29. Three Years Ago

29

THREE YEARS AGO

“ H ey, give me a quick second... I can’t find my fucking T-shirt...” I say digging through my duffle as the door behind me clicks shut.

I stand and attempt to shake the wrinkles out of my favorite Norma Jean T, one of my go-to shirts ever since we saw them live but as soon as my arms are out in front of me, I quickly double over at the waist. The breath is knocked from my lungs as something plunges into my back, hard and deliberate, slicing through my flesh and muscle with purpose.

The pain is instant, searing and hot, almost like the blade is on fire and I can’t fight the urge to cry out but my scream is muffled by a gloved hand that clamps down tightly over my mouth.

The object in my back twists.

Pulls and twists, wiggling deeper with each movement.

Bile rises in my throat, the pain almost blinding and I can feel a sticky, warm liquid start to seep through the top of my jeans all the way down into my boot.

My brain is trying like hell to process what’s happening and I instinctively reach behind me, trying to remove the object in my back but it only sinks deeper the harder I try. So deep I vomit against the hand on my mouth.

Then there’s a warmth on the side of my neck.

A sickly sweet heat that is saturated with hate and spiced rum.

I struggle a little more before my body slowly turns, another gloved hand moving me like a puppet, the cold steel ripping through the flesh of my side as it does.

That’s when I see cold, dead eyes.

Lifeless. Soulless. Eyes full of malice, unhinged and hungry.

My vision blurs, fading in and out as the edges go black but I still see them, those icy orbs practically glowing from under the black hood of a sweatshirt.

A sweatshirt I’ve seen hundreds of times, the logo on the front something that used to bring joy.

Never again.

The puppet master lets me go and I look down, grabbing at my stomach, trying to pull the hunting dagger from my guts but it’s shoved so deep only the handle is showing.

Blood pours out of me, a river of red running down my legs and when I go to speak, desperately, silently asking why, nothing comes out except a mouthful of blood.

”Because you don’t see me, Leonor. You never see me.” He yanks the knife from my stomach only to jam it up into my ribs so hard I can feel the metal grind against my bones. “But you see me now, don’t you?”

He does it again, and again, he does it until I black out.

My eyes flutter open after I don’t even know how long, my body numb and cold, my vision hazy and dim. I’m lying on the floor and he’s standing over me, staring down at me, his eyes glassy and gleaming in the low light of the room. My head lolls to the side as he grabs my ankle and starts to pull me away from the table toward the door before he abruptly stops, dropping my leg and moving out of sight.

I should run.

Crawl.

Drag myself to safety but my body is useless, and my mind is barely able to fight hard enough to stay conscious.

It doesn’t matter.

Not when I hear the screech of metal on tile and chair comes into view, one he snatches an object off of before he squats over me, a leg on either side of my hips while he practically sits on my stomach.

”You want to know why?” He holds up something but I can’t quite make it out through the spots now clouding my vision. “They are why! Lucky, the others. You see him! You see all of them!”

The dagger quickly comes down toward my chest, ripping through my skin and popping my breastbone like a twig but instead of a scream, more blood bubbles up from my lips and I begin to choke. I barely get my head turned and start coughing, barely able to fight for air as my lung fills with blood but he grabs my face hard, his fingers digging into my cheeks as he cranks my head back toward him. “You will look at me! You will see me!”

He crouches closer as he runs the dagger along the side of my body, his bony fingers hooking in the top of my jeans, the button undone, the sound of a zipper followed by a tug and pull. I barely feel the metal on my thigh as he cuts my jeans open, pealing them down toward my knees before I feel the blade against my pelvis right above the last place I want him to be.

He laughs wildly out of nowhere and lifts the knife, poised and waiting at the ready above my chest while he cries. “You really want to know why?” He leans until we’re almost nose to nose, his face so close that I can almost taste the rum on his breath. “You see Lucky,” he growls and plunges the knife into my chest. “And Pete! You see Norman and Mark but you don’t see me!”

He stabs me again and again, each word seemingly emphasized by the blade until he suddenly stops, lifting the sharp tip next to my temple and spinning it on the point. “I should cut out your eyes and give them to him as a gift, a reminder of all they lost, but I want them. I want your eyes on me! Always on me. See me, Leonor! See me.”

Suddenly the cold steel is at my throat, his other hand audibly moving to his fly, and my eyes slide shut when I feel him between my thighs.

That’s when I see them, when my mind leaves my body, when I welcome death. I see my boys, my entire world.

God, if only I could have told them, if only I could say goodbye.

Just a few minutes more, just enough to know how much I love them.

“This is his fault, Leonor. Lucky is to blame. They all are.” His voice is so far away, far away and small against the sound of my heartbeat in my ears, slowing until it stops. “They drove me to this. Their love for you is to blame for this, not me, not you, them.”

I love you.

My body is so cold, so numb.

I hope they know.

”I tried for years, Leonor. Years to get you to look at me like that, to smile at me the way you smile at them, but you didn’t. And if you won’t do that, won’t smile at me and let me have you then no one will. Not in one piece anyway…”