Each and every BOOM makes me jump and giggle. They’re so beautiful. So amazing and wonderous to watch. Never before have I spent an evening out of my attic bedroom. But today is New Year’s Eve. Well, New Year’s Day now I guess, seeing as the local council have just started their fireworks a few miles down the lane, so I’m assuming that it has just gone midnight. Luckily, my aunt, my uncle and Mr Simmons started their celebrations early this morning. Simmons was so drunk that he forgot to lock me in my room tonight. So I waited until the house fell silent and snuck out, down to the old bathroom where I wash each morning, the one which no one else ever uses due to its dilapidation and mould problem. But the bathroom faces the direction of the party several miles away, and it’s always empty. It gives me a perfect view of the human townspeople, who are seeing in the New Year with a bang. Literally. The fireworks light up the night sky in the most striking colours. Unusual shapes fire across the sky and crackle out of existence shortly after. With each explosion, the house shudders and the glass in the bathroom windows shake in their slowly rotting frames. My eyes have never been so wide, and I love hearing myself involuntarily gasp with each BOOM-CRACKLE-FIZZLE. I wish I was out there with the night air on my face and the smell of gunpowder in my nose. I see the twinkling lights of the fairground in the distance. The rides and the attractions are in full swing. One day, I tell myself, I’ll go to the fair. When I’m older. When I’m bigger. When I can defend and protect myself adequately. Right now, I can’t even see out of this high bathroom window let alone fight off any who would do me harm. I’m clinging to the windowsill with my toes pressed against the wall so that I can see out. I’m short for a fourteen-year-old. Everyone says so. Small. Weak.
In the way.
My stomach clenches with the next BOOM. Hunger strikes sharply in my abdomen. Locking my bedroom door was not the only thing Simmons forgot to do today due to his intake of expensive port and gin. I’ve not eaten a thing. But I’m used to being hungry. Besides, hunger is an easy trade-off if it means I can watch this wonderous show undisturbed as everyone else sleeps off a day of heavy drinking.
‘You’re not supposed to be in here.’
My fingers slip, and my feet slide down the wall before landing on the cracked tiles of the floor. I spin quickly, blinking away the bright spots in my vision from watching the fireworks so avidly and see the silhouette of a man in the darkened doorway. When he steps further into the room, the fireworks light up his smiling face and narrowed eyes. But I don’t need the light to tell me who it is standing in here with me. Ryan’s voice is as smooth as silk. His boyish smile and natural mannerisms and witty sense of humour should make him an enjoyable companion. To most it does.
But not to me.
His presence makes me cold on the inside. Like there’s an unnatural force in the room. Like he’s missing something.
He’s an empty shell which only finds enjoyment from other people’s misery. When he’s close to suffering, he comes alive. And he’s never more alive than when he’s alone with me.
I shuffle backwards until I feel the wall, trying to put as much distance between us as possible. His eyes travel down my body, past my mother’s old t-shirt that barely reaches halfway down my thigh, to my bare legs. His smile grows, so I grip the hem and pull it down a little more, hoping to cover myself and stop his growing enjoyment – no good comes from Ryan’s joy. I hate how he has started looking at me since returning from his boarding school three weeks ago. No matter where I am, he always seems to be there. Watching. He’s always disliked me and found happiness helping the others in tormenting me. Usually, he lingers to the side with wide eyes as I get a beating, or he gleefully suggests possible punishments for my non-existent crimes. But since returning from school several weeks ago, he finds more pleasure when he gets me alone. To torture me himself, away from prying eyes. And I don’t understand it. He looks different than the others when he delivers punishment. Simmons is either annoyed, angry or impatient when he strikes a blow. Uncle Harry and Aunt Christa holds the look of a cat playing with a mouse when they deliver their wrath. But Ryan. Ryan looks different. He looks hungry. Longing. Like he wants something desperately. And excited that he may get whatever it is any second.
No one has ever looked at me how he does.
How he is looking at me right now, with his lip between his teeth and hooded eyes on my naked legs.
The fireworks light up the sky beyond the window. A red hue showers over the old bathroom, and Ryan steps inside.
‘What are you doing in here all alone, Lills?’
I offer a nervous shrug, looking past him to the hallway. To escape.
He kicks the door shut and slides his hands in his pockets, blocking my exit with his broad and muscular frame.
After a few agonising seconds of silence, he speaks. ‘You look so grown up. Much prettier than the little runt you were when I left for school last year. Do you like that?’ he asks, stepping further into the room. ‘When I call you pretty?’
I have no idea what to say, so I just shrug once more. The truth would not deliver me any kindness. No, I do not like that he thinks I’m pretty. I would instead prefer he thinks I were a rodent worthy of no attention. Another explosion of light from outside and I jump violently in response. Ryan steps closer and I sink further into the wall. Closer he gets until he stands over me with his hands splayed flat on the wall either side of my head, trapping me between his arms. I instantly smell the beer on his breath and register the slow blink of his eyes, which usually accompany a man when he’s had a little too much to drink.
‘I’ll go back to my room,’ I offer in barely a whisper as he towers over me. ‘I’m sorry I snuck out.’
I go to duck out of his way, but he slams his hand on my chest and forces me back against the wall hard, knocking the wind from my lungs. His face still holds that easy-going smile.
Another crack of light and his gaze goes upwards to the window. The orange explosions light up his face and make his eyes sparkle.
‘You wanted to see the fireworks,’ he realises with a sigh, nodding his head slowly. ‘I imagine you’ve never seen them before. They don’t usually do a display. And you can’t see them from your bedroom.’ He lowers his gaze slowly until his dull green eyes meet mine. ‘So you snuck in here to watch them. Is that right?’
I nod once, wishing to hell that I hadn’t given in to my desire to see fireworks for the very first time.
He steps closer and brushes my hair behind my ear.
‘Can I ask you something, Lills?’
‘Y-yes,’ I reply, my voice failing to hide its tremor.
He steps closer and presses his front onto mine. My back is rigid against the wall and I’m pinned. When I feel something protruding from his trouser pocket, I fear he’s about to pull out some kind of weapon. Wouldn’t be the first time he came armed with some sort of instrument to hurt me with. Last time he had me cornered, he pressed a switchblade to my chest and dragged it slowly down, leaving behind the slightest trail of red in the tip’s wake. The cut still hasn’t healed and my shirt keeps sticking to it each time the blood dries.
He takes a short intake of breath and asks, ‘Do you know what sex is?’
I nod. Of course I do.
He seems surprised by my response and asks, ‘Simmons has been teaching you that stuff then, huh? I wonder what that’s been like. A stale old man like him. Tell me, what is it then? Tell me what sex is.’
‘Male. Female.’ I’m a little confused. Surely he knows the two sexes.
He laughs at me and shakes his head and whatever he has in his pocket digs harder into my side.
This feels wrong. Not just frightening but wrong and unnatural. It goes beyond fear. It’s something more primal screaming at me, from deep in my subconscious, that something evil is about to happen here.
Ryan leans down into my ear.
‘I’m going to show you,’ he promises just as the room turns a vibrant pink from the fireworks outside. ‘I’m going to show you what it is and if you tell anyone that I have, I’ll tell the Hunters that you’re here. Do you understand me, Lills?’
I don’t. I don’t understand and yet I know that whatever he has planned is going to be far worse than any beating.
I hear the zipper of his flies before he throws me hard to the ground.
‘And if you scream out for help, I’ll make sure the Hunters take you before the sun even rises. Now, lay still.’
What happens next… I don’t even know what it is, or that this kind of act was even possible between two people.
I stare past him, to the closed doorway with a deep longing that it opens.
It doesn’t.
From out in the hallway, I hear the sound of a television. Strange, as there are no televisions up here. I listen, desperate to focus on anything else but the brutality and I hear… I hear a news report. A woman, reading out current events but I know that they’re not present. She tells of destruction. Of death and war. She recites names. Telling her audience that these people are responsible. Images flicker in front of my mind of faces that match the names of whom she speaks. I’m not sure how but I know them.
“The attack happened at three pm this afternoon, during a human-rights demonstration in which protestors were demanding those accused of witchcraft be executed on sight, rather than being detained for trial. The protestors claim that too many of those accused have escaped custody and insist that death is the only way to ensure humanity’s survival. Twenty-five bodies have so far been recovered but sixteen remain missing from the collapse of Big Ben. The perpetrators of this terrorist attack are known as Grayson Kendryk-”
I see a dark-haired man with even darker eyes straighten his cuff-links.
“Tobias Kendryk-”
An image of a white-haired man with lilac eyes, winks at me. I close my eyes and shake away my insanity. I think I’m losing my mind.
“Cailean Collins-” the caster adds, her voice, I realise now, is not coming from the hall. But my own head! With the announcement of the man’s name, I see a blonde-haired man laughing joyfully.
“Jensen Hartley.”
A man with a red and black plaid shirt, his long grey- hair tied in a ponytail. He loads a gun and checks the sight.
As I lay on the floor with a crushing weight on top of me, she says another name. One that makes my eyes fling open and my heart stop.
“Gabriel Kendryk.”
I see a man in the corner of the room, looking straight at me. A beautiful man with the bluest eyes I have ever seen. Even through my tear-filled vision and the blinding pain I feel, I see him clearly. He slowly drags his fingers through his hair, and the corner of his mouth hitches up into a familiar smile. Just the sight of him, of this unknown man, makes me feel safe. Wanted. Loved.
The disembodied newscaster calls out another name. The stunning man fades from sight and I sob his loss.
“And their leader. Lilly Hooper,’ the caster says. ‘Otherwise known as Lilly Kendryk. The renowned Arcane Witch and wife to Gabriel Kendryk. Mass murderer and terrorist.”
In the corner of the room, another figure flickers into sight.
A woman. Her long red hair flows to her waist. Two fingers are missing from her right hand, and a large blue diamond sits on her wedding finger upon her left. The white wedding dress she is wearing trails down to the floor and is stained heavily with blood.
She’s me!
But older.
She’s screaming at me, but I can’t hear the words coming out of her mouth. Just the newscaster’s words echo in my ears. Her arms flail angrily at Ryan who drags his tongue up my cheek, catching the tears that slide down them.
The newsreader is deafening. I slam my hands over my ears to drown out her voice but as they’re in my own bloody head, it makes no difference.
Sharp twangs of pain strike across my eyes as the images of the five men repeatedly flash before my eyes.
Grayson. Tobias. Collins. Jensen. Gabriel. Grayson. Tobias. Collins. Jensen. Gabriel.
With each vision of them all, I fill with emotions that smother and confuse me. Guilt. Heartbreak. Anger. Jealousy. Sadness. Fear. It’s like an explosion of inner turmoil and suffering that crushes me harder than Ryan’s hulking body ever could.
I squeeze my eyes shut to try and hide from the ghostly apparitions and the feelings they spark inside me, but the harder I try, the more vivid and louder everything becomes.
I think I’m going to explode! Before I can stop myself, I scream. I scream so hard and so loud that my throat burns.
Only when I stop do I realise that Ryan’s weight is no longer on top of me and his hot, heavy panting no longer lands on my skin. Tentatively I open my eyes and gasp before scurrying backwards, away from the bloody, deranged version of my older self. She stands over me looking panicked and desperate.
‘THIS ISN’T REAL! GODDAMMIT! OUR FAMILY NEEDS YOU!’ she screams. ‘CAN’T YOU HEAR THAT? CAN’T YOU HEAR WHAT’S HAPPENING OUT THERE WHILE YOU ROT AWAY IN HERE? THEY’RE DYING. EVERYONE IS DYING! WAKE UP!’ She starts hammering her own fists on her head. ‘WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP! STOP REPEATING THIS NIGHT! I CAN’T TAKE IT AGAIN!’
Fireworks bellow out beyond the window and the bathroom bursts into striking colours. The older version of myself spins quickly, instantly calmed by the show of light beyond the window. She walks towards it, mesmerised. I watch her reach up to the window and peer out, and I listen to her gasp in awe as the night’s sky illuminates over and over.
‘Wait,’ I call to her as I get to my feet. ‘I know you. I know who you are. I know those people.’ I look down and rest my hand on my belly. ‘I think I know… I’m not supposed to be here. I think… I’m having a baby! I think…’ But before my thoughts can organise themselves, before I can grasp a memory strong enough to ground my confusion, a voice speaks out.
‘You shouldn’t be in here,’ Ryan says from behind us both. At the same time, we turn to see him standing in the doorway.
Ryan steps inside.
The girl in the wedding dress is gone. The memory of what just happened and what I remember of the five men whose faces flashed before my eyes fade like smoke from my thoughts. Along with the idea of the life I think I have growing inside my belly.
I’m back at the base of the window, pulling down the hem of my mother’s old t-shirt as Ryan stalks towards me. And I relive this moment for the nine hundred and twenty-sixth time. I remember that. But then I don’t, just like the nine hundred and twenty-five times before.
