HALEN
Everything has an anatomy. Humans have this inherent need to break down even the most mundane objects in order to explain their existence. For instance, the empty space between the flame and wick on a candle is called the dark zone. The void that draws the eye despite the luminous flame.
I think it’s in our nature to seek out the darkest aspect. Our desire to fill that negative space.
Or maybe it’s our primitive warning system; the beautiful, dancing flicker will burn if we get too close.
In defiant challenge, I swipe my finger through the candle flame. The water on my hand from wringing my wet hair sizzles in the fire.
After the storm knocked out the power to the hotel, Iris provided candles to all the patrons. I heard more than a few groans in the lobby from media crews who need to charge their equipment.
Pulling my freshly washed hair over my shoulder, I seat myself on the corner of the bed and slip the unneeded sanitary napkin into my bag. My flow was light, and has since nearly stopped. The more I think about what Dr. Floris said, about how hormones and stress can cause bleeding, the more logical it becomes that I simply experienced a temporary upset to my system.
Now, I need a logical answer for what occurred during the ritual, for why I have two sets of memories. There is always a rational explanation for the unexplained. This is at the very core of what I do.
I eye the laptop on the console table, then look at the boxes lined along the wall. Aubrey had my case files delivered to a storage unit I’ve temporarily rented. I have a copy of the Harbinger case on a zip file, but what couldn’t be stored in 1s and 0s, I’ve brought to the hotel.
I didn’t expect CrimeTech to release my files so quickly, but as the news is buzzing with the newest Harbinger murder, they likely don’t want to deal with the feds. Not because it’s the right thing to do.
I sink down to the floor and pull a plastic file box toward me. Using the soft candlelight, I dig through the contents until I unearth my old cellphone.
An anxious flutter wings to life in my chest. I’ve listened to the recording so many times I have it memorized. That’s why when Kallum told me to listen to our first encounter again, I didn’t feel the need—there would be nothing new gleaned.
There’s just enough juice left to power on the device. Like scratching open a healed over wound, I hit Play on the audio file, and Kallum’s gravelly voice slinks over my skin.
“You’re an intriguing little thing.”
Just like all those months ago, the fine hairs along my nape lift away.
I listen to the back and forth as he asks me random questions about my job. Then: “Are you afraid of me?”
I push Pause.
I’ve now spent enough time with Kallum to know how he likes to intimidate. He uses his striking looks, his intelligence, even fear to deter people. And that’s exactly what I assumed he was doing in this moment when he asked me such a jarring question.
As I resume the recording, I hear myself blame the New England weather for my trembling. Then he comments on how he sees me, drifting below radar, trying to be unseen.
“…here you are, the only one with actual, impressive credentials, the only one who can piece together what happened here, and you haven’t spoken a word.”
I can feel him, so close, the way he was that day. Breathing me in. His arctic gaze penetrating me and rattling my defenses.
“I’d like to know what thoughts you keep silent, what you’re so worried might slip past those trembling lips.”
I hit Stop.
A shiver racks my muscles, and I rub my forearm to chase away the chill. My fingers trace the scars beneath my long-sleeved shirt, the accident never far from my thoughts.
Placing our conversation in another context, of course I can hear an alternative meaning in his words. There’s a million different ways to perceive his obscure comments. That’s how Kallum operates.
Candlelight bounces along the walls, casting creepy shadows over the room as rain patters the window. I remember being so afraid of the dark when I was little, my mother soothingly explaining the monsters I saw in the dark corners were just my imagination.
I can’t recall the color of her shirt when she told me this, or how she wore her hair, but I remember the scent of her apricot lotion, and that memory soothes me now as it did then.
Psychology spends a lot of time on memory.
The truth is, nobody remembers their past accurately. That’s why people argue and fight with friends, children, spouses. One person recalls a matter happening one way, the other a completely different way.
They’re both right.
And wrong.
It’s a scary thought that you can’t trust your own past.
As the mind wasn’t meant to hold on to every memory, it’s the most damaging ones our brains will obsess over, never letting us forget. Those painful memories define and shape our existence. Then there are the memories so shattering the psyche has to purge them or risk being damaged beyond repair. It’s a defense mechanism.
The mind constructs and alters memories to protect us.
And Kallum understands all this. He knows how to twist and manipulate to make me question the fabric of my reality. That’s why I’m sitting on my room floor, listening to our conversation and questioning my own mind.
I reach for my case and remove the camera. I flip through the images from the ravine, numb at the sight of animal mutilation. Years of analyzing the basest depravity of human nature has desensitized a vast area of my empathy. I stop flipping when the image of Kallum crystalizes on the small screen.
While studying this case, I came across a line from Nietzsche that resonated with me: “There are no beautiful surfaces without a terrible depth.”
I don’t pretend to understand philosophy. I don’t even very much like it. But what is captured in this photo is the reason why we strive beyond our limited capacity to grasp a higher, more profound understanding of our existence.
There is a terrible depth behind Kallum’s beauty, a thick tar adhering to his soul, an agonizing darkness that stains his mind. In this blink of a moment where his truth was captured, we are the same. We are bound by our tragic suffering.
Maybe that’s all I need to understand.
“Dammit.” I tuck the camera away, then drop the phone in the box and seal the lid.
I’m falling apart.
No matter how I try to fend Kallum off, he slips right past every one of my defenses. When he looks at me, he looks into me. He sees me in a way no one else ever has, and it’s intoxicating, to really be seen.
All my memories of Jackson and I together are sealed tight, tucked away in a box like my old case files. Safely kept out of sight. Every once in a while, I’m tempted to pry the lid and take one out, but I don’t. I can’t. Because as long as he’s there, with that version of me, then it all can remain untouched, unblemished.
My life with him wasn’t perfect, but it was safe. There was love and trust and happiness.
Uncomplicated.
Until it wasn’t.
I’m not sure if I was ever really that version of myself…or, like the beauty only viewed on the surface, the truth of me was just submerged in the dark, terrible depth.
To that end, Kallum challenges me.
There is something unsettling twisting my bones, gnarling me like the eerie marsh trees whenever he’s near. The yearning to tear through his clothes and be skin-to-skin with him is a disease infecting my soul. I fear that loss of control over my mind…my body.
I glance at the broken chain lock hanging from the frame of the connecting door that opens to Kallum’s room. The one he broke when he shouldered the door open while I was dead to the world with sleep deprivation.
God, and he wants me to trust him.
How can I trust the devil who takes advantage of me at every opportunity with an evil glint in his beautiful, deceptive eyes and lethal smile. His whole persona pulls you in, disarms you, until you realize too late you’re tangled in his web.
I felt the gauzy threads ensnaring me last night as he gazed at me through the falling rain, his distressed expression so convincing as he pleaded for me to believe him.
I don’t know whether or not I’m in danger from this town—but I was in danger that first day when Kallum approached me, when he baited and ensnared me in his trap.
And I was in danger today at the ravine, when it became so effortless with him, it was as easy as breathing.
Falling for a man who I can never trust…
That is the real danger.
My phone vibrates on the desk, mercifully distracting me from my spiraling thoughts. I grab the device and note the name on the screen.
“Mr. Wheeler,” I say, my surprise at his call overriding basic etiquette. “Hello. How can I help you?”
“Miss St. James, I’m glad you answered. Have you had a chance to check your email yet?”
On reflex, I glance at my laptop. “Not yet. It’s been very hectic on the current case.”
“I’ve seen the news.” His tone is commiserating. “Look, I won’t take up much of your time, but I did want to touch base with you on the file you requested.”
Kallum’s juvenile file.
My heart lurches to my throat. “Right, yes. Thank you. Has there been any progress?”
I get to the laptop and wake the screen, impatience clawing at my nerves as I wait for the Wi-Fi to connect—only to remember the power is out. “Shit,” I hiss.
“Is everything all right?”
“We’ve had storms here. There’s a power outage.” As I sling my wet hair over my shoulder, a low rumble of thunder sounds to further my claim. “I can check my phone email once we end the call.”
“I don’t want to get your hopes up,” he says. “I haven’t been able to get access to the juvi file, but what I was able to uncover might be of interest to you. There’s a buried incident report on the deceased father, Malcolm Locke. He was hospitalized right around the time the juvenile report was dated. It might have no bearing, but I felt it was worth mentioning for your own investigative purposes.” A lengthy silence fills the line before he says, “Even obtaining access to this information was difficult.”
The way he says access makes me believe the information wasn’t acquired legally.
“I truly appreciate your persistence on this matter,” I say.
“Sure. It’s not much, I should add. Apparently, the Locke family has enough money to keep their secrets buried and sealed tight.”
I huff a derisive breath. “I’m aware of that. I’ve been trying to contact Mrs. Locke for months. She lives outside the country, and won’t respond to any requests.”
“Mothers can be…challenging,” he says, as if speaking from experience. “I’ll keep working on Judge Carter to grant access to the file and keep you apprised. Good luck on your case.”
“Again, I appreciate it. Thank you, Mr. Wheeler,” I say, then end the call.
There’s a weighted moment where I stare at the phone screen, hesitant to open the email.
Over the course of the past six months, I’d formed firm opinions on the bad boy of academia. I can admit I was obsessed with proving him to be a killer, smugly hiding in plain sight, confident he’d never be caught as he mocked those he thought less intelligent. Which, when it comes to Kallum, happens to be everyone.
My thumb hovers over the paperclip attachment as I scan the lines of the email where one sentence stands out.
…patient suffered damage to the oculus…
I lower the phone and stare at the flickering flame of the candle, looking into the dark zone.
Once I open that file, I can never unknow this about Kallum. Right now, it’s a vague suggestion, a speculation.
I don’t have to ask the question of whether or not Kallum is capable of such an offense. As a teen, he was diagnosed with brief psychotic disorder with violent tendencies. The more terrifying question is: will knowing the truth change how I feel about him?
The answer whispers from the darkest recesses of my soul. Like fine parchment going up in flame, my resolve burns to ash.
I delete the email.
Rain raps against the window, the storm increasing in strength, and I feel the emptiness of the room swallow me.
Leaving my phone on the table, I step toward the door. I touch the broken chain, my chest aflame at the feel of his presence I can sense just on the other side of the wood. Some desperation coils my viscera in a tight knot, and I let the chain drop.
I give the chair a single glance as I pass it by, then blow out the candle.
The dark presses against my skin as I remove my clothes and slide between the cool sheets.
One trembling breath to fill my lungs, then I reach beneath the covers and touch the sigil on the inside of my thigh. I trace the curved lines of raised, damaged skin. The tender pain resounds like a summons across my body, my heart beating so fiercely in my chest I know he can feel it.
My eyes have barely closed with sleep when I hear the door creek open.
Breath caught in my lungs, I sense Kallum before I’m brave enough to open my eyes.
He’s the shadow creeping from the corner. The monster under my bed.
Cloaked by the dark, he stands at the threshold, his promise not to cross it there in the heated, defiant flare of his clashing eyes. The raw intensity in his steely expression pins me to the bed, his gaze a physical touch, like fire licking my flesh.
As a flash of lightning illuminates the room, my gaze roams the valleys and reliefs of his bare chest, mapping the dark ink covering his skin. The stag skull shaded in dramatic blackwork, the antlers branching up his shoulders and neck. My breath shallows as I trace the leanly carved definition of his strained muscles, made more apparent as he braces his palms on either side of the doorframe. A beautiful god barely restraining the demon within.
My heart tears at the cage of my chest as my gaze is drawn to the alluring V-shaped grooves cut diagonally along his abdominal muscles and the sight of his erection directly below.
I take in every inviting inch of his naked body, the monitor strapped to his ankle the only article, his desire a maddening, destructive force that threatens to devour me if unleashed. If I let him cross that threshold, whatever willpower I’ve sustained will shatter.
I’ll be lost to him.
Kallum glances at the chair abandoned at the table, a knowing, savage curl to his lips. His animalistic hunger reaches out to me from his depths, a dare to deny I feel this wicked craving to surrender.
Inhaling a shaky breath, I push back against the headboard, allowing the sheet to slip down to my waist and reveal my breasts. He makes a move forward, but I hold up my hand. Kallum stops, held at bay by my silent command.
A taut stillness infuses the room, humming at the highest frequency. The vibration courses my blood, a current strung between us where, if either one of us utters a word, the spell will break.
The tension arcs between us in challenge to either give in, or deny ourselves. The agony of that denial is an empty ache in my core. The need to rake my nails down his skin and twine myself between his bones is an itch so deep I feel it dig beneath my muscle.
The intense way he watches me forces the throb deeper, the empty pain begging to be filled. He doesn’t even have to touch me; he’s already branded in my flesh. He hasn’t left me since the moment he entered me during the ritual. A dark god I can beckon with my desire alone.
I’m connected to him in a way that defies logic. It’s primal and terrifying, and I should escape now before I’ll never be able to escape him again—but I’m caught in the entrancing lure of his eyes, helpless as I obey the command there to tow the sheet the rest of the way down my body and expose every mark and bruise to him.
He drinks in my fear like sickly-sweet nectar, laps at my wounds and pain like a starved beast. While the storm rages right outside these walls, he admires me, bared and vulnerable, like I’m the most beautiful creature in the universe to him.
There is no mockery, no innuendos. Only absolute, carnal lust. The power to corrupt, to be corrupted, and enticed into his frenzy.
To go mad with pleasure.
The words he whispered as he seduced me into a hedonistic dance. And I gave in, just as I’m caving under the seduction now, the lure into a moment of pure, decadent oblivion.
Ekstasis.
A form of ecstasy so transcendent, you feel as if you’re outside of yourself. A depraved pleasure so debaucherously wicked, it takes over your body, your mind. Your soul.
Base desires are experienced in the dark, where we feel safely hidden. But I can’t hide from Kallum. Pretending this is some sordid dream.
I’ve never been more awake.
Kallum widens his stance. Unashamed, he grabs the top of the doorframe and lifts his chin, staring down on me and thrusting his hips, his rock-hard erection impaling the air.
Adrenaline winds through my veins, the chambers of my heart burning from the force.
I feel it in my womb. The stabbing, needy pain that draws me to my knees. I’m tethered to the rock of his hips, the lewd sight of his engorged, erect cock fucking the air.
The sheet scratches abrasively across my knees as I spread my thighs. Gravity grips my spine, and I roll my hips in time with his, the sweet ache becoming a throb as it pinches deep in my core.
Kallum strains against the doorframe, the pronounced veins webbing his forearms a tantalizing aesthetic. The building drum of rain is a song, the crashing thunder his soundtrack. He owns the strike of lightning that illuminates his body to reveal the poetry scribed on his skin, becoming a piece of his art.
But it’s the frantic way in which his gaze hardens on me, a threat to tear through superficial bonds and annihilate his prey. His fight to hold back so erotic, the control I possess over him a drug.
And I am drugged, slipping beneath an otherworldly trance where I harbor no shame as I let the untamed, unadulterated lust rule me. My damp hair a wild tangle, it falls over my shoulders the way he loves it as I touch my body. Eyes fastened to the fiery embers in his, I draw my hands over my breasts, pinch my nipples. I scrape my nails across the bites and bruises covering my skin his teeth left behind, trailing down to my thighs. All the while, Kallum’s thrusts intensify, his vulgar movements guiding me past the bounds of my limit.
He’s a fever beneath my skin, cooking my blood and burning away the infection. Until all I can feel are his hands touching me, his mouth tasting me. His cock thrusting inside me.
At the dominant command in his darkened eyes, I slip my finger over my clit, nearly shattering at the white-hot, electric sensation that flickers across my body in time to the lightning strike. Fire curls in my belly as I swirl my fingers and undulate my hips in pace with his, dangerously close to breaking.
Racked with shivers, I strain to keep my eyes open and on him. It’s more than the lewd, lusty sight of Kallum; it’s the intoxicating enthrall, the freedom to be lost to pleasure that holds me captive.
Nothing outside this room is real.
I’m stitched to his body, a part of him, as he fucks me with his eyes. The crazed gleam there takes over, and his cock jumps, hips thrusting faster with each desperate stab to be sheathed.
Kallum feels what I feel. And it’s heady, how he doesn’t have to touch himself, how he’s so close to shattering just by watching me. My pleasure slashes a wild tear through his resistance. But it’s the very terrifying, visceral connection I feel with him that allows me to experience what he’s feeling; the painful need to connect, the starved desire never to be satiated.
It feels like dying.
I fall forward on the bed, my arm stretched out as I curl my fingers into the coarse sheet. My hips thrust against the bed, my fingers slick with my arousal, my back rising and falling as I bear down to drive the throbbing ache deeper and latch on to that sweet, edging explosion teasing every cell of my body.
Euphoria singes the edges until the fire envelops me, and I go up in flames.
Kallum bares his teeth, every muscle clenched. The rock of his hips increases, his muscles flexed taut. He never touches himself as he thrusts his hips in crazed frenzy, his stomach muscles contracted, his cock so fucking hard I can feel the hot pulse of it against my inner walls as he relinquishes a groan, and a thick ribbon of ejaculate spurts forth, the erotic sight taking me right over the edge with him.
I’m ravished in his embrace, dragging in clipped breaths to fill my burning lungs, my body balancing on a razor-sharp edge as I slowly come down. I haven’t taken my eyes off him, and I watch him now, caught in the mesmerizing way Kallum releases the doorframe, his shoulders and chest rising with each furious inhalation.
He wets his lips, then glances at the floor with a defiant smirk curving his mouth, as if stating I allowed him to cross the threshold, after all.
Drawing up to my knees, I grab my shirt and fling it to the floor to cover the mess. I hold his stare, draining my remaining strength to keep Kallum from entering.
The low plink of rain fills the tense silence, the storm weakening.
Without a word, he leans in and grabs the side of the door.
I hold my breath until the door clicks closed.
I curl into the sheets, my breathing still tearing at my chest, my mental state questionable, and reach for the pendant at my neck for comfort, only to remember it’s no longer there.
I’m not sure what scares me more: How far I’m allowing Kallum inside me, or like the missing diamond at my neck, the guilt I no longer feel.
A stolen moment in the dark, a moment where I offered Kallum a part of me, and he didn’t just accept a piece—he reached right inside and stole all of me.
There’s no escape now.
I’m drawn to his negative space, the desire to touch the darkest part of him too seductive despite the beautiful flame I know will burn me to cinder.
Kallum is my dark zone.
