I See You (29 page)

I
’M VANISHING. EVERYTHING INSIDE ME
is crumbling to dust as my soul drags my heart into despair. It can’t be. How would I not know? How can they be the same person? Why would he do that to me?

The sob retching from my body is so intense it makes me vomit. My mind can’t cope with the information it’s being shown, and all I want to do is evaporate into the atmosphere and be nothing but a speck only seen when the sun streams through the window. My heart is in so much agony I can’t contain the pain, and find myself clawing at my chest to try and rid me of the venom pumping inside.

How can I have let myself fall in love with him? He’s a monster and I let him into my life, my bed, my heart. I want to shower in acid to cleanse every single part of me. I’ve betrayed myself yet again and the realization of my foolishness is cruel and deep.

My head jerks in his direction when I notice he hasn’t moved. My body reacts involuntarily and I charge him, screaming as all the memories attack my system like poison. “You son of a bitch! I hate you!” I slap at him but he doesn’t move. There’s nothing in his eyes, just a vacant abyss that chills me to the core of my very soul. “You killed Ginger! You killed my cat, you bastard. She was innocent! She did nothing to deserve that. I didn’t deserve that. Argh!” I scream, pounding my tiny fists against his hard, stoic body.

Suddenly, with lightning speed, he grabs my wrist and backhands me across the face, sending me tumbling to the ground. A faint gasp leaves me although I don’t know why I’m surprised. I know what he’s capable of. I’ve been at the hand of his perversions before, in both reality and my nightmares but it still breaks whatever’s left of my heart.

His head rolls along his shoulders and the grimace marring his face changes his features, almost altering his appearance. Gone is the man I fell for, and in his place, a beast.

“Well, well. Look what the cat dragged in,” he mocks, looking down at me with amusement. “You look a little distraught, sweet Nina. Did Devon finally tell you about me? Or is it your best friend’s betrayal that has you all misty-eyed? What a pathetic waste of life you are. Even your friends hate you.”

He is crazy. It’s like a completely new person is wearing Devon’s face. Why is he speaking about himself in a third person, and what friend? He’s completely insane. “What friend?” I ask as I try hopefully to stall him from advancing on me.

He laughs loud into the room but it’s void of anything human, he’s possessed by the devil himself.

“You really are fucking clueless about the monsters that surround you, Nina, aren’t you?”

“Enlighten me then,” I tell him in a shaky tone.

“I thought you’d had all the enlightening you could handle from me, Nina, but I’m sure after fucking my boring brother for a while you could use a good hard fucking.”

“Don’t you dare touch me, Devon! I swear to God, I’ll kill you.” I speak with a confidence I’m not sure I can follow through with, given his strength against mine but I know I’ll never be his victim again. I’ll bite my tongue off and drown in the blood before I let him take anything from me again.

“My name’s Noah. Did I knock the sanity out of you?”

A hysterical laugh bubbles out of me; I can’t help it, everything is shattering all rationality. He moves, stalking me with precise steps, and as I try to run, he kicks out with his foot. I put my hand out to protect my face and cry out when the bone in my finger makes a popping sound from the impact. It’s broken, bent at an unnatural angle. I want to scream, I want to beg him to leave but my voice is stuck, strangled by my own fear.

“Don’t mock me. I will gut you from throat to asshole and show you all the pretty inside.”

My body tremors, the marrow in my bones vibrating with dread as his threat causes such intense fear I’m almost in disbelief that this is happening again. This can’t be real, can it? I’m questioning my own sanity.

“I loved you, Devon. Why make me fall in love? Was that part of some twisted game?” I whisper, desperate for answers to sate the chaos in my head.

“You don’t know me!” he screams as though his own lucidity is ripping from his very insides. “What are you talking about, and why are you calling me Devon? My name is Noah!”

Oh my God. He really believes that he is Noah. He’s deluded, and more than likely going to kill me. The anger almost steams from him in physical form. The beast that stole so much from me well over a year ago is back to take what little remains of my soul.

“Why did you attack me?” I ask, anxious for answers and to keep him talking.

“You were just a job. Don’t think you’re special, Nina. You’re just one of many.”

“A job? I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t, because you’re too blind to see. You lived next door to a pervert who used to hire whores who looked like you to suck his dick. The night I came for you I caught him on your porch, rubbing one out while he sniffed the sun lounger where your sweet little pussy would sweat your scent in to the cushion. He thought with the storm brewing so heavily you wouldn’t hear him out there, and you didn’t because you were too busy trying to keep your insides from falling out of your pussy.” He laughs. “How was the damage by the way?”

He paces the floor, taking too much pleasure in his cruelty, and I stare in confusion. “Mr. Ilavich went away. He wasn’t even there then.”

“He lied. He wanted to get you in his house, so he told you some shit about feeding the dog, when all he wanted to do was force feed you his dick. He saw my face so he had to die.” He shrugs casually, as though killing someone was as daily a chore as fetching in the morning paper.

“How did you kill him?” I need to know. He was killed because of me. Pervert or not, did that make him deserving of a death sentence?

He licks his lips and rubs his hands together. “Painfully, fortunately. I was quite inventive with him. I tossed him and his dog down the basement stairs, broke both his legs. Of course, I had to cut out the loud prick’s tongue so he couldn’t scream for help. Very loud, your neighbor, wasn’t he? I locked the door and waited for the yappy little fucker to get hungry. It took three days before he turned on Mr. Ilavich. Teddy loved his master’s meat very much.” He laughs at his own joke.

Vomit claws up my chest and burns the back of my throat. “You’re a monster.”

“You’re right, but I’m a hired one.”

A gasp escapes my lips.

“You really don’t see how jealous she is of you, do you?”

“Who?” I scream, sick of his games. Doesn’t he see the damage he has already done? I’m broken. I’ll never recover from this.

“Tricia! That dirty slut was so bitter about you. You remind her of her mother, you knew that, right? God, the amount of times I had to gag her to stop her ranting about how perfect you are and how her boyfriend wanted to fuck you, and how Todd wanted to date you. She hated how perfect you are to everyone.”

“You’re lying!” I get to my feet, grab a cup from the table, and launch it at him. “You’re lying!” The cup crashes against his head, causing him to stumble to the side, and blood wells, dripping from the abrasion it’s caused. “She wouldn’t do that, that’s insane! She’s my best friend!”

He blinks at me, stepping back as if stunned. His chest heaves and he shakes his head. “She’s dead, Nina. I killed her for what she did to you.” His voice is softer and thick with emotion. It’s like he’s transformed before I can even blink.

“What?” I whisper, the disarray in my head making my heart beat quicker as I try to keep up with him.

He turns to face me with tears brimming in his eyes. “I didn’t know. He wouldn’t tell me who hired us, Nina. I didn’t . . .”

“Devon, what is going on? Who is the he you’re referring to? I don’t understand.” He tries to come closer but I hold my hand out, stopping him as my body trembles with fear. “Please, don’t. Please, please, please. No more.”

“I don’t know what’s happening . . . what I’ve done. Who am I, Nina?”

“You’re a monster, Devon. You’ve destroyed me.”

He grabs me before I can get away, throwing his arms around me and pulling me so tight that it physically burns my skin. “Say my name, Nina. Tell me who you love. Tell me you love me. Please keep me here, Nina. Don’t let him take me, take you.”

I can’t breathe as tears clog my eyes and throat. Fear and confusion hold me hostage. Everything is too much and I can feel my mind leaving my body.

“I can smell the fear on you. You hum of it, and it only fuels the animal inside me, Nina.” As if someone clicked their fingers, Devon has transformed yet again, the evilness inside him once again coming to the forefront. His arms are still around me, holding me in place, and his words thrash out like a razor-tipped whip. “I’m going to fuck you within an inch of your life, pull all the insides out for Devon to photograph. He’s my brother, my baby brother. We’ve always been there for each other. We only have each other. You can’t always fight the creature that lives under the surface. Devon can let his lay dormant for a while but the subconscious beast always rises to take its rightful place. When you’re gone, he will see his true nature and embrace what he truly is.”

Urine runs down my legs, the wet warmth of it shaming me, but I’m petrified of how he plans to kill me. Because I know he
will
kill me. This is what he promised a year ago.

“And what is he?” I ask on a choked sob.

“A refection of me.”

Gravel crunches outside the window from a car skidding onto my drive and both Devon and I look towards the sound in bewilderment. Devon’s hand grips my throat and he drags me over to the knife block on the counter in the kitchen, my feet digging into the floor as I try to break free from his fierce hold. Pulling out the carving knife, he forces me to move to the window, and as I’m about to scream, he plunges the knife into my leg and then pulls it out. I collapse to the floor with my hands pressing over the oozing wound. The agony is immense, the depth of it so intense that I can’t even scream out.

“Stay there,” he hisses.

T
HERE’S SOMETHING NOT RIGHT ABOUT
Devon Trent. My senses were on high alert the moment I met him. Although I can see why Nina would go for someone like him, his looks and his smile out of a magazine, I noticed the subtle glint in his eyes and the way he watched me when he didn’t think I was looking. His short temper is troubling, his anger materializing in a split second, and his paranoia scared me. The way he accused Nina so easily wasn’t good, or the way he had jumped down my throat when I’d asked him the simple question of where he came from. Why would he be that way unless he had something to hide?

The graphic images of the two murder victims up at Point Rose Lake keep plaguing me and I can’t help the suspicion gnawing at me; it’s all too coincidental. Devon moves in next door to Nina, who is the survivor of a brutal assault where there are no known suspects and her attacker is still at large, and then there are two horrific murders in town, the first in almost four decades.

I checked the lease on Mr. Brochovich’s home to try and find any details about Devon, but I’d found it wasn’t registered to him. Everything was in the name Mr. Devon Noah. And lo and behold, there was no Devon Noah in the system.

When I visited him at his home I only had one thing in mind; get a fingerprint. I knew he wouldn’t give it to me willingly so I asked for a glass of water and then distracted him while using a strip of scotch tape already in my pocket ready for the opportunity. Life got pretty hectic around here and I’m only now getting Brady working on it and trying to get a match, or find anything on Devon to give us a clue about who he is.

“Luke, I entered the print and came up with nothing, so I ran both Devon Noah and Devon Trent and came up with a few hits, but this one stood out because there’s a Noah Trent mentioned as well.” Brady drops the printout on my desk. It’s from a Detroit local newspaper report.

Family perishes in deadly fire:

Firefighters battled a house fire into the early hours of the morning at a house in the Redgrove area of Detroit. County Sheriff spokesmen, Robert Allan said, “Forty-eight-year-old Joseph Trent, along with his wife, thirty-six-year-old Trudy Trent, stepdaughter Courtney Vallis, 15, and Son Noah Trent, 20, all perished in the blaze. Neighbors came to help but were pushed back by the rising flames and toxic smoke. According to onlookers, the youngest son, Devon Trent, watched in horror while his family home burned at a rapid rate. Devon then left the scene, running, and has yet to be located.