Chapter 44
SUMMER
SIX MONTHS LATER
I ’ve gotten adept at sneaking around in the dark. The mask is almost like a second skin to me now, as are the tight black clothes I wear. It’s dark, midnight black, as I make my way across campus and toward the five-story building that houses the psychology department.
It’s easy to hide among the ancient trees and buildings when everyone believes you’re gone. I made it easy for the Order to explain my disappearance. I had already told Dani and my mother I was leaving, so it was easy for them to believe I ran away.
I’ve given no reason for them to think I was dead.
In the last six months, I’ve gone into hiding and Lincoln’s thrived. As the next leader of the society, and now a tenured professor, he’s untouchable. Lincoln’s groundbreaking research catapulted him to the top of the research food chain in the psychology field. He defended his thesis with flying colors.
I have conformed in many ways. I am what he wants and needs me to be. I dyed my hair black to hide from society and avoid being recognized for my white hair. It also helps him not be reminded of his hatred for me.
But I’m getting bored… The intensity in my soul has awakened, and I can’t be cooped up in a basement any longer.
Lincoln barely lets me out, for fear that one of them will see me. Sometimes I go upstairs and spy, hiding in the walls. Lucy is the only one who sees me, but she’s smart enough to stay out of it.
Sometimes he takes me to another town so I can get some fresh air and have human interaction with someone other than him. I also go home to spy on my mother, who seems to be doing just fine with the vague letters I send her.
Misty fled town and moved across the country. I’m not sure how Lincoln managed that one, but he scared her into submission. She must have had some interaction with Split. She lied to the police about where she was.
And Dani…
I am guilt ridden by Dani, who isn’t handling my disappearance well. No one thinks I’m dead, but no one seems to care, either. Except for Dani… Hopefully, she can let me go.
I continue to uncover the complexities of Lincoln Kennedy every day. He still gets little fits of rage, and sometimes when he looks at me, I swear it’s Mikael staring back at me. I want to reach out and touch him, but he disappears before I’m able to.
Split often comes to say hi, too, and I love it when Split comes to play. He’s the best one out of the three of them in bed.
Lincoln’s eyes are full of all-consuming love after we have sex, and it makes me wonder how many times a day he thinks about killing me.
He’s still a psychopath, but at least he has emotion now and can control it. I know he is dangerous. I am the catalyst that made him unravel and become stronger when he put himself back together.
Psychopath or not, we are the perfect match. I really was made for him.
A light layer of spring snow crunches under the soles of my knee-high boots, which I wear under a long pair of tight slacks as I wait until the security guard does his rounds. He leaves the door unlocked when he scouts the building—at least that’s what Lincoln told me.
For someone who cares about the difference between right and wrong, he certainly is leaving me enough breadcrumbs. It’s as if he knows I’m buzzing inside, watching me transform, day by day, becoming Him .
My self-righteous boyfriend suddenly has remorse and lacks evidence to incriminate Dr. Garcia. There is no way for him to prove any wrongdoings besides his suspicion and knowing who she is, and the evident illegal rituals done for a dark deity. I’ve begun to piece together what she did in the late seventies, and again two decades later.
My body is buzzing as I make my way to the stairwell of the fifth floor and into the cluster of offices where she works. He also informed me that Dr. Garcia sometimes works late into the night, because nighttime is when she does her best work.
Lincoln is away at a conference halfway across the continent. It’s the first time he’s left me alone, and he’s been wise not to.
My stomach twists. An instant deep pleasure rolls through my body at the exhilaration of watching Dr. Garcia sit at her desk, a lamp flickering by her side, chewing on a pencil, deep in thought.
Her eyes flicker up when she senses me.
Keen senses. Too bad her bones are brittle, and unless she has a gun stuffed in that drawer, I doubt she will do anything to me.
As I step into the light, she breathes deeply, seemingly relieved, as if she was expecting me. With a slight movement, she lowers her pencil. The light causes the white streak on her forehead to shimmer.
The cloth mask tickles my cheek, itching the skin on my face hidden beneath. I will be careful not to leave any fingerprints. The very essence of it screams at me.
“So it’s time, then?” she asks, her voice calm and calculated. “You finally admit what you are, Summer Landry?”
I step forward and play with the razor blade in my fingers but don’t respond. Only a quick flash of her eyes betrays her fear on her otherwise stoic face.
She’s scared…I was wondering if she would be. She recovers quickly and rises. “This is remarkable, Summer. You embody him so well. You’re different from your father and grandparents, yet, in many ways, you’re the same. Impulsive, angry and jealous, and clearly so loving in ways that shouldn’t be possible. But you need to understand, girl, what you feel for Lincoln isn’t love. You are simply not capable of it.”
“ I love him, ” I fire back at her. “You do not get to tell me how I feel, you crazy old bitch.” My voice betrays my identity, but I don’t care. She’s clearly been watching me for a long time. I wouldn’t be surprised if she suspected I was still alive.
She walks toward me and sits on the front of her desk. “You don’t love him, Summer…just as Lincoln is incapable of loving you.” Her eyes flicker as if she’s deep in memory and she smiles. “Your grandfather could love, though, and so could your grandmother. In fact, they were great lovers.”
A stir of something pushes through me. She knew them, all of them, in ways I never could.
“You don’t know me. You don’t know this version of Lincoln, either.”
She smirks, the wrinkles under her eyes more pronounced this close. “I believe in all my heart that true psychopaths are born, not made. This verifies it. But I have to say, whatever you did to transform Lincoln was impressive. Although it’s a shame because he had such…potential.”
“The Lincoln you knew doesn’t exist anymore,” I tell her calmly. “He deserves this life, and he deserves to be happy.” I glare at her. “And you don’t deserve to live.”
Her eyes dart to the cell phone five inches from her hand. And I realize now that’s the only reason she moved at all.
She merely scoffs. “Lincoln doesn’t exist at all. You’ve fallen in love with my creation, young lady.”
I contemplate for a moment. “I thought Mikael created him. And I thought you said I wasn’t capable of loving?”
Her old eyes flash to the phone again. “But which part of him do you love, Summer? Because Lincoln is an empty shell, hard to get through and easy to manipulate. So really, it must be the other side of him, the dark side. Mikael is the one you’re truly in love with, isn’t it? Or perhaps it’s that monster that lives inside both of them.”
I cock a brow. “I love all of him. Every side, every angle. You’re not going to tell me my love for him isn’t real.”
Her finger inches to the phone. “I imagine it’s hard for you. Every little girl wants to grow up and fall in love. You have created a perfect life. I understand why you long for a storybook ending. But your feelings of protectiveness and loyalty are driven by self-interest. You are empty inside, Summer, but you’ve always known that.” She lets out a sigh and continues, “It will make you stronger, enabling you to pursue the things you were destined to do.”
I pause for a moment, listening, contemplating, and have no fucking clue what she’s talking about. Her eyes keep darting to that damn phone as she rambles.
“If you dare lay a finger on that phone,” I say darkly, “I will slice out every vein in your hand. Then I’ll move to your feet, so you can’t walk, and your ears, so you can’t hear. And I will cut out your eyes last because I want you to see everything I’m doing.”
Her weathered hand trembles and she pulls it into herself before making eye contact with me. “You’re not the first to threaten me, you know. Your father threatened me the same way once, and it was cute. I’m an old woman, Summer. I’m tired, and this sounds like a very fitting way for me to go.” She waves her hand. “I’m not bothered by your threats.”
“Did he now? Was that because you made him kill people?”
She sucks in a breath. “There are so many things you simply do not understand, young lady. The genetic makeup you have inherited, the transformation you are on the brink of, and the society I’ve dedicated my entire life to safeguarding.”
“Tell me what this is all about, then. I deserve to know.”
She rises and walks back to her desk, keeping her hand away from the phone. She grabs a book…an old one.
Ancient almost…
She hands it to me, but I don’t take it. Instead, I stare at that old book like its poison. It’s the cause of everything that’s wicked in this town.
“Take this codex,” she says. “This rightfully belongs to you now, so don’t take it lightly. What’s in here is sacred.”
“It’s bullshit,” I fire back.
She shakes her head. “It’s not.”
I narrow my eyes. “And you’re just going to hand it over to me?”
She merely shrugs, her eyes look tired. “Seems fitting, under the circumstances.”
I stare down at this old book, the pages nearly falling out of it. “What is it, exactly?”
“A codex. One of the oldest known codices in the world. Obey the rules, Summer; that’s all you need to do. Read it cover to cover. It explains everything.”
My heart rate rises as I flip through the dusty pages. “What will happen if I follow these rules?”
She looks up, her eyes meeting mine. “You will achieve transcendence. There can only be one, and that one is you.”
A pang of discomfort hits me. “I can’t kill innocent people.”
The same discomfort lingers in her eyes. “Read the book. And maybe one day, you’ll understand my true motives.”
I understand her motives just fine; she’s a scientist, and this is just another twisted experiment. “This won’t save your life,” I say, placing the book down and twirling the blade between my fingers. An old book won’t change the fact that she’s deranged.
Her smoldering eyes catch the glint of metal in my hands, and I take a cautious step forward and smile. “I lied to you, Dr. Garcia.”
Her head tilts slightly. “About what, child?”
That twinge in my stomach turns into something much more pleasurable. “I plan to start with your eyes, and I’m going to enjoy it.”
I stare at myself in the window, wearing the mask, and I admire the sleek, sexy lines of my body. If only Lincoln could see me now.
I stand utterly still. The tension between us is so intense, so forced. Then suddenly, as if all the tension in the world is bundled up in this very room, it shatters, and I unleash my fury.
She’s dead by the time I’m able to carve out one of her eyes. Brain damage, I’m assuming, because her other eye turned glassy and lifeless. And as disgusting as it is, she needs to feel it. She needs to experience it for all the women whose lives she cut short.
I take my time and once I’m done with her, I slice open her shirt, pull it off, and leave her in the humiliating pose just like the others. The sight of her wrinkled skin and empty eye sockets is disturbing and makes me shudder.
Her blood is everywhere.
Fear emanates from her empty eyes as she gazes up at me.
Eyes are a fickle thing. Many call it the window to your soul, and so by taking them out, I’m stealing the only thing that makes her human.
Although, I don’t think Talia Garcia had any humanity left in her at all.
Careful not to expose any skin, I grab an ink pen and piece of paper from her desk and carefully scribble on the page of her notebook as her lifeless body peers up at me.
Shadowface is back.