I See You (2 page)

When I was seven years old, my father introduced me to my first camera. He made me take shots of the girls in our street; document them in their innocence while still being in mine so as to not raise suspicions of his perversion to them or their parents. He would pick out young girls in our street or school, and Noah was the one who befriended them. I had the task of taking pictures; that’s all it was at first. For a long time I would snap image after image. I was sloppy at first, the camera too heavy and large for my small hands, but I soon became attached to the device, and with a simple click I could encompass happiness, sadness, anger or joy in an instant, to keep frozen in the picture forever. Blonde, brunette, red head, petite, tall, slim build, heavy set; I imprisoned them all in my camera without even knowing why or what my father would do with the images.

One day when I was eight or nine, things changed. Father brought home a girl named Emily. Her name stayed with me; even the sound of her name. I remember the way it breathed through her lips when she spoke it. She had an accent, which made it sound like EM-A-LAY. She was more of a woman to my young eyes, but as I grew and gained knowledge, I know now she must have been around sixteen and a runaway. The girl looked lost. Not in the directional sense, it was the vacant disregard in her large brown eyes that made her a lost soul walking the earth, but already broken by it. I captured her on screen in images and then on film, as I was imparted to do. Her laughing with a careless humor, making her appear younger and more the child she was supposed to be. The lens caught her doing the basic things like eating, but in a ravenous binge, similar to a starving animal being fed scraps. She didn’t even chew; just swallowed chunks of a sandwich whole. Her eyes were smudged with worn make up, her cracked lips stained cherry red, leaving an imprint on the rim around the glass she was drinking Dad’s liquor from. I followed her around the living room as she began dancing when the chemicals burned in her veins and took hold of her. Her slim body swayed, making her long, untamed hair swirl in her wake. I didn’t understand any of this at first, but later, I learned. Her hips moved with experience a girl of her age should never have. I watched her through the lens, learning, feeding from the details it showed me until I was sent to bed and Noah was told to go down into the basement with father and Emily. The basement was off limits at any other time, and when I questioned Noah about what it was he witnessed down there, he told me that was his time, not mine, and warned me not to ask again. The next morning she would be gone, and Noah would sleep in, while I went to school as normal.

There were strict rules in our house, one of which was that we were under no circumstances allowed to talk about what went on inside our four walls. It wasn’t until I was fourteen and my father went away on an unexpected trip that I ventured down into the forbidden basement alone, and decided to watch my work on the TV screen. It was then that I knew what happened down there was more than capturing an image on screen; it was watching emotions come alive in the lens. The camera didn’t stop filming when I was sent to my room. There were videos upon videos lined up and labeled. However, the only one I wanted to see after all those years was the one labeled clearly:
Emily.

I can still remember the twist of nerves from being in the prohibited basement, and as soon as her face filled the TV screen, goose bumps sprung out all over my skin. She was prettier than I remembered; her hazel colored hair flowed in flawed ringlets around a pretty but defeated smile.

Fear is the most powerful display I have ever witnessed in my life, but it wasn’t on Emily. As the seconds passed in the top corner of the screen, she was clearly playing a role, toying with the camera and teasing Noah with the sight of her naked flesh. But it was Noah’s fourteen-year-old eyes that held the fear as my father’s voice commanded him to fuck her and wrap his hand around her throat.

“Be the aggressor or the victim, Noah,” his deep, unmistakable voice warned.

When Emily realized Noah’s hands were a little too tight around her neck and this wasn’t just role-play anymore, fear flashed briefly in them. Her arms flayed and fought off Noah but he was broad and strong. It wasn’t long before a tear slid from her eye; acceptance of her fate. Noah’s tears dripped from his green eyes, falling on to her face like a signature of his sorrow, his sin. Any soul he once had poured from him until nothing good remained. This was what changed him; this was what shaped him into the cruel, twisted man he is today. His sobs as he squeezed became growls, his arms locking as his hands choked the life from her, their naked bodies still joined.

I never spoke to Noah about what I saw because his trips to that basement were almost as regular an occurrence as our father’s. Different girls came, and like the others, went. I documented each one, and in some small way they became a part of me. Their spirit never really dies if they live on the screen or in the image I create of them, right?

When I was sixteen everything changed. Father introduced us to a woman he married a few months later. Trudy Vallis, mother of our new stepsister, fifteen-year-old Courtney. The first girl I ever loved. She was so dainty; auburn hair, and eyes that were a perfect mix of blue and green. Tiny features decorated porcelain skin and a huge personality exploded from every pore. She became my best friend. She showed me life outside of my father’s habits and rules. She made me feel normal.

I wasn’t normal though, and neither was the family her mother married into. When the first fight between her mom and my father turned physical, Courtney hid in my closet with her hands over her ears. She bit into her lip so hard her teeth punctured the flesh and blood stained her pink blouse. The next day at breakfast, with her mom sporting a black eye, she was back to her infectious self like nothing had happened, making me realize maybe we weren’t the only non-normal family out there. Courtney had been around violence before.

Trudy and father’s toxic relationship gained too much momentum on the night before Noah’s twenty-first birthday. It wasn’t just toxic between those two; Noah never really took to Trudy or Courtney, and often would have all-out fights with our Father over them being there and him marrying her. It never made sense to any of us why they married, but I got Courtney from their deranged coupling so I didn’t need to have answers. Noah was in the kitchen this particular night when Trudy was drilling him about getting his own place.

Traumatic brain injury occurs when an external force injures the brain.

Her eyes were still open for the hour it took for father to arrive home. Noah’s fist connected with her jaw in a moment of anger. Her flaying arms were unable to protect her from hitting her head on the kitchen counter while falling.

Dead, gone forever. The consequence of a focal impact upon the head, a single forceful blow to the cranium, and lights out. They had many arguments but this one had unimaginable consequences for as all, and I sat and watched the emotions transform my father’s features, watched as the sin of his and Noah’s deeds did nothing but make him growl, “What the hell am I supposed to do when Courtney asks where her mother is?”

I didn’t feel shock or grief witnessing first-hand the murder of a human being. If anything, I felt special. What’s more powerful than living in the moment of someone’s death?

I became so obsessed with documenting every woman who came into the house that my main thought when looking down at my dead stepmother was that I didn’t capture it on film. How fucking not normal had I become?

“Let me have Courtney.” Noah’s words still echo through my mind on repeat every time I go to sleep.

I remember the heat. The flames grew so fast, and the blaze roared and tore through that basement like a tidal wave crashing against the shore, swallowing everything. Courtney was different. She was my friend, my stepsister. I didn’t want the basement to claim her. I was numb as the only house I’d ever lived in was smothered in a hellish inferno. Flames whipped out and licked at my surroundings. Eventually neighbors appeared, screaming, “Is there anyone in there?”

I had text Courtney and Noah to meet me at the grocery store. Noah had replied that he was out taking care of business and that Dad had gone to get some supplies to get rid of Trudy, so no one should have been in there but he had lied.

“Oh God, Devon, what have you done?” Noah’s shocked face stared at me as the flames lit up behind him, highlighting him like something from a supernatural film.

“You can’t have Courtney. She’s not going down there,” I whispered.

“She was already down there, Devon. They both were. You fucking killed them both.”

Running, running in the rain with no shoes on as the fire lit up the night behind me. That’s the last thing I remember about that night. I woke up the next day on a bus with Noah. He took care of us and soon found people like us; sick, depraved, not normal. They had needs and a craving Noah was all too happy to feed . . . at a price. There was nothing Noah wouldn’t do, and his brutality on women gained him an unhealthy clientele and a reputation that would make us wealthy and lead us to this life. To her life.

‘L
OOK HOW BEAUTIFUL SHE IS
. Her terror so alive in the image,’ I muse, looking at the portrait displayed on the screen. They never see it coming, not one of them accepting their fate. Everyone expects happiness, love, their life to be a fairy tale, yet no one ever believes in the bad things that can happen to them. Maybe fairy tales are a myth for a reason. For some, the story doesn’t have a happy ending.

I mark the file as completed then attach the files to the email and type Noah an accompanying message.

I think he will enjoy these; she was truly a great subject.

Marissa Isabel Raye. I will miss her, and it’s a shame the contractor didn’t want us to document her in the aftermath of his end game. That was always the favorite part for me. But each client was different, and each with his or her own unique desire and cravings. Some are tame and just revenge plots, others are much more sinister. Mr. Clark only wanted us to document her with her new lover, and then in her grief when she was delivered the news of his murder, courtesy of Mr. Clark.

It would have been so much better to capture the murder on film and then show that to her, but Noah is the one who meets with clients and designs their plans; I’m just the one who documents them.

The screen blurs before me. Pushing my chair back, I stand and lift my arms high above my head, stretching my weary muscles.

I spoon extra coffee granules into my cup, then heap in a sugar, pour the water then take a hefty mouthful, wincing at the heat but sighing at the caffeine rush. The week has been busy, the numerous contracts Noah and I have dealt with taking my energy to a low point. I need something to take my attention away from work for a while.

A ping from my laptop alerts me to a new email. My heart leaps in excitement but my mind sighs tiredly. The blood in my veins heats when I fire up the secure email from Noah, and a smile lifts my lips. It’s a female. Always the best.

Client—1325

Mark–

Name—Nina Francis Drake

Age—24

Address—126 Lime Ave

Brief -

Rape—vaginal—anal

Personal recorded surveillance.

Pain—high

Record assault.—Yes

Courtesy call—No.

Roles.

Client—No

Noah—Contact—Rape.

Devon—No contact—document.

I love it when they want surveillance. It makes it all the more real and personal. Many just give the name, and the brief is either plain assault or murder with no documentation. It excites me when they need the approach, event and outcome. That means I’m useful.

I fill my camera with a new memory stick, sling the strap around my neck then make my way out.