
“She’s fucking someone else,” Asher hisses.
“I don’t care,” I tell him, meaning it. She can fuck who she wants because my dick doesn’t work without the pills anymore and I know she needs it to forget the bad things.
She can fuck every person on this planet while I reduce the population until we meet in the middle.
Then and only then will it stop. I’ll fuck her with every part of me—body and soul—to rid her of their touch.
“You don’t care?” he snaps as I walk up the light wood staircase. “You don’t fucking care she’s giving her cunt to anyone who looks at her?”
“No.”
“Or she’s screaming his name? Riding him? Watching the stars with him while she tells him she loves him?”
“Shut the fuck up,” I grit as I enter the largest bedroom. “She doesn’t love anyone else.”
One wall is made up entirely of glass, bringing Asher into view as I walk to the bathroom. His lips lift into a smug smile. “She doesn’t love anyone at all.”
I turn to face him. “Fuck you. She loves me. She was going to leave with me.”
“Whores aren’t capable of love.”
I step closer to the glass, trailing blood from the severed limb across the floor. “My whore is. That’s what she is. I control her fucking cunt. I’m allowing her to give it away until I get her back.”
His nostrils flare in the glass as I turn around, ignoring the prick shouting at my back, “It’s all her fault!”
The bathroom is huge. A large egg-shaped stone tub sits in front of the glass, but it’s the double vanity I need.
I drop the arm into the sink to search the cabinets for what I need.
1371 was a doctor, so there should be a med kit.
Harkin always left his in the bathroom. It doesn’t take me long to find it tucked between the pipes under the floating vanity.
When I rise to my full height, Asher is waiting for me in the mirror. He doesn’t allow me a moment of peace as he says, “Kid is dead because you chose her. You’re fucking pathetic. Even now, you won’t let her go when all she has ever done is cheat on you and lie, killing everything you love.”
“My fault,” I mumble around the grief lodged in my throat, which doesn’t seem to leave. It’s been years, yet the sound of his name is the equivalent of claws scraping the empty cavity in my chest.
“She killed me.”
“Your fault.”
I copy him as he flattens his hand on the mirror, lining my inked and bloody hand directly over the reflection of his clean one.
Our faces are in different positions too, unnaturally so when we’re identical, but he’s young with hate in his eyes whereas I’m older, scruff covering my jaw, blood sprayed on half of my face. We’re finally our own people.
Asher and Kane.
Asher and not-Asher.
Asher, the reflection. Kane, the ghost.
Neither of us exists.
He loses some of his hate as he asks, “Did she kill someone you love, Kane?”
“Did you love me?”
“Yeah, in my own way. I would have grown up to be the brother you deserved.”
“I think I loved you too,” I whisper. “I wanted you to be my friend, and I would have done anything you asked me to if you were.”
“I never needed a friend,” he admits. “I needed my reflection, but now I’m yours. The skin is going to get tough.” He gestures to the limb.
Running the hot water takes him away as the steam rises, fogging the mirror.
But the task has my full attention as I remove the diamond tennis bracelet with a curly three charm dangling from the clasp, the rings next—a large pavé wedding set—then scrub the forearm, wash the hand, sliding my fingers through theirs.
My eyes close, as fucking always. I imagine it’s Delilah’s hand in mine despite the stiffness in the fingers.
“I miss you, pretty girl. One thousand, one hundred, and eighty-nine days since I’ve held your hand.
If I knew, I would have danced with you for longer.
I would have told you how much I loved you. ”
There’s resistance as I squeeze the hand, forcing me to look at it.
The cut edge exposes their bones, the sinewy tendons, and browning meat from the hot water.
I turn off the faucet then pat the limb dry for the next part of my ritual.
I can’t let go of it as I empty my pockets on the vanity, taking the blade from the back of my phone case, before carefully drawing the lines from Delilah’s sheet music.
The notes are harder with the rigid end of the blade.
I tilt my head to make sure they’re distinguishable on the stave.
The composition is one she would obsess over, rewriting it over and over again while I laid in her bed.
I’ve never heard it, but I carry it with me everywhere I go.
Sasha has her masks; I have my protective charm.
Once I’ve finished scoring the skin, I gently lay the arm on over the dry sink before plugging it.
The medical kit has a bottle filled with the last thing I need before removing the flesh and I carefully squeeze the deep yellowish-brown liquid over the scored skin, staining it so the scoring stands out.
It’s not stained enough, so I wash the limb with the run-off until I’m satisfied with the hue. Then, it’s time for the last part.
Taking the clean knife free from any blood, filth, or sins, I carefully puncture the flesh through the exposed end of the limb to separate the skin.
I cut it in long strips before placing the bloodied side on a towel to soak up the moisture before I carefully roll the strips to make a rose.
Once it’s done, I drop the rotting rose from my back pocket in the sink, the curled edges slowly soaking up the liquid.
Like every other time I’ve been forced to stop moving, the urges rear their head. I grab the medical kit and carefully close the door, quickly sitting with my back against it in case she decides to look for me.
Everything inside the leather pouch is a dream and a nightmare.
Scalpels, replacement blades, sterilizing solution that will burn in the best possible way.
I’m like a child on Christmas as I carefully unwrap the scalpel, then myself.
Lowering my pants to my knees, I test my nerves on my thighs to find the most impactful point.
Over the years, I’ve chased this high too many times.
It’s becoming more difficult to feel the full effects.
The side of my knee is the newest spot, euphoria flooding my body as the scalpel smoothly parts my skin.
I make one line with a promise.
One day I won’t talk to myself. I won’t be so fucking lonely I only have the option to talk to myself.
Another line.
One day, I’ll have something to show for all the misery.
Another line.
One day, I won’t just exist.
Another line.
One day, I’ll stop chasing the distraction, death and torture the roses provide.
Another line.
One day, I’ll be free to do whatever the fuck I want.
Another line.
One day, I’ll be someone Delilah doesn’t hate.
Another line.
One day, I’ll stop hurting her.
Another line.
One day, I’ll look back, laughing without it turning into tears.
Another line.
One day, I won’t have a voice in the back of my head, telling me I should die.
Another line.
One day, I’ll give in to that thought.
A tremor takes over my hand as I blink through my tear-blurred lashes. My tears mix with a pained laugh as I read what’s on my skin, “Koukla mou.”
I’ve been dead for so long—
—I’m afraid of being around other people.
I’ve convinced myself as long as I’m not seen—
—I don’t exist.
If I don’t exist, then nothing can hurt.
But I do exist.
Worse, I fucking feel.
And I hate it.
I remember.
I hate that too.
Each day I pile up more things to hate.
Existing.
Breathing.
Everyone.
Every-fucking-thing.
The hate turns to anger—
—and there’s no outlet other than myself.
I hate what I am.
But I’m not really here.
I softly hit my head against the door as I stare directly in front of me, debating whether to end it all right now. The scalpel is in my hand; my veins are right fucking there. I could do it. What’s one more cut?
Three years without my wife.
Three years without my Kid.
I want to be with them both instead of this bloody non-existence. The closest I can get to them is through a screen, so I go into the vault folder to watch my beautiful family.
“Kane, look, I’m doing it,” he giggles, stuck in time, incapable of aging.
I don’t recognize myself on the screen, or the softness in my voice as I tell him, “I know. You’re so clever, Kid.”
“Will Delilah like me?” he asks, turning shy.
“Yeah, she’ll love you,” I say in time with my own voice in the recording, only there’s no hope anymore, just the inky pit of grief coiling around me.
“Is she good at charades?”
“The best,” I mouth in time with myself. “Well, after you.”
Tilting onto my side, I lay my phone beside me as my leg bleeds out.
There’s no urgency to clean the wounds or to breathe because I find the video I made of my family.
One side has Kid, the other Delilah from her time as my wife in the house of lies I created.
Both of them, trapped in buildings they didn’t want to be in.
Both comforting themselves with the falsehoods I gave them like a blanket, covering them from the cold truth.
My eyelids droop. From the blood loss, exertion, or rare tiredness—who fucking knows? I hope they don’t open.