11. Chapter 11
Chapter 11
Killian
“W h-what are you going to — ?”
“I won’t be hurting you, firecracker. I wish you’d believe that. But I think you need to see this to fully understand. Come on.” I force softness into my voice.
She follows me as she’s taking everything in, likely still trying to plan her escape. Even with her remaining calm for the most part and only trying to attack that one day, I know there’s a lot more going on in that intelligent brain of hers. “Why do you call me firecracker ?” she asks.
Naomi looks intrigued, eyes wide. I move a sconce in the hallway that opens a hidden panel requiring a biometric scan. We walk down a secret hallway within the walls and start navigating the incline down.
I smile before answering with, “Because you have a dark light within you that shines through when given the opportunity. Those are the moments where one can truly peep into your soul. The real you.”
“You think you know me from some internet sleuthing. You don — ”
“I do, because I’ve been watching you for a while. Not just what you try to hide on the internet, but you . I’ve seen it all, and you're more at ease when letting those inhibitions go. I know that you only like sugar in your coffee when you’ve had a good day, but regardless you stir the cup not three times, not five times, but seven times exactly.” She quietly gasps. “I know that when you’re faced with injustices your first thought is ridding the Earth of them, even if your facial expressions and actions say otherwise. I know that even though you’ve been single for so long, you leave the left side of the bed open. Even if you don’t think you’ll ever open your heart enough to let someone sleep there. I know that you fill your wardrobe with florals to blend in and be the perfect little daughter to the Adams family, but what you really crave is to stand out. And I want to give you the space to be you all the time, with no judgments or reservations.”
“That’s insane!” she yells.
“No, what’s insane is how you treated Axel. He didn’t deserve that. Me? Maybe. But not him.”
She looks at the floor. “I-I shouldn’t have said that to him. I just can’t stand to be here.”
“I think that’s the biggest pile of bullshit I’ve ever heard. You love the games and bickering. You love every minute of it. But something’s holding you back.”
She glares at me. “Like I fucking said before—you don’t know me.”
“I do. But you don’t know me. So, I’m going to try to fix that so I can start earning that trust.”
“That will never happen. I’ll never fucking trust you.”
I smile like the Cheshire cat. “But you will. And once I earn that trust, I know you’ll let me all the way into that mind and heart of yours.”
She scoffs as she rolls her eyes so hard they vibrate. “In your dreams.”
“Every night, beautiful.” I wink at her.
We make it to the door of my dungeon, and I put in my biometrics again and a key code.
“This is a lot of security,” she says.
“I think you’d be secure too if you were murdering people.”
“I wouldn’t do what you do. I don’t kill — ” she starts to stammer out.
“I know. I meant if you did,” I say, but my eyebrows furrow in confusion. That was an interesting response—most people would just take the statement for what it is. Maybe she just likes arguing. Yeah, that’s probably it.
I open the door and move aside to let her in. It’s pretty massive for a dungeon, but I wanted the “whole nine” for my work space—my real work. The tech world is for show.
“There are five separate rooms for torture and interrogation down there.” I motion toward the back hallways. “And there’s a bigger room for multiple people right here. As well as a space that will be outfitted for . . . something else.” I point at the room ahead of us. “All are sound proof.”
“Why would it matter? I’d think you’d want the others to hear the screams,” she says as she walks closer to the rooms to look inside through the small double-paned windows on the doors.
Because the sounds that come out of that seventh space are for my ears only. She’s not ready for that though—not yet.
“Sometimes we tag-team trying to get information, and it’s just easier to not have them hear each other. If we don't care, we just take them to the larger room all together.” I’m both intrigued and slightly taken aback by how calm she is.
“And you have a weapons room down here?” she asks as I raise an eyebrow. “For the torture?”
“Yes, it's through those doors, but it's also locked securely. We don’t want to take any chances if they escape the rooms.”
“Do you ever kill . . .” Naomi pauses and finally looks a bit shaken up, her eyes dilating. “Do you ever kill outside of these walls?”
“No, I like things contained where I can control the situation.” I take in my bottom lip. “But there was once that I did. It was . . . it wasn’t great . . .”
Her whole body starts to vibrate. “What wasn’t great about it? Killing an innocent?” she seethes.
At least she’s finally acting like I expected her to.
“Hmm. Let me show you something else.” I motion toward another door.
“We’re not done with this,” she says, but she follows and waits as I get it open. “Is there anyone here besides me right now?”
“No. No one else.”
Naomi walks into my trophy room for all my kills. There are years and years of momentos in here from each glorious moment with my victims. I always surpass the eight yearly required kills for the Society.
Her jaw drops. “These are . . . these are your trophies?” she sounds horrified.
“Yes.” I grab a bloody baseball card. “This one’s from a few weeks ago, it belonged to a guy who broke into a family’s home to rob them. But he didn’t stop there . . . he sexually assaulted every member of the family.” The horror on her face mirrors what mine was when I heard this story. “Sodomized the father with a broom. Raped and brutalized the mother. But the worst . . .” I choke up with anger and sadness at the memory. “The worst was what he did to the little girl . . .”
Naomi’s hand jumps to her mouth in a gasp. “He deserved it,” she says after a moment.
“The card was all he had on him when I grabbed him.”
“And this one?” She points to a perfume bottle.
“She was kidnapping men, women, children—anyone she could get her hands on. She was experimenting on them to bottle up their unique scents.”
She balks and walks farther down. “This one?” she asks, picking up a fake police badge.
“Would pull women over at night with the guise that he was the police, and rape them with his gun, knife, or whatever he had—before finishing off with himself,” I say, picking up the trophy and placing it back on the shelf.
“Are they in any particular order?” she asks as she scans the room. It’s like she’s looking for something. Maybe a reason to be disgusted?
“Yeah, chronological. If you go to the farthest end of the room, it’s stuff from when my kills started, the front is more recent.”
She quickens her pace to the back. “How old were you when you started?” I’m glad she’s asking questions and not fully shutting down, but I hate thinking about that first kill.
“I was eighteen. . . and it was in a fit of rage and the only one not in a contained space.”
Her eyes snap back to me, and there’s something there. “Do you have a trophy from that?” she asks curiously.
“I do,” I say as I follow her to the back. “But it’s more a reminder to never let myself lose control again.”
“Which one is it?” she asks, turning back to the trophies.
I purse my lips, wanting to know more about what's going on with her. “It’s this one. It’s a gold pocket watch.” I pick it up off the shelf, but I feel my hands shaking. Opening it, I show her that it has two parts. You unclasp the first part to show the clock, but there is a second one with a family picture. “It was this man in the picture . . .”
“A man?”
“Yeah . . . a man. Why? Did you think it was a woman?”
“Well, yeah. You seem to have so much remorse. So I assumed it was a woman. I don’t know. Maybe I’ve seen too much Criminal Minds ,” she word-vomits out. I still don’t fully believe her, but I let it go for now.
“Hmm. I felt remorse because I brutalized him . . .” I take a deep breath. “And . . . I had the wrong guy . . .”
Naomi’s jaw drops, but I can’t continue with what happened.
“Tell me,” she implores when a long silence fills the space.
“I’m all the stereotypes of a rich asshole, but I’ve always prided myself on being fair. The younger me was just so angry that I never wanted to hear reason or rationale. I thought he was the one who killed my parents.” My hands ball into fists, blanching at the knuckles, as I walk away from her to pace. “My uncle said to slow down and make sure. But I didn’t listen, and it turned out not to be him.”
My back is to her, but I sense her slowly walking closer. “I should’ve waited and been more thorough. Ever since then I make sure I know every detail before moving forward.”
Naomi puts a hand over one of mine and pries it open, before putting it between both of hers. “It wasn’t your fault. You didn’t know.”
“I should’ve,” I bark.
She looks like she's blinking back tears.
“Naomi, don’t cry.”
“I-uh . . . I need a moment. Can you please take me back upstairs?” She takes her hand back.
“Sure, but what’s wrong? How can I help?” I move toward her, but she flinches back.
“Please? I just need to be alone.”
“Okay,” I relent. We say nothing all the way to her room. Once there, she quietly goes in and shuts the door on me. But I can hear her slide down it, and her beautiful ass thump on the floor.
I’m so tired of being blind as to what’s going on in her head. It’s the one place I can’t just go and figure out. And now that she’s here, it’s killing me. I want to help. I want to be there for her.
I place my palm on the door before laying my forehead against it to make a silent plea.
Just let me in, Naomi. Just please let me in. I promise I won’t hurt you.
“Please, let me go . . . ” he begs as he crawls backwards on the ground before a tree trunk blocks his path.
“Not after what you did. You killed them,” I seethe, as I lunge toward him with a knife.
“I don’t deserve this!” yells a familiar voice. The man quickly morphs into Naomi. My blood chills.
“What the fuck?” I whisper, startled.
Naomi’s bleeding from her forehead. “Please, Killer. Let me go!”
“No, Nai!” My heart constricts. Did I hurt her?
“I hate you!”
I startle awake with sweat beading on my forehead. Looking around, I realize I fell asleep at Naomi’s door.
“Fuck,” I whisper so as to not wake her. Taking out my phone, I look at the camera app, confirming she’s sound asleep. It’s nearly 11 PM. She spent a long time on the other side of the door, before getting up to pace for a long time. I wanted to do something . . . anything to help her. Naomi then went between lying down and trying to read, before settling in around 9 PM to sleep. And I just sat here for hours just in case she needed me.
I get up and decide to go to the training room, knowing nothing short of a run will help me chase away the feelings from that nightmare.