Without thinking, I pluck a hairpin from my hair and pick the lock on the door. It takes only seconds, as if I’m a pro, and I’m guessing that somewhere in my past I’ve done this before. Many times.
I open the door and step inside Bella’s home, noting that there’s a sink full of dirty dishes, stacks of mail on the counters, and takeout boxes all over the kitchen. There’s absolutely no kitchen table. No barstools. No furniture at all. And it’s the same in the living room. The only thing in there is a sleeping bag on the floor. The curtains are drawn shut, the air is musty. It’s as if she barely lives here.
I double check the address she gave me a while ago that I punched into the phone just to make sure I came to the correct house. It matches, but still, I wonder if she gave it to me wrong or something. Or maybe she just lives like this.
Deciding maybe breaking in wasn’t the best thing to do, I start to turn around to leave, but pause when I swear I hear a muffled cry coming from down the hallway. I’m not sure whether I should leave or run. Maddie wants to go. Lily wants to stay. You need to see what it is.
“I’m afraid,” I admit aloud and shudder at the truth. Not necessarily afraid of the danger the crying could lead to, but how much I like that it could. My thoughts drift to what the crying could be. Someone hurt? Someone upset? Someone locked up who I could hurt?
“What the f**k is wrong with me?” I ask as the last thought streams through my head. I start to back away, tugging at my hair, but invisible strings tug me forward, toward the crying. At this moment, I’m a puppet and Lily is my puppeteer and suddenly she’s in front of me, taking my hand and tugging me down the bare hallway. She leads me through the stale air until we reach the end where there’s a single shut door. Light is slipping through the cracks underneath and cries are flowing from the outside. Pain. Whoever’s in there is hurting.
“I don’t want to see,” I whisper in horror as my trembling hand reaches for the doorknob.
“You need to see,” Lily insists.
My fingers brush the brass knob. A jolt of heat shoots up my arm as I turn it and push it open. Light spills over me. Screams pierce my ears. Something flies at me that’s heavy and strong. Pain. Heat. Tears. Blood. My insides feel like they’re ripping out of my body.
Fire!
Fire!
Fire!
Burning!
Burning!
Burning!
Help me!
Help me!
Help me!
“You killed me.”
Chapter 14
Lily
I’m not sure where I am. Lost in Maddie’s mind? Perhaps, but I’m not sure. All I’m certain of is that I can’t see anything. I’m drowning in the yelling. The anguish. The darkness I’m accustomed to. So I think. A lot. Make up stories that feel more real than anything else in the world.
There once was a little girl who lived in a fictional world but the little girl didn’t know it. What was hidden under the blindness, the incredibility was ugly, raw torment. What she couldn’t see, couldn’t hurt her. What she couldn’t feel, couldn’t sting her. What she couldn’t remember, she could make up. She could be anything she wanted to be, not what she was taught to be.
But over time the girl forgot, what was real and what was made up.
She became lost.
Hiding in the darkness of her own fears.
Letting the real girl be forgotten. The one that changed her. The one that trapped her. The one that created her.
Chapter 15
Maddie
When I open my eyes again, I feel so cold. So empty. So disconnected. Nothing makes sense. Why I’m waking up at all. How did I even fall asleep to begin with. Where am I?
My eyelids flutter open, half expecting to discover that I’ve fallen asleep in my room. That everything was a dream. That maybe I’m even still young, then I remember everything. That I’m the good girl I’ve constantly been told that I was. But as the last thought crosses my mind, I don’t feel as calm as I should. I feel gross. Disgusted.
The disgust only increases when I fully open my eyes and take a look at my surroundings. At first I think that maybe this is a dream. Or that the red splatters are merely paint. That in another world, in another life, I was a painter and this repulsive creation before me was simply an illusion. But the longer I stare at it, the more I realize the red misshapen dots on the white wall, the lines running downward that look like crooked water, the large spots staining the carpet are blood. Blood everywhere. There’s so much around me that the air smells like pennies, so potent I can taste the vileness.
I immediately jump to my feet, trying to ignore how the carpet squishes beneath my fingers, the warmth of blood spills over the backs of my hands. Once I get upright, I nearly collapse to the floor as a spout of dizziness rushes through me. I refuse to buckle though and fall back into the blood again.
“It’s everywhere,” I whisper to myself as I turn in a circle. The bed. The sheets. The walls. The window. The closet doors. Splattered like raindrops. Frayed ropes are fastened to the headboard and a blindfold lies on the blood soaked pillow. There’s only one thing missing from the madness. A body, but the strange part is I can picture the body there, pallid skin, blood in her hair, her lips slightly apart, frozen from when she took her last breath. I’m not even sure who she is, but I think at some point in my life I’ve witnessed the scene before.
Swallowing the bile burning in the back of my throat, I make my way over to the closet door. There’s bloody fingerprints smeared on the handle and I try to ignore how well they match up to my own as I turn the knob and pull the door open. It’s empty inside. No body. No blood. I breathe in relief, although I don’t know why. Blood like this had to come from death—I can practically smell it in the air.
It takes me a moment, but I manage to get down on my knees and check under the bed. It’s the only place in the room where there could be a body. Again, it’s clean. Except for a single red button. Even though I know I shouldn’t, I have to pick it up. Collect it. A tiny little memory forgotten in the midst of sheer terror. My fingers clasp around it and I stand back up, trembling as I stare down at the oval shaped button that matches the one I have at home in my button collection. The mysterious one I found on me the day I found Sydney’s as well.
“No.” I shake my head, uncertain at what I’m even saying no to. The truth. But what is the truth.
I stand there for what seems like forever, trying to put the pieces together. What happened when I opened that door? I heard screaming, saw light, but that’s it. There doesn’t seem to be a bump on my head, just blood on my hands. Did I blackout and Lily took over? Did she kill someone? Did she kill Bella? But if so, where’s the body?