Chapter 1
CHAPTER ONE
The whimpering cry, which started as a high-pitched scream in my dreams, broke past my lips as my body shook and my eyes fluttered open. I rolled to my side, letting the cry out like vomit over the bed before taking a small gasp of air.
The nightmare was fading away as I blinked back sleep and tears.
My cry turned into a groan as sweeps of black hair fell across my face, hiding it from gray light coming through the window shade.
I swiped my hair away and felt the damp of sweat on my forehead.
My night shorts and T-shirt were damp too.
I threw the sheet off me and shivered as a chill ran through me.
“Fuck.”
The word came out in a shaky breath. I groaned again and laid back.
The nightmare was gone but the memories still lingered.
I tried to shut them away but it was no use. I saw the room again—the couch to one side, the computer station to the back. The woman, Andrea—the one who tried to protect us—on the ground face down, her hair dyed with blood. Eve being pulled away. And Leslie…
I smacked the side of my head with my palm as if I could knock the memory out. “Stop it, stop it, stop it.”
It had been weeks since I had this particular nightmare. It used to be once a week a few months ago. Even more before that.
I took a deep breath and dropped my hand over to the other side of the bed, feeling the empty space.
I glanced over, my heart sinking. My eyes drifted over to the drawer, to a set of picture frames on top.
There was one of me and my siblings at a new year’s party.
Another of me and Jamie at the beach. The last was of me and Marcus at his first football game of the season.
My throat tightened as I glanced away. I sat and slid my feet off the bed. Clutching the bedsheet, I bowed my head, letting my hair fall into my face again.
Marcus had only been gone a few weeks so of course I still missed him. It was just knowing he was gone all summer—and that we were taking a break—that made it hard.
It had been my decision. I hadn’t been myself. Not since the fall. When everything happened and the nightmare had been real. When Eve, my best friend, had gone away and I was left alone to deal with the aftermath.
I didn’t resent her. I wanted her to be happy. And hoped she was.
But things had been…difficult. I’d closed myself off. And I started neglecting those around me including Marcus, who I’d only been dating for a few months but had been friends with for longer.
He didn’t deserve that. So after graduation, I told him. The look on his face was enough to make me want to find a corner to hide in, but he took it better than others. No fighting, just acceptance. He went off on a summer Eurotrip with some classmates a week later.
And now, sitting alone in my apartment in the city, I was starting to regret it.
Dread creeped into my chest, like a little monster burrowing into me. It was too quiet.
I picked up my phone on the nightstand. Six am. A couple hours before work.
There was a text from Jamie, and some notifications on the socials. My sister didn’t answer my text again. Nothing new.
A news headline popped onto my feed.
The D-eadly Takeover: Leaders of new gang cause chaos in Detroit.
I dropped my phone on the bed and sat there for a moment, staring at the wall.
The memories came creeping back. Crying, alone, in the dark…
With a deep breath, I set my feet flat on the rug beside my bed.
I stretched my calves one way, then the other before grabbing each leg brace I’d left on the ground at my feet.
I strapped on the left side, clipping it down from lower thigh to my ankle, adjusting the dial.
Then I slipped on the right, which only covered knee to calf.
Then I moved and bent my legs, rising carefully.
One step, then another. Slow and steady.
Eight months now since the accident. Four months out of that fucking chair. Walking at graduation was the one goal I had after everything, and I made it. Yay me.
I went to the window and opened the shade. I could see the haze of the city off in the distance as the sky slowly started to brighten. Below was an alley way with a dumpster.
That sinking feeling again. I missed my friends and even my roommates. I missed the house that felt like mine even if it wasn’t. Missed decorating and organizing events.
No more parties, no more outings. No more just sitting around the living area with a group of people and feeling like, just for a moment, I was the center of it all.
I was in big girl land now. I was lucky if I got to go out to the bar on the weekends with a friend or two.
I’d be going out with my sister if she’d return my damn texts or calls, but she’d been so busy lately.
Funny how we lived so close now and yet we saw little of each other.
She lived closer to the river, close enough I wouldn’t even have to take the car.
But I knew she would either be asleep or gone if I came knocking.
I headed for the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and stared back at dark eyes with dark circles under them.
Should I pack my things and leave? Go out west where a few friends lived? April, my old roommate, was out there now.
Or something else. Walk across Europe, meet up with Marcus.
Go back to school. Why the fuck was I here?
Just to be close to my sister? I didn’t need to be before.
For work? Sure, my shiny new residency was a foot in the door to my career, but I could find another.
I could have tried a different location.
I wasn’t in love with this city. In fact, I had bad memories here.
A desolate church…a dark room underneath…two brothers who were no good.
I smacked my head lightly again. No, no, no.
Turning on the faucet, I splashed my face with icy water. After brushing my hair and teeth, I put on clothes—a pair of baggy pants and a gray T-shirt—before snatching up my phone and heading out of my room.
The apartment was small and a little worn, as was the building it was in, but I didn’t mind.
There was a hairline crack along one corner of the ceiling and the dark wood floors had a few scratches.
It was spacious and minimal, just a futon couch and a TV, a book shelf and some plants; a few framed drawings on the walls from old friends and a vinyl player with some records on a desk, gifted to me by my brother.
On the windowsill by the kitchen was a set of little rabbit figurines. All painted and looking out over the city. My mouth went dry as I stared at them. I put on some coffee then popped my leftover Thai in the microwave.
On the small table next to the kitchen my backpack lay unopened from last night. I sat and unzipped the bag, taking out my laptop. Plugging it in, I turned it on. I went to my emails and opened one that said “contact”.
The email just had a name. Eve.
There was a draft waiting to be sent that said: “Where are you?”
I went to another email. It had two phone numbers with names next to them. Andrea and Micheal. Under the names and numbers, it read: “If you ever need anything.”
I went to my phone and pulled up Andrea.
We’d talked back and forth in the first few months after the events at the church.
But recently things had gone silent. She worked at a neighboring hospital close by, but I had yet to run into her.
Micheal, I never contacted. Couldn’t think of a reason.
Last time I talked to Andrea, she mentioned he was out of state on personal matters anyway.
Maybe it was just me, but she seemed less traumatized by what happened, and she was the one who was shot. I really should have seen a real therapist instead of talking with her. Or to the dead bodies at work…
I closed out her chat and hesitated on another. It was a lone number. No name. But my heart started pounding just looking at it.
There were only two messages, dated two months between each other.
The first message: You’re doing so well.
The second message: Congrats.
The first came a few days after I successfully started walking again and no longer needed a wheelchair. The last one came on my graduation.
In my heart, I knew it had to be one of them. My money was on Dom. He had been kinder to me.
Even if he had been an accomplice in my kidnapping.
Damn, that word still made my stomach twist. Because the reality of it always hit me like a bat to the head.
I’d been kidnapped with my best friend. Kidnapped.
It was fucking bonkers. It was crazier still that I stayed and made the mistake of getting close to my kidnappers.
Twin brothers who lived in a different world.
I tried not being afraid, tried to let them in a little, and I got burned.
The wound isn’t going away any time soon. In fact, it’s turning into a scar.
It had to have been Dom. Even if the number wasn’t recognizable. It couldn’t have been Leslie…
I had half a mind to block the number. I don’t know why I didn’t.
How long were they going to watch me?
Stalkers. That was another word that fucked with my head. Though a part of me was sure Dom would never have any sinister reason to do so. He’d be looking out for me.
Leslie on the other hand…yeah, right.
I closed out of the chat and shoved my phone into my backpack. This was not helping my mental state.
Moving on and forgetting was what I needed to do. If I got another text, I would block the number and be done with it.
I took out my Thai and turned back to my computer. I pretended to look through emails before I cracked and pulled up a file named “Heart of a Killer”.
I’d read through Eve’s story twice now. And still couldn’t believe it wasn’t a work of fiction.
What started as her thesis on her family’s killer turned into a story about experiments and child abuse.
Every time I got to the end though, when she talked about the others—about the twins especially—I had a hard time continuing.
It didn’t keep the nightmares at bay and didn’t help me to forget, but it helped me see everything in a different perspective. To try and understand like she did.
Too bad it didn’t make the anger and fear go away. Not completely.