Chapter 39
Evelyn
Everything was clearer now. I stared at the sheriff’s retreating form as the pieces of information clicked together in my mind.
His pomade had made my stomach turn because the smell reminded me of Charles.
As I stared into the eyes of the devil, I took note of the similarities I missed. The dirty blond hair, the angular shape of his jaw line, and the downturned shape of their eyes. The sheriff was a much older, heavier version of Charles, but the resemblance was still there.
The smile he wore made my blood run cold.
The last time I saw him, his face had been filled with pain.
It always haunted me the way he looked like it both pained and excited him to inflict harm on us.
One moment, I could tell he was enjoying himself, and the next I could see that his heart was broken.
At the time, I had held on to that emotion, hoping to appeal to it, as I begged him to stop and put an end to this madness, but it hadn’t worked.
I knew it wouldn’t work now either.
Words failed me as I sat paralyzed with fear.
He circled me, coming to stand in front of me before lifting my chin and turning my face from side to side.
“This color doesn’t suit you.”
Crouching down to meet my eyes, he gives me another dazzling smile.
His hair is longer now, touching the back of his neck in waves. Stubble decorated his jaw, and the smell of cigarettes clung to his breath and clothing.
Nuzzling my face, he whispered, “I want to show you something.”
Nothing could’ve prepared me for the moment he held his phone up to my face and pressed play.
The video began to play, and as much as I wanted to look away, I couldn’t. It was two years ago that day. My baby sister was battered and bruised.
“We could’ve been great together, Cellie. You knew I had feelings for you and insisted on embarrassing me time and time again by whoring yourself out to those other men,” he spat.
“Please, please stop,” Celeste begged over and over again as he struck her.
The camera shifted Celeste out of the frame and landed on me. I sat tied to the salon chair, unconscious, bleeding from my forehead where Charles had struck me.
“You can beg all you want, but I won’t stop until you’ve learned your lesson. I can’t wait for Evelyn to join us.”
“Leave her alone, Charles. You’re mad at me; she has nothing to do with this. Just let her go. I promise I’ll do anything you want. Just let her go.”
He cut the video and settled into the chair in front of me.
“She begged me to have mercy on you, ya know? No matter how many times I cut into her, she still had the strength to cry out for you.”
I felt like the walls were closing in on me. It was one thing for the nightmares to plague me every night and another to see my sister like that in 4K. I felt sick. I retched, but my empty stomach released nothing.
“Do you know why you’re here, Evvie?”
I didn’t want to have this conversation. I couldn’t stop hearing the sound of my sister’s pleas. Whatever reason he had told himself wouldn’t matter.
“You know, at some point, my mother might have even noticed the obsession I had with Celeste, but it was too late.”
He tapped his foot in a rhythm. “You fed my obsession. You always left the door open for me to come back. Celeste told you I was out of control, scaring her even. But you convinced her I was safe. Poor, naive Evelyn, you wanted to keep your family together so badly that you invited the devil to dinner.”
“I never told you to pursue her or that she wanted anything romantic with you.” I whimpered through gritted teeth.
“Ah, that is correct. But you never told me she didn’t, did you? You just told me that she cared for me more than anything, and she needed me in her life.” He stood, circling me once more.
I felt blindsided by his logic. Had I encouraged him inadvertently?
“It’s your fault she’s gone. You made me hurt her.
I was going to leave!” His hands slammed down on the back of the chair, causing me to jump.
“You made me stay here. I had to watch her choose the wrong person over and over again. Then you had the nerve to survive, to serve as a reminder that she was gone.”
My brain struggled to distinguish between what was fiction and what was fact. It was too muddled with memories of the past, examining every interaction, searching for any truth to his words.
He was wrong. I didn’t encourage him. I would always live with the guilt for the part I played in trusting him, but I couldn’t wrap my head around that. When I asked him to stay, I could never have imagined the outcome.
Charles’ fist swung out at me, hitting my face. Pain bloomed in my nose and jaw—blood began pouring from my nose and busted lip.
Bursts of stars trickled into my vision.
Years later and he was still as angry as the day he took her from me. It was disorienting. We were somewhere completely different, yet I felt like we were back in that salon.
“You made me do it!” He bellowed as he shook me. “You shouldn’t be here.”
He yelled as he used me as his personal punching bag.
Then he stopped.
His breaths ragged and strained from his efforts.
Good.
It was a silly thought, but his pause gave me relief. I ached all over, but I was still alive. I was familiar with pain, and this was just a drop in the bucket. A tiny part of me clung to a strange feeling: hope.
He was behaving erratically, pacing the floor. Every time he drew closer to me, I tensed, waiting for the inevitable pain that would follow.
He sent a message on his phone before he turned towards me with a maniacal smile.
“I didn’t know sending out a text message could give me such a boost of serotonin.”
The more he spoke, the more I realized how sick he had become.
Dr. Beck had said it was likely Charles had Obsessive Love Disorder. All of his actions, the stalking of Celeste’s partners, the uncontrolled jealousy, and his violent justifications, “in the name of love,” all made him a prime candidate for the diagnosis.
Celeste had been innocent. She had dreams and aspirations. She was building a life, and he took it all because he couldn’t live with her rejection.
Now I was sitting here paying for a crime I didn’t commit. I merely dared to exist after a tragedy. In his head, I didn’t deserve to be here, still breathing. There were many times I wished that had been true. I didn’t want my sister to be another statistic, but I couldn’t turn back time.
I was unsure how much time had passed. Charles paced and paced. Sometimes, he would flip the knife that he carried on his waist.
The silence was jarring. I almost wished he would ramble to fill the void. His silence was more terrifying than his sharp words.
My eyes darted to the door at the sound of it’s squeaking hinges.
Sheriff Strauss had returned with a duffel bag in hand, of what Charles had asked for, I presumed.
“Were you followed?” he asked, closing the distance between him and the sheriff, snatching the bag from his hands before turning away to set it down on a table against the wall.
“For a moment there, I thought so. But I’m sure I lost them when I took that detour through Belland,” the sheriff drawled as he cracked his knuckles, his eyes darting to me before returning to his son.
He cackled. It was a laugh that I would know anywhere if I heard it in a crowd. It used to inspire giggles from me, but now it made me unwell.
“Now, we can get to the real fun.”
With a speed that was foreign to me, he pulled a gun from the waistband of his jeans and pointed it towards the sheriff.
“Son?”
A single shot rang out. Charles had put a bullet through his father’s head. Uncertainty and pain marred his face as the light left his eyes and his body fell to the floor.