Chapter 14
CHAPTER
FOURTEEN
MIKAEL
D isguised with my mask and hood, I traverse the candle lit cave. A rock serves as our symbolic altar in the center, while the rest of our order forms a circle around it. I’m the last to arrive, and no one recognizes which version of me is standing among them.
I’m alive, alert and have a scent for blood as I stand among my enemies, in a place that holds sacred significance to me. The cavern is hidden away from the rest of the town, yet close enough to bring those who are marked to their final resting place.
The last time I was here, I watched as Summer’s father cut out my mother’s eyes and fed them to the God they worship—the same God they expect me to bow to.
Today, I feel older than I did last night at the rave. My body is more familiar, my mind still adjusting to missing the last two years of my life. Some of his memories are starting to infiltrate my own. Just as I suspected, none of them have any emotional substance.
And without emotion, he is nothing.
Since waking up I’ve shown immense self-control, as I’ve successfully avoided the temptation of slaughtering everyone. Patience is my best course of action right now, even if I’m not good at practicing it. Destroying this Order is the only thing that holds more importance to me—more than death itself, even surpassing my obsession with Summer.
The guardian walks toward the center of the cave and, with precision and grace, lights a series of candles, forming a perfect circle. I can’t see the rest of them, but their evil and greed are palpable.
The Order of the Shadows.
The mayor, the police chief, the doctor, and the professor.
I am intimately familiar with each one of them, having spent my early years learning about their lives, observing their every move, their families, their wives and husbands, their sons and daughters. I wondered how they could live their lives so effortlessly, despite selling their souls to the devil.
The children of the Order will follow in the footsteps of their parents. They are connected by bloodline, destined to inherit both his wealth and wickedness.
The guardians believe, in their naivety, that Lincoln is one of them, oblivious to my return or the fact that their reasoning is flawed because he is not technically bound by blood. They put their faith in his loyalty and his ability to continue, despite the fact that Summer is the rightful owner of that position.
Tonight, I want to fuck shit up for all of them. Tonight, I will forge my way forward as one of them.
The guardian walks around the flickering circle and raises her hand. The hushed whispers come to a halt as the candles flicker from a distant wind rushing through the cave.
“Who among us has found their mark?” she asks, as if taking a life were a casual matter. Draining blood, offering eyes, hearts and souls.
I step forward, raising my hand beneath my hooded robe. In a low voice, I reply, “I have.”
Hushed murmurs and Xander scoffs. No one else in this generation has found their mark yet. And Xander is tethered because of his relationship with Bianca.
Talia Garcia’s curious gaze meets mine; even beneath her hood, the firelight reveals her surprise, and recognition flashes in her eyes.
She lifts her head and steps toward me. “And whom have you marked, my child of chaos?”
Child.
I suppose I am her child, since she technically adopted me.
I keep my voice low and steady. “Summer Landry.”
Whispers fill the room, and she lifts her hand to silence them, aware of the significance she holds within this order and what she represents. She approaches me and gently places her arm on my cheek, lifting her head and projecting her voice so everyone, including our dark one, can hear. It is time to reveal the name of his new sacrifice.
“Being marked by the Order of the Shadows is a sacred act, binding her forever. Are you absolutely certain?” she asks.
I am not aware of what happened between her and Summer’s father, but a hint of malice hits her lips.
I am ready…this is what I woke up for.
I nod and my jaw clenches as I fight back the maddening itch that crawls beneath my skin. Tilting her head, she scrutinizes me, but I keep my face obscured, hiding my eyes beneath the deep shadows of my hood. If she catches a glimpse of me at this moment, she will recognize me, and everything will be ruined.
With a wave of her hand, she says, “So be it, then.”
LINCOLN
It’s eight PM on Tuesday night, two days since the rave. I’ve spent the last hour clicking my pen in my basement bedroom, twirling around in my chair at my desk, staring down at those two words.
Two words, when I have thousands to read, and even more to write, if I plan to defend my thesis against the most aggravating, egotistical group of academics I’ve ever met.
Two words that have consumed my thoughts for the past hour as I stare at the candle on my desk that’s nearly wicked out, the wax dripping molten liquid on my mahogany desk.
Two words as I sit in my windowless bedroom, my classical music playing softly, which muffles the muted, and rather annoying, sobs of the little blonde problem I have tied up on my bed.
Two words that were penned by my hand, yet are words I have no recollection of writing. I’ve read those words as if they were written in scripture, the handwriting so foreign.
Two words that merely say, she’s mine…
A dark laugh skims the surface of my psyche. A mocking laugh, as if to say, fuck you, I’m still here. His laugh is followed by the visceral rage he embodies. I can’t deny it anymore?—
Mikael’s back.
This world isn’t ready for his kind of madness.
Flesh and carnage.
I can sense his emotions as if they are an object I can grasp as a critical observer.
“You’re so fucking dramatic,” I mutter, knowing just how close he is to the surface and how easily he can take back control. His emotional baggage from whatever happened at that rave with Summer has lingered for days, giving me the worst hangover.
“You have no idea, psycho boy. You soulless prick.”
His voice echoes inside my head, causing me to jolt. His words chill me to my core, since this is the first time he’s ever spoken to me directly in years. I tilt my head and wait for him to say something else, anything I can latch onto and use to silence him as I’ve silenced all the other alters that have tried to take control.
Little old ladies, children, fragments. It pained me to do it, but I had to control the system for her. So before they could fully form, I muted them.
I’ve ripped myself to shreds trying to figure out how to silence him , but it seems he is invincible, despite our attempts at suppression.
The girl on my bed eyes me curiously as I frown at her, turning my attention back to clicking my pen and staring at those words as the fire from the candle dances in my periphery.
I place my wrist over the flame until it burns and blisters, holding strong and biting down on my cheek until the pain is unbearable, and even then, I keep it there for seconds longer. He thinks his emotions make him powerful.
“You want to feel something? Feel that, motherfucker,” I mutter through gritted teeth.
Finally, the sensation of him settles down, and he disappears into oblivion. My point is firmly made.
Music starts to pump upstairs, and Cali squirms even harder, trying to break through her binds as she watches me burn myself.
Her eyes begin to droop, and her motions slow from the sedative I gave her a few minutes earlier with her food. Her head hangs down as she falls asleep. Her body is still so bruised from when he took her a couple weeks ago, she almost looks as though she’s dead.
It’s easier for me if she is sedated. We both share this sentiment—neither of us wants her to be here. But she’s seen my face, and he has no impulse control, so here we are…
He is, however, reclaiming control in more ways than I thought. He took Cali the weekend before classes started, the same day we saw Summer move into her new apartment. I went for a run on my usual hiking trail and remember passing her, then I was in my basement. It’s not the first time I’ve blacked out, but that should have clued me in.
I’m lucky Cali isn’t from Kinsmen, so no one made the immediate connection. I went to Summer’s house the next night to visit her and woke up to a bunch of pictures I don’t remember taking.
Although, I didn’t complain too much about that and thought it would be fun to mess with her, so I sent out one of the photos to the rest of the class as I usually send similar photos every year.
As soon as the news spread that there was a missing girl, I searched the tunnels that led to this house, and there she was, a striking image of Summer. In that instant, I momentarily mistook her for Summer. The poor girl was scared shitless and since I wasn’t aware she was here for three days, she was nearly dead. I was relieved to see he at least had the foresight to give her a bottle of water, which is probably the only humane thing he’s ever done.
I’ve been nursing her back to health ever since.
His hatred for Summer runs so deep—the kind of hatred that simmers in every cell—and at the same time, his love for her is so binding.
Summer woke Mikael up; she must have. The power she has over him is stronger than any drug I can take to suppress him.
I grab my pills and study them, inspecting them for any sort of tampering and only when satisfied none are missing do I pop one into my mouth. The label hasn’t changed in years, no reason to. Just a mild dose of antidepressant prescribed by Dr. T. Garcia.
You see, dissociative identity disorder is not treated by a pill—you can’t prescribe it away the way you can depression. And in my case, we aren’t trying to get rid of me; we are working on silencing him .
The world is better off without the original inhabitant of my body, and the world will be a much better place with me in it.
I can only keep Summer alive if I’m the one in control. Mikael simply cannot come out of his box, and he knows it. I’m the only reason we’re not in an insane asylum, the only reason he’s not slaughtered hundreds of girls during his miserable excuse of a life.
All he sees is death, blood, and destruction, and it nourishes his soul. The more he gets, the more he wants, and he’s insatiable.
To distract me, I pull open the next of two hundred essays I have to read through. Pages upon pages of crap, lines of drivel and thoughts of stupidity. I bridge my nose at the thought of reading another reflection paper on Dr. Garcia’s mocking burning building example, as if she wasn’t the one that burned that hall down. I skim through three of them, grading each a C, before finally reaching the one I was keenly waiting for.
Even seeing the name on paper makes him squirm inside me.
Summer Landry.
So much pure radiant emotion flows through him. His desire for her is giving me a physical response, making me really turned on.
I turn my attention to the replacement blonde on my bed, still sleeping soundly. Her bare legs are draped over top of the covers, and she’s in a clean shirt.
I’ve thought about fucking her…I have. What guy wouldn’t? However, I’m not that kind of psycho, and I’m not going to fuck her, even though I could.
Mikael’s not the only one with an attachment to Summer Landry. He’s not the only one who got a taste of her all those nights we snuck into her bedroom. She belonged to both of us, even if my motivations were entirely different from his.
Her name still sends a thrill through me. Part of me still can’t believe she took the bait. In her mind she’s following in her father’s footsteps, and in my mind, I want to quite literally see if she’s like him, so I lured her here.
I’m sure her mother wasn’t pleased about it, either.
Deviant little thing, aren’t we, Summer?
I grab my phone and type in Summer’s name. I haven’t contacted her since the rave, because I’ve been busy, and I ignored her in class yesterday, hoping she would come see me during my office hours, which she didn’t. On top of the two classes I TA for, I’m also working on my PhD, and I defend my thesis in January. I’ve not yet completed my research and although I hate to admit it, the girl Mikael plucked off the side of the road is helping immensely with that.
A call comes through from Xander as soon as I grab my phone. I swipe to answer it because he won’t stop pestering me until I agree to hang out tonight.
“Xander,” I say casually, knowing I’m probably on speaker phone with his girlfriend Bianca—the one he will never kill, because I’m pretty sure he can’t stand her.
He responds quickly, “I realize you’re super smart and important, but can you spare an hour to come upstairs and hang out with me tonight?”
I pause for dramatic effect. “I can spare an hour.”
“Good. Bianca has her friend over. By the way, how was your night on Saturday? You disappeared on us for quite a while.”
This gives me pause. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
He chuckles. “Yeah, you do. How was she, bro? You’re one savage motherfucker. I saw you in the corner with some chick. It was her, wasn’t it? You were knuckle-deep inside Summer Landry.”
My stomach twinges at him saying her name. “I’m not discussing this with you, Xander.”
He chuckles in his deep voice, and I can hear Bianca in the background. “Who are you talking to?”
“I’m talking to Lincoln. Did I say you could speak, Bianca?”
Bianca mumbles something, and I can imagine her sitting on the floor in front of his feet like a good girl.
I close my eyes and think about the last thing I remember from the rave, every crystal-clear moment of it until it turned dark. Her tight body, how she fell into me, her blind faith in me, her body blooming with desire. I enjoyed every moment until he fronted. When I woke up, his fingers were in her cunt. When I regained awareness, I had zero control over my body until after he burned her. And now his insidious presence is inside me like a worm.
I push up my glasses, which slipped off my nose. “I’ll see you later, Xander,” I tell him, which means he’s won, and I will finish up early tonight.
I hang up on him before he has a chance to respond and click on Summer’s contact.
SF : Hi, baby.
She takes longer than I like to respond, which makes my jaw tick as I read the opening sentence of her paper. My eyes shoot right to her thesis statement, and I have to admit, I’m impressed.
A few minutes later…
Summer: Quit texting me, or I will go to the police.
A smile forms on my lips and I rub my chin. Her feisty attitude is adorable, but if she hasn’t gone to the cops by now, she won’t, especially not after what Mikael did with her. She showed up to class on Monday as if nothing happened at all, confirming my suspicions about her.
SF : Are you mad at me? I was hoping you would thank me for making you come all over my hands.
Summer: You took advantage of me. Last I checked, what you did is assault. Let alone threatening to slice my throat out and burning me.
My recollection of the events are fuzzy, but I wouldn’t put it past him to say that.
Summer Landry is the only reason Mikael’s mind hasn’t disintegrated into ash. She’s the only thing keeping him alive after years of me trying to dissolve him and placing him in a tiny bottle.
He hates most women, but she brings out a special level of depravity, evident from the condition he left her in on the wet and dirty floor.
I sense a flicker in my mind’s eye, a taunting laugh, and I shove it aside, pushing him down as far as he can go.
Not right now…
If I’m being honest, I wasn’t expecting to enjoy her skin on my hands as much as I did. How badly I wanted to feel how tight her cunt was, or how much it hurt not to fuck her on that dirty wall, completely soiling every ounce of her perfection.
Even if I’m a sociopath, my dick still works, and the desire he has for her bleeds into me.
Fucking her was never the plan for me. But now I have an opportunity to get inside her mind and prove she is the monster I think she is.
I skim through her 2,000-word essay, finding her writing voice remarkable. If I didn’t know it was Summer, I’d almost think it was her father behind these words. Her analysis is complex, which I’m not surprised about, given her genetics and her extremely intelligent study partner. Still, she didn’t do her research; she didn’t use a single external source, which was a requirement for the assignment.
I mark it as an F, and write insufficient sources in the feedback section before I press submit, smiling to myself at finding the one loophole I can use to fail her again. Failing her a second time will get her attention and will finally get her into my office.
I pick up the phone and dial her number. Texting is fun, but I want to hear her voice. She picks up after one ring, as if she was waiting for me to call.
“What do you want?” Her tone is snippy. I lean back in my chair. My nostrils flare, and an erection immediately presses against my pants. Images of blood penetrate my mind.
His responses, my awareness.
It makes me smile.
The reason I’m in charge is because I am more rational and law-abiding in terms of my emotions. Unlike normal people, I don’t experience emotions myself. When Mikael has them, I analyze and suppress them. It’s like witnessing someone else’s suffering. I can perceive the emotion and acknowledge its existence, but since it doesn’t affect me directly, it’s difficult for me to empathize.
“I want to know what you’re wearing,” I tell her. It’s not what I want; I want to see if I can make her take her clothes off. I want to see what I can make this girl do for me. I want to humiliate her, protect her, keep her alive, and study her.
She huffs. “I’m sure that’s all you want. I’m wearing a paper bag dress, granny underwear, and a chastity belt, if you must know.”
She’s so cute when she’s trying to be funny. “Turn your camera on, baby. Let me see that pretty face while you’re scowling at me.”
“No.”
I snicker. “Why not, Summer? You like being looked at, don’t you?”
“I need to make something clear.” Her voice comes out like steel.
“Do you, now?”
“I think you’re a fake; I think you like to fuck around with people. You’re using the lore of a serial killer to get off and terrorize me—I don’t think you’ve killed a single person. So you can take that razor blade and shove it up your ass. And no, I will not show you my tits.”
I let out a dark laugh at how wrong she is. At the night and shadows blistering through me. “You didn’t seem terrorized the other night, when my hands were stuffed up your cunt. Those moans, baby…what I would do to hear those again.”
Anger radiates through the other line, and I find her anger ravishing. “I was high. It didn’t mean anything.”
It wasn’t exactly my choice to slice her like that, but since I did, I couldn’t stop thinking about her silky thigh and the trickle of blood that fell into her pussy, or the disheveled mess he left her in. My dick throbs, and I glance over at Cali, desperately wishing she were Summer.
“How does your thigh look? Will you send me a photo?”
A dramatic pause. “Never contact me again.”
The phone clicks and the line goes dead. A flicker of his anger shoots up my spine, but I can’t help but smile at her spirit. This girl is so entitled and clueless to what he’s capable of. Her choice in attending this school was the worst decision she’s ever made. She walked right into the arms of a monster.
“Well done. You pissed her off.”
I shake my head and don’t respond to him, although I bet he can hear my thoughts, anyway. We aren’t a team. Nothing I’m doing with Summer has anything to do with him. My obsession with her is entirely different from his. She is the reason I am here, my sole purpose for existing.
I glance at the clock at nearly nine PM and shut my laptop to get ready to head upstairs and pretend to be normal. If it were up to me, I’d just read and consume information all night long like I usually do. Which is why the world believes I am brilliant when, in all actuality, I am merely studious. I’m often drained when spending time with others, yet I am aware of the importance of maintaining a facade so people cannot perceive the lack of humanity behind my eyes.
I don’t identify as a human.
Humans feel, humans care…humans weren’t programmed to exist for a single purpose. And while I do experience fleeting emotions, I am something else entirely.
I can’t resist the urge to have the next word, so I end up sending her another text.
SF: Goodnight, Summer.
She doesn’t reply, and I won’t push her for a response since I’m almost certain she will see her grade tomorrow, which means I will see her in my office very soon.