Page 87 of Shattered In Darkness

I count my breaths. One, two, three. Every time he moves, I brace for the blow. My heart climbs higher in my throat. Part of me wants him to leave. Part of me wants him to peel off the mask and just be Brody again. Maybe there is no Brody left.

Maybe there never was.

I’m not sure if he’ll smash my skull or curl me into his lap and tell me I’m safe. Maybe both. I’m not sure which is worse.

I pull my knees to my chest, shrinking down, so small, so pointless. More memories leak in. Marcus’s voice, “good girl, stay still,” the way he’d pet my hair with one hand and hold a cigarette in the other. I remember being left in the cold before.

My tears won’t stop. I think about the woods, about wolves tearing me apart, maybe that’s the better option. At least their hunger is honest.

I close my eyes and continue to count the breaths. Each second ticking by until he makes the next move. Bone-deep dread crawls in my marrow.

In the dark, with the mask watching, I can’t tell where he ends and the monster begins. Maybe there are no more lines. Maybe the boy I loved, the boy who protected me, the boy who loved me, is gone.

27

BRODY

The rage inside me is an inferno, and I am drowning in the flames. I see Lola lathered in red, in black, in bruises. The visions won’t leave my fucking mind. It’s like something broke inside of me, and all these pieces are scattered. Fractured.

I slap my head and squeeze my eyes shut.

Bitch. Whore. Fucking snake.

I slap my head again and scream.

No. Not my Lola. She couldn’t have betrayed me. Not possible.

But, my father made it so clear that Lola is working for Marcus. Lola knew about my mother’s death. All these voices mingle inside my head until it gets too much. My hands shake as I drive the needle further into my skin. It doesn’t help the rage, it only augments this festering storm inside of me.

I throw a chair across the room, it crashes against the wall. The skull mask is sitting on the nightstand. My legs take me there before I can think, and the mask is on my face. My hands yank the door open. My skin is buzzing, and my skull pounds inside of my head.

Make her pay. Make her pay.

It’s all I know, it’s all I can do. I do fucked up things too, I’m not innocent. I know that. In fact, I’m more of a monster than her. That doesn’t matter, though. All that matters is the blood rushing through my skin. The need to break Lola, to claim her, to keep her.

The stairs creak under my boots, every step is a countdown. The mask is soaked into my face as if I have become the monster. The old boards moan like they know what I am, what I’ve become.

I stop at the basement door, palm flat against the wood. My hand shakes. I twist the deadbolt and let the cold rise from below like a grave yawning open. The light down there is barely a vein. Just a gray bruise in the dark.

My hand finds the switch, I don’t flip it. Why should she have light? Why should she have comfort? Let her suffer in the dark. Let her see what it’s like to be nothing, to be a shadow, to be an animal trapped where no one can hear her scream.

I descend, savoring every step. I want her to hear me coming, want her to feel the dread sharpen until it splits her open. She’s huddled in the corner, knees up, arms wrapped around her shivering body. She looks up. Her eyes are pits of blue ice, bruised and swollen from crying or not crying—doesn’t matter. She’s nothing but a mess now, ruined by the cold, by fear, by me. Especially me.

She sniffs, and I see her jaw clench. Still defiant. Still pretending she has something left.

The mask lets me speak without my own voice. Lets me be the thing I am, the thing I was always meant to be. I crouch near her, just out of reach, and let her swallow the silhouette of me—skull, black jacket, gloved hands.

“You cold, Lola?” I say. “You hungry?”

She doesn’t answer. Her lips tremble. Her hair is greasy, stuck to her cheeks, her hands shaking.

“You know what happens to bad girls, Lola? They get forgotten. They get buried.” My voice matches the mask. “You know what it’s like to be starved for days, for weeks? You know what it does to your mind?” I pace the perimeter, boots grinding grit into the concrete. She flinches every time I move too fast. I stop at the shelf with the dog bowl, and pick it up, turning it in my hands while watching her eyes. “You want to eat?” I say. “Beg for it.”

She presses herself tighter into the wall. Doesn’t speak. I throw the bowl at her. It skitters across the floor, clangs against her ankle. She jumps, but doesn’t cry out.

“You want to play martyr?” I growl. “You want to be the pretty little victim? A perfect little doll? Fine. You’ll eat like an animal, then.”

I stomp back up the stairs, slam the door, lock it, and listen. I can hear her breathing below—ragged, shallow, like a dying thing. I want to go back down, want to drag her out by her hair, want to make her see the world the way I see it: black, endless, filled with rot. Instead, I go to the kitchen.