Page 23 of The Devil's Den

I shrug, avoiding his gaze by staring at my bare feet. After a few seconds, he snakes a hand under his pillow and retrieves something. In his palm is the notepad I once gave him.

But as I look at it, as he turns to open a page, I let out a small gasp, my stomach flipping all over again.

I can’t stop staring.

My breathing goes ragged.

I’m there on the page, in a long wispy dress, my hair caught in the wind, skipping among flowers, butterflies floating around me, like he knew that’s how he makes me feel. But that’s silly, of course, there’d be butterflies in a meadow. That’s what this is. He continues to turn, page after page, and I find more of me on every single one.

He’s been drawing me this whole time? Why?

He gazes straight at me, the crooked smile reaching the far corner of his mouth. “Your hair reminds me of the sun, and the sun is beautiful.”

My heart flutters in my chest, tears growing within my eyes. And his face, the one that barely ever smiles anymore, grins so wide for me now. “Did you just call me beautiful?” I whisper with a thread of shock, because there’s no way he said that.

He raises a shoulder with a smirk. “I may have.”

My mouth spreads into a smile of my own, those butterflies in my stomach flying higher. And my head, it falls right over his shoulder, his arm draping around my back. “I think you’re kinda beautiful too.”

With a deep sigh, his head slants over mine and we stay that way until it’s time for me to go, wishing I didn’t have to.

* * *

MATTEO AGE 14

Is this how it feels to like a girl? To want to see her every waking moment, not being able to wait until she’s here? Because that’s how I constantly feel. Every single second.

She’s so perfect. So pretty. Why would she ever say she has ugly hair when I think she’s the most beautiful girl in the world? And sure, I haven’t been around any, but I don’t need to see them to know they don’t compare to her.

I’ve been drawing Aida for a while now. It’s how I’ve been coping with all this shit they put me through. It’s the only time I can get out of my head whenever she’s not around, to help me through the mess inside it. And she does help, more than she realizes.

If she weren’t here in this house, I’d want to die. It’d probably be easier, for it all to end. No more pain. No more killing. I’ve killed too many. I don’t want to do it anymore. But they continue to threaten her if I don’t, and so I do it. Over and over.

“Wake up.” Stan smacks the back of my head, the van jerking to a stop. “Time for daydreaming is over. You’ve got work to do.”

“Yes, sir.” I strain the words out, hating them as soon as they come out. But I do it all for her, no matter how sick it makes me. She’s still the most important person in my life. None of them matter. No one but her.

Two men hop out, Stan following them, grabbing my arm and tugging me out too. We’re back in the warehouse, the same one we’re always in when they make me kill people. They don’t take me anywhere else.

But during these drives, it’s the only time I can see the sun shining brightly through the passenger side window. It’s the only time I get to see the world, even though it’s only through a lens of their making.

We head inside, reaching two men on chairs, zip ties around their wrists over their thighs. Their faces are barely recognizable from the beating they obviously got before we came.

Stan takes out his gun, handing it to me as he faces one man while I face another. “They’re all yours, kid.”

The cool metal clings to my palm as I lift it up in the air, aiming it level to the chest of one man.

Pop.

Done.

That’s all it takes to kill someone. Just a flick of a finger. And this time when I kill, I feel nothing at all.

Blood spills from the hole in his chest, and when I move to the next guy, he kicks out with his feet, dragging himself back in the chair.

But he can’t escape me. No one can. My footsteps are almost silent as I move on him. The further he goes, the more I do too. When he falls backward, looking up at me, he starts to cry, knowing that this is it, that as I lift the gun this time, it’ll be over.

Pop.

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