Chapter Seven
Seven
Suddenly my living room has two Lukes as Hallway Luke barges in.
Everything about them is identical: blackish-brown hair accompanied by matching dark eyes, noses with bumps like they’ve been broken, shadows of stubble along their jaws, the faint white throat scars.
The outfits might as well have been ripped from the same rack, and even the grim set of their mouths is like someone pressed copy + paste.
I thought having them in the same room would prove my assumption correct, but all it does is make confusion and fear twist inside of me.
Beliar Luke pulls something shiny from behind his back. It’s a dagger, its blade as black as the clothes he wears and coming to a lethal point. He wields it like someone who’s been around the knife-fight block a time or two.
My feet are rooted to the floor, only the expanse of my clearance-sale couch separating me from them. I glance between the two Lukes.
“Get behind me, Brie,” Real Luke says, still hovering in the doorway. “Better yet, get out of here. Leave me to send him back where he belongs.”
“No!” Beliar Luke barks. Or maybe he’s Real Luke. I’ve never been less sure in my life. “You run and he’ll chase you. All it takes is a touch for him to bring you out of this world and into his.”
“Into yours,” Real Luke corrects. Hallway Luke? “Brie, you need to trust me.”
“Shut the fuck up,” Bedroom Luke snarls, lunging for Hallway Luke.
They meet in a clash of limbs, and the force of their bodies slams the door shut.
Neither Luke goes down, and instead they grapple for the upper hand.
They bump into the T.J. Maxx lamp on my side table, and it teeters, crashing to the floor in an explosion of porcelain smithereens.
I try to keep the couch between me and them.
If I can get to my room, I can flee through the window and down the fire escape.
The air is filled with their grunts and the occasional flash of the dagger slashing through it, though it has yet to hit its mark.
Real Luke dodges every attempt, throwing responding jabs that make Beliar Luke groan and growl.
They’re wrapped up in the fight, stepping into the narrow space behind the couch where my shoe mat and coat hooks are.
Mirroring their movements, I round the couch, putting myself closer to my bedroom. Before I can make the dash, Real Luke hauls Beliar Luke over the back of the couch, dropping him onto the cushion. Beliar Luke tumbles off it and onto the glass coffee table I stand beside.
It shatters beneath his weight. His dagger goes skidding across the vinyl planks into the entrance of the galley kitchen.
The doorway to my room is to my left. I can still make it. Beliar Luke is getting to his feet. Real Luke’s eyes lock on the dagger, though he’s the farthest from it and still stuck behind the couch.
I don’t think, just pounce past my bedroom into the kitchen. My hands close around the still-warm hilt.
“Give it to me,” Real Luke instructs, stalking my way.
Beliar Luke finds his footing, lunging to tug Real Luke away from me by the nape of his T-shirt.
Real Luke struggles against the hold, the intensity of his gaze burning into mine as he holds out his hand for me to pass the dagger.
“I need it to finish him off. Please, Brie.”
“You give him that dagger and any chance of both of us getting out of here alive is gone,” Beliar Luke says. “No saving Krystal, or the others.”
With a final tug, he slingshots Real Luke onto the couch, becoming the middleman. We lock eyes, his hand out for the dagger. The corner of his mouth lifts. “C’mon, Brianna, don’t let me down.”
“No!” Real Luke yells, leaping to his feet. “He doesn’t even know your name!”
“He doesn’t,” I agree. But it’s that exact flub that makes me sure that Beliar Luke is the real Luke, which means Real Luke is…
Beliar.
I toss the dagger to Luke and hold my breath as he catches it and spins. It’s perfectly timed as Beliar lunges off the couch. The blade sinks into Beliar’s chest and his mouth parts with a gasp.
For a horrifying moment, I’m sure I chose wrong.
Then the ripped black shirt around the dagger starts molting, and so does the rest of Luke.
But it’s not Luke, and that becomes more apparent by the second as pieces of his skin and clothes crack apart like the glass and porcelain littered across my floor.
The edges curl like burning paper until he is consumed in an inky darkness similar to the shadow that clawed its way out of Debra last week.
With a wretched scream, the darkness twists in a tornado of violet smoke, disappearing until all that’s left are wisps and a smell so foul, I fear no amount of body spray can save us.
The dagger drops to Luke’s side as he exhales, rolling out his shoulders. He turns to me.
“All it took was calling you Brianna?”
I don’t realize how shaky I am until a shuddering breath escapes that’s meant to be a laugh. “The name thing has been pissing me off for weeks. I didn’t even think you knew my real name.”
He frowns. “Of course I know your real name. I’ve only been calling you Brianna because—”
Sirens sound from outside, cutting him off. He strides to my kitchen window to peek through the sheer curtain. Sure enough, two cop cars are pulled up out front.
“Too much to hope they’re not here for us?” he asks.
“If I were my downstairs neighbors, I’d assume that was the domestic dispute of the century.”
“Fair,” Luke huffs.
“What do we do?”
I brace myself for him to leave me to clean everything up. Not just my trashed apartment, but also fabricating a story for the police. Not to mention the neighbors.
“Where are you going?” I ask, following him into my room. He doesn’t gun it for the fire escape, which would align with my assumptions. Instead, he pulls my duffel bag from where it’s slung over the back of the chair in the corner of my room and tosses it to me.
“Start packing. Only essentials. I’ll get the car and bring it right below your window. You have five minutes.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
He’s already on the fire escape. “Five. Minutes.”
And then he’s gone. The sirens continue, and suddenly they’re joined by footsteps in the hall. Seconds later, a knock.
“This is the Tarrentown police,” a deep voice says from the other side. “We were notified of a noise complaint and are here for a wellness check. Is everything alright?”
“Yes!” I yell, the word kicking me into action. I tug open the underwear drawer Luke so thoughtfully closed, grabbing a fistful of options and a handful of socks before stuffing both into the bag.
“Can we come in?”
Another random assortment from the T-shirt drawer; a few pairs of leggings. “Uh, I just got out of the shower. All that sound must’ve been me dropping the shampoo bottle. I’m just clumsy!”
Look, I never said I deserved an Oscar for my acting, okay?
“Is anyone in the apartment with you?”
I tug on the only pair of shoes in my room—my beat-up Doc Martens. “Just me! I’m single!”
“We asked if you were alone, not if you were single.” The policeman sounds exasperated. “Can you please open the door?”
“Coming!” I lie, shoving a crewneck in the bag along with fistfuls of toiletries. The last thing I grab is my glasses case, which also houses my contacts case. The duffel is so packed I can barely close it, but I manage to zip it shut as the knocking returns.
“We’re going to have to force entry.”
“No!” I shout, my gaze darting toward the door. I never locked it after letting Beliar in. “I’m coming!”
I’m really not. The hum of an engine outside proves it. Luke gets out of his car, leaving the driver’s door open and gesturing down.
It’s a long fall, but I don’t think twice before pushing my duffel out of the window and over the edge of the fire escape. Luke catches it, stuffing it into his back seat.
I shrug on my denim jacket, which is in no way heavy enough for the weather. But I can’t go back into the living room to grab my puffy coat hanging by the door. As it is, the knocking has turned to pounding since I’ve stopped answering. Any moment they’ll realize it’s not even locked.
The last thing I make sure I have before I leave is my ring.
It sits on my right ring finger as usual, a small amethyst set against a gold band that was a high school graduation gift from my parents.
I left nearly everything behind when I moved away from South Dade, Miami, but not this.
It came with me then, and it’s coming with me now.
I make it through the window as the policeman announces, “We’re coming in!”
The doorknob turns.
I don’t wait to watch it swing open, navigating down the rusted ladder with my heart in my throat.
It might be code for apartments three stories up to have fire escapes, but I’m extremely skeptical of how up to code it actually is.
Not to mention if this thing has a weight limit.
While Luke might be tall and muscular, I’m not far behind him in height and definitely win when it comes to curves and a little extra around the stomach and thighs.
But I didn’t survive crying my way through Hollister fitting rooms in my teens for a rickety ladder to take me out in my twenties. I make quick work of the climb, my feet finally touching the pavement below.
“Get in!” Luke leans across the passenger seat to open my door.
I slide in, barely closing it before he’s stomping on the gas.
We roar onto the street, and he takes a sharp left away from the cop cars and sirens and nosy onlookers.
Another series of turns makes me lose all sense of direction.
I grip the panic bar, teeth clenched and seat belt firmly locked in as Luke maneuvers through Tarrentown’s innards like a Formula 1 driver.
It’s only when we reach a long stretch of farm road and a sign that reads, “You are now leaving Tarrentown. Don’t let the door hit you on the way out!” that he eases up on the gas. We pass the last turn-off point and Luke’s eyes track it in the rearview mirror.